INDIA – International exhibition organiser ITE has taken control of Expomedia’s exhibition business in New Delhi in an attempt to get a strong foothold in India.
The organiser acquired a 70 per cent controlling stake in the business, with the remaining 30 per cent being held by Expo Fund, the previous Expomedia holding company.
The new company will be based in Delhi, taking over the local office that Expomedia had there, retaining all the local staff.
The acquisition gives ITE control of the Paperex and IMMM mining and metals exhibitions, which both moved from Noida to New Delhi last year. Expomedia Fund retains management control of the India Expo XXI Centre, an eight-hall venue that opened in 2006.
ITE’s regional director for Russia, Ukraine, India and Turkey, Stepehen Keane, told Exhibition World that ITE can succeed where others have failed. Several organisers, including Informa, have withdrawn from India after losing faith in the emerging market’s potential for success.
“We know that historically, it’s not an easy place to work,” says Keane, “but we’ve got various relationships with some of the German Messes that have established a business there and we saw this as an opportunity to get a foothold in the market.
“There will be consolidation and we have more skills in emerging markets than some of the other exhibition organisers. It’s what we’ve specialised in through Russia and the CIS market over the last 15 years.”
ITE, which recently won the rights to organise the New Delhi-based oil and natural gas exhibition Petrotech, is currently in negotiations with Expomedia Fund over rebranding the holding and operating company. The company will not be able to trade under the moniker ITE India, as this company already exists, but “there will be an ITE stamp on it at some stage,” according to Keane.
The ITE Group’s revenue for the three months to 31 December 2009 was £15.1m, down on the same period last year (£19.7m). A spokesman for the company attributed the drop to the economic crisis, adding that the Kazakhstan Oil and Gas Exhibition was the only one of the group's 10 most profitable events to take place during the period. However, even that experienced a decline in exhibition space sales of 23 per cent.
