Steve Monnington summarises the latest deals in the sector
Since the last Dealmakers column in Exhibition World there have been seven transactions with seven different buyers in seven different countries. The largest transaction was the investment in Easyfairs by Cobepa, a privately held investment firm based in Belgium and Inflexion Private Equity Partners, best known in the exhibition world for their ownership of CloserStill Media from 2015 to 2018. Eric Everard, who founded Easyfairs over 20 years ago has sold his majority stake and reinvested a portion of the proceeds and the three parties will own equal shares in the business with the management team continuing to hold a stake. According to sources in the PE world, the transaction values the business at more than €600m and Flashes and Flames have calculated the multiple as 12.5x year to June 2024.
The Easyfairs transaction will be eclipsed if Informa complete their proposed acquisition of Ascential for approximately £1.2bn. Since Ascential disposed of their non-events business, leaving an events business comprising Money 20/20 and Cannes Lions, there has been speculation that another organiser will try to acquire it. The offer equates to a multiple of just under 17x 2024 estimated EBITDA.
Opus Origin have acquired Cologne-based WHD Event, organiser of the tech festival Cloudfest, the largest event for the Cloud and Hosting sector, held at Europa-Park in Germany. The company also organises the MSP Global event for managed service providers which will be held in Barcelona later this year and NamesCon, the world’s largest event in the domain industry, and CloudFest USA, both of which are held annually in the USA. The business was owned by a consortium of professional tech investors based primarily in Germany.
Opus was created by Stephen Brooks following the sale of Mack Brooks to Reed and management includes Simon Kimble and Sam Jennings of Clarion fame. In late 2022 they set up InfraXmedia to acquire Data Center Dynamics, a global media and events business dedicated to the digital infrastructure segment. WHD is their second acquisition and nails their colours firmly to the technology mast.
Terrapinn, who have taken over the mantle of the world’s largest private organiser now that Easyfairs are primarily Private Equity owned, have acquired ArabLab Live, the Middle East’s premier exhibition for the community of laboratory users in Chemical, Energy, Medical, BioTech, Food and Environment industries. Founded in 1982, Arablab Live has grown to be a significant international event and now boasts 400-500 exhibitors and 10,000+ attendees from more than 120 countries. ArabLab Live joins a portfolio of lab events including Future Labs Live held in the USA, UK and Switzerland. Terrapinn acquired NoVacancy Expo in Australia earlier this year as well as Aerospace Tech Week in 2023.
Trifecta Collective, the US events organiser run by Rick McConnell and backed by PE firm GreyLion, has entered the Fintech arena with the acquisition of Transact, a market-leading annual event in the payments processing industry from the Electronic Transactions Association (ETA). The event rotates between Las Vegas and Atlanta. Trifecta was created in 2022 and has previously acquired the North American Trailer Dealer Association which runs the NATDA Trailer Show, and the International Mass Timber Conference.
This article is taken from EW Issue 4, to get the digital magazine bi-monthly to your inbox, subscribe here: https://www.exhibitionworld.co.uk/subscribe
