Steve Monnington of Mayfield Mergers casts his eye over the M&A landscape
In previous post-Covid columns I’ve talked about the likelihood of strategic plays by some of the larger organisers as a means to non-acquisition growth.
One such move has come from dmg events which, post-Covid-19, arise driving forward with a significant programme of launches, especially in Saudi Arabia which is fast becoming a key geography for them. dmg has formed a joint venture – ostensibly 50/50 – with the Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC) for the joint launch of several shows initially in Food, Hospitality and Interiors.
The JV name is Kaoun and the thinking is to harness the strength of DWTC’s key brands and combine them with dmg’s ‘boots on the ground’ to create a series of new events in Saudi which can then be spun out into other countries such as South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt.
The first joint event will be The Saudi Food & Beverage Show & The Saudi Food Manufacturing Show in Riyadh in June, 2023, which will be affiliated to DWTC’s GULFOOD Global. As a further development, The Hotel Show Saudi Arabia will be rebranded for 2023 to include the broader hospitality, HORECA and interiors market. it’s expected that the JV will be extended over time to cover other sectors.
It’s 16 months since Simon Foster announced that he had secured financial backing from EagleTree Capital for his new global events business, Arc, and just over a year since they made their first acquisition – Farmers Guardian and the Lamma trade exhibition for agriculture machinery.
They recently announced their fifth deal (and their first in the USA) again in the Agriculture sector in a move that brings their total headcount worldwide to 240 people.
HighQuest, runs a series of agriculture investment conferences in New York, Tokyo and London for investors, fund and farmland managers and agribusiness executives as well as a membership platform for Women in Agriculture as well as producing research for the sector.
Euromoney Institutional Investor, owner of the Euromoney brand, has agreed to sell the entire business to two PE firms – Epiris and Astorg. The offer values the business at £1.7bn (US$1.95bn), a multiple of 20x 2022 EBITDA.
The joint bid will result in the business being split in two with Astorg taking the Price Reporting Agency business and Epiris taking everything else, including the Euromoney brand. Although the events side of the Euromoney business is tiny, the deal may focus Epiris’ mind on some follow-on deals which could involve exhibition/conference organisers with related brands.
Informa has made some sizeable changes to its portfolio (although exhibitions remain untouched). In comes US business publisher Industry Dive acquired from Falfuriass Capital for £323m (US$371m) and out goes Lloyds List Intelligence (or 80% of it) sold to Montagu Private Equity for £308m (US$353.8m).
Industry Dive was launched in 2012 and has developed into daily and weekly publications across 27 brands including BioPharma, Banking, Cyber Security and Supply Chain with 13 million readers.
Informa will create added value in two main ways – the creation of in-person and online events for the existing brands and the creation of new Industry Dive brands from Informa’s existing portfolio. The acquisition will be run as a stand-alone business reporting into the Informa Tech Division.
