DEALMAKERS
Sleeping giants awaken
Steve Monnington of Mayfield Merger Strategies rounds up another busy period for M & A activity
M
& A activity continues to build month by month . Here at Mayfield Towers , we have three transactions in due diligence at the same time , something that hasn ’ t happened since 2018 . You know that things are getting serious when the world ’ s two largest organisers , which were both generally quiet in 2022 , have been stepping up in 2023 . RX has acquired French company Corp Events , organiser of Big Data and AI Paris and its sister show in Toronto from the founder Olivier Cadi . Corp Events also organises the World AI Cannes Festival on behalf of the City of Cannes and the Europia Institute , first held in 2022 . Corp Events launched Big Data Paris in 2012 and subsequently launched AI Paris as a separate event , bringing the two shows together in 2021 . The Toronto event was launched in 2016 . In early 2022 RX acquired Big
Data London from Bill Hammond ’ s 3rd Street Group and the event has continued to grow substantially . With the announcement of the launch of the equivalent show for the US ( named Data Universe ) for 2024 , the acquisition of the French and Canadian events is a logical move and shows RX ’ s determination to build out its tech sector . Not quite an acquisition just yet , but Informa has announced that it has entered into exclusivity with the Chicago-based Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society ( HIMSS ) to acquire its annual exhibition and conference . HIMSS Global Health Conference and Exhibition is a TSNN Top 30 US Trade Show and will next take place in Orlando in March 2024 . When we look back at Covid , it ’ s amazing how organisers managed to persuade exhibitors to roll their bookings forward ( not really knowing when “ forward ” would be ). So spare a thought for HIMSS which in 2021 agreed to a settlement of £ 2.8m over a class-action suit brought by exhibitors over the Covid-cancelled 2020 event with part of the settlement applied to exhibiting at the subsequent two editions . It ’ s heartening to see that this disruption was short-lived and the power of faceto-face prevailed to such an extent that Informa now intends to buy the business . Arc Group followed up its acquisition of Marketing in Partnership in May this year with the acquisition of Renewable
10 — Autumn