Mayfield’s Steve Monnington on the latest international mergers and acquisitions activity.
I was at ExpoSummit Africa in Cape Town in February where I made a presentation about using international partnerships for business expansion. Among a number of presentations from international speakers, Montgomery chairman Sandy Angus gave a very informative overview of how its business has developed in South Africa and other African countries including Nigeria and Libya.
It was clear from conversations that several local organisers are considering the next stage in their development including exporting shows from South Africa to other parts of the continent. The timing of the Summit was good as there is a lot of potential in the region.
The organisers of the Summit have also seen the international activity in Turkey and launched ExpoSummit Turkey. These forums definitely facilitate the current business development opportunities and I’m looking forward to seeing the local organisers interacting with the big exhibition groups in Istanbul this September.
On the acquisition front and starting with the emerging markets, we saw another deal signed in Brazil in February as Fiera Milano acquired 75 per cent of Grupo Cipa. The maximum price is €16.7m (US$23m) which equates to a multiple of 7.4x expected average profits for 2011 to 2013. Grupo Cipa is one of the larger privately owned organisers with a portfolio of 14 exhibitions including safety, security and technology. Fiera Milano now joins UBM, Informa and Clarion as prime candidates for further acquisitions.
In Germany, Messe Frankfurt acquired Voice + IP Germany from DVPT – the German Association for Post, IT and Telecommunications and will co-locate it with its Digital Touch event. Messe Frankfurt has been steadily developing this sector and recently acquired M-Days, the mobile communications fair from Prozent Communication, as well as Be Connected, a CRM event.
The big news from the US is the IPO of Nielsen, the global information and measurement company, raising US$1.8bn. The exhibition part of the business consists of 40 diverse trade shows from design to retail but only represents 4 per cent of the company’s $4.8bn annual revenue. This is the first major fundraising exercise for some time and it signals money is finally becoming available for the big deals.
Also in the US, MacTech Magazine acquired the US version of NSConference from iDeveloper IT. The conference for software developers will be folded into the Mactech conference for Apple developers. This looks to be a US market consolidation move and the UK NSConference will continue to be owned and run independently by iDeveloper.
In the UK there is further consolidation of the exhibition services market with the merger of Opex and the Early Action Group. Opex previously acquired Stanco and Exposystems and is backed by Octopus Capital.
On a final note, there is clear evidence both from our own projects and from talking to some of the main purchasers that multiples are finally on the increase. We are certainly seeing much more competition for good businesses – the M&A market is definitely buoyant again.
