News
The Dealmaker
Steve Monnington of
Mayfield Media Strategies
runs the rule over the latest
global exhibition deals
B
y the time this column appears, the
UK may well be under the same
COVID-19 lockdown as Italy. The
exhibitions industry is probably the
worst affected sector, given the mostly
annual nature of events and it’s a heart-
breaking time for entrepreneurs who
have worked for a whole year on their
show only to have to cancel or postpone
it at the last minute.
Organisers are in competition with
each other yet have shown tremendous
support during these unprecedented
times. M&A activity continues but is
bound to be affected the longer this
goes on.
Reed has acquired two businesses
in the first quarter of 2020 to
continue the pace they set last year.
It acquired ITS World Congress from
the Intelligent Transportation Society
of America. The congress has been
running since 1993 focusing on the
intelligent transportation and mobility
communities. The rationale behind
the deal is based on a partnership
whereby ITS will lead on content and
thought leadership while Reed will
use their events expertise to enhance
matchmaking, marketing and lead
08 — April
“Organisers are in competition with each other
yet have shown tremendous support during these
unprecedented times. M&A activity continues but
is bound to be affected the longer this goes on.”
generation.
They followed this up with the
acquisition of Coffee & Chocolate
Expo® in Johannesburg through their
subsidiary Reed Exhibitions Africa. The
event has been running for eight years
and will be co-located with Reed’s Fire
& Feast Meat & Food Festival and the
launch edition of Bars & Good Spirits.
An umbrella identity – Food & Drink
Revolution Africa – has been created to
meld the three events together.
Easyfairs has added a sixth event to
their North African division, acquiring
SIEL – The International Exhibition
for Hotel & Restaurant Equipment and
Services in Algeria. It joins a portfolio
of seven Hospitality and Food events
in Scandinavia, the Netherlands and
Belgium and will be re-branded SIEL
Horeca Expo Algeria to brand align it
with their Horeca Expo in Belgium.
Intermediate Capital Group (ICG)
are the latest financial investor in
the events sector acquiring Pageant
Media, a UK-based financial news,
data and events company providing
services to hedge funds, traditional
asset management, private equity, real
estate and the credit/debt market. In
2019 Pageant reported £32m in revenue
with 40 per cent coming from events –
including forums, breakfast briefings
and awards. ICG has created a €1bn
European Mid-Market Fund and this is
the fund’s first investment. We should
expect bolt-on acquisitions to follow.
Reed Business Information (RBI) has
sold its farming portfolio to Mark Allen
Group comprising of the magazine
Farmers Weekly, the Farmers Weekly
Awards, and associated newsletters,
social media platforms, community
website and online trading platforms.
The deal does not include RBI’s
Proagrica – their agricultural data and
analytics business. Agriculture is a
new sector for the Mark Allen Group
who have made a good business out of
acquiring publishing assets and then
launching events in the same sector.
Diversified Communications has
acquired Aquaculture UK, the biennial
fish farming exhibition in Scotland. The
next edition of the event is in Aviemore,
Scotland, in May this year and, at the
time of writing, was still going ahead.
The exhibition has been run by a
division of Benchmark Holdings Plc,
a UK listed science-based company
involved in animal health, advanced
nutrition and genetics for the global
food, farming and fishing industries.
The show joins a portfolio of events
including Seafood Expo Global, Seafood
Processing Global, International
Workboat Show, Ocean Business, Pacific
Marine Expo, and Seaweb Seafood
Summit.
All of these acquisitions were
completed before COVID-19 took
hold outside China, but in a show of
support for the future of the sector,
Diversified more recently announced
the acquisition of Energy Storage North
America. This follows the acquisition of
Intersolar North America last year and
the two events will be co-located in 2021
so that renewable energy production
and storage will sit side by side.