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Questex together for around $ 1.95bn. The combined group will be called Emerald, run by Questex ' s Paul Miller. Hellman & Friedman – a $ 107.5bn pure-play buyout firm, which acquired Hyve for a reported $ 1.8bn in May 2026, reportedly without a typical sale process. Searchlight – a smaller player with $ 17.5bn under management, invested in both Hyve and CloserStill. Blackstone – owns Clarion and the NEC, with $ 1.3trn under management overall. It put Clarion up for sale in 2025 with the reported objective of £ 2bn but didn ' t conclude a deal. The NEC is also reported to be up for sale in 2026.
So what does this really mean – and can we make any sense of the Premier League and trade shows moving in lock step? First of all, the numbers seem almost incomprehensible to any layman. Just 20 years ago the numbers were of a totally different magnitude. The Glazers bought Manchester United for £ 265m( plus debt they did not incur themselves) in 2005, and Fenway bought Liverpool in 2010 for £ 300m – taking out two historic clubs. But these numbers still seem comprehensible. With colleagues, I bought Nottingham Forest in 1997 for £ 17m – 18 months prior they had finished third in the Premier League.
Just two decades later, Chelsea is apparently " worth " £ 4.25bn and Manchester United is valued at £ 4.7bn. Crystal Palace are theoretically " worth " £ 423m, Ipswich £ 350m, and the owners of Everton and Fulham have each invested close to £ 1bn. A qualification – any asset is " worth " only what someone else will pay for it.
Simple maths, based on all the clubs mentioned, suggests English Premier League teams today are valued at some 10-15 times what they were " worth " less than two decades ago. I calculate that Nottingham Forest, based on recent sales and investments, is now worth 58 times what I paid in 1997( yes, I
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know I should have held on to it – I am not very bright).
How does this compare with our biggest trade show companies? Clarion and CloserStill have attracted PE investment most often, so are our best guide. Clarion was sold to Hg for £ 45m in 2004, and to Providence for £ 200m in 2015. CloserStill was sold to Phoenix for £ 25m in 2012 and to Inflexion for £ 125m in 2015.
If we accept Blackstone ' s own 2025 valuation of Clarion at £ 2bn, then Clarion’ s value has increased 44 times since 2004 and 10 times since 2015. Given CloserStill ' s sale in May 2026 at $ 1.77bn, its valuation has grown 52 times since 2012 and, just like Clarion, 10 times since 2015.
Obviously, these companies have grown in part by acquisition, but largely paid for through profits and their own cash flows – CloserStill never borrowed a penny to make an acquisition before 2019. The similarity in the growth in value of Clarion and CloserStill is striking.
The conclusion is obvious. For reasons which are mysterious or not, our bigger trade show companies have increased in value at pretty well the same rate as English Premier League clubs – roughly 10 to 15 times over the past two decades.
There are variations. Hyve began life as the stock market quoted ITE, valued between £ 170m and £ 295m in 2005 and a little more than £ 300m in 2015. Hellman & Friedman acquired it for $ 1.8bn in May 2026 – suggesting an increase in value of some 8 times in 20 years. Not 10 times, but close enough. What do all these football and exhibition assets have in common? American private equity investors looking for assets they believe will keep growing in value.
If they were to grow at the same rates over the next 20 years, we would see Manchester United worth £ 47bn in 2045, Ipswich worth £ 3.5bn, Crystal Palace worth £ 4.5bn, Clarion worth
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Right: Philip Soar, co-founder of CloserStill Media
“ Our bigger trade show companies have increased in value at pretty well the same rate as our Premier League clubs – roughly 10 to 15 times over the past two decades”
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£ 20bn and CloserStill worth some $ 18bn by 2040. That ' s absurd, you might say. But even 10 years ago we could not have dreamed of three trade show deals worth $ 5.6bn in a few weeks, nor an American private equity company paying £ 4.25bn for Chelsea FC.
The signs are that the current feeding frenzy may continue for some time. The enormous sums pouring into US billionaire pockets( Musk may not be the only one worth $ 1trn in 10 years ' time) as a result of the web / chip / streaming revolution and AI have to go somewhere – and it appears that football clubs and even trade show companies can be called trophy assets. Place your bets …
( PS – Emerald Expositions proves there are exceptions. It was publicly quoted for much of its life – its value in 2015 being between $ 1.3bn and $ 1.4bn, and its 2017 NYSE listing valuing it at $ 1.5bn. In May 2026, Apollo acquired Emerald for( according to the Wall Street Journal) $ 1.5bn – meaning it had not grown in value at all over the past 10 years. That story is worth a column in itself, but one thing that makes it different is that it was New York-based with almost entirely American assets – very different from the other companies mentioned, which are West London stalwarts.) EW
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www. exhibitionworld. co. uk |
Issue 4 2026 43 |