food-tech summits in San Francisco , New York , London , Amsterdam , Sao Paulo and Singapore . This is a big move for William Reed as the most recent accounts suggest that Rethink made a profit before tax of more than £ 4m in the year to March 2022 .
Europe Kenes , the Geneva based global conference organiser has acquired EXPOELEARNING , a leading e-learning event for the Ibero-American market from private organiser AEFOL . It ’ s held at IFEMA Madrid and forms part of Education Week . Kenes has acquired it to replicate the business globally and , as well as Madrid , is planning an edition in Mexico . year in trading with pre-tax profit up 54 % to £ 9.4m .
Arc The news about the latest acquisition by Simon Foster ’ s Arc Group , their sixth in 14 months , arrived an hour too late for inclusion in last month ’ s column . The acquisition of the portfolio of event and related media assets serving the HR technology and education technology sectors from LRP Media may not have the romance of the three deals above which are life changing for their founders , but it ’ s nevertheless the largest transaction for
Arc so far and it ’ s a significant pointer to Arc ’ s desire to build a global business with twin UK and USA hubs . It follows hard on the heels of their acquisition of another US business - HighQuest which runs a series of agriculture investment conferences in New York , Tokyo and London .
William Reed Having acquired the London Coffee Festival from Allegra Group in August this year , William Reed Group have gone global with the acquisition of a majority stake in Rethink Events , set up by Jennie Moss in 2011 . Rethink runs agri-tech and
US Woodward Communications ( WCI ), a US employee-owned media group , has made two events related acquisition . The first is In Business , the main business to business magazine for Dane County , Wisconsin together with its related digital publications and associated events acquired from Magna Publications . WCI has also acquired Insight Publications , whose events include : Invite Executive Networking ; Manufacturing First Expo & Conference , InDevelopment ; Women of Influence ; Mergers and Acquisition Symposium ; and the Insight Open Golf Event .
Consultancies We don ’ t often see M & A activity between professional advisers but confirming the view that event M & A is growing in importance , US-based global strategy consultancy Stax has acquired strategy consulting firm AMR International . Stax specialises in commercial due diligence and exit planning for private equity firms and investment banks and , with the increasing number of PE firms owning UK-based exhibition organisers , clearly see Europe as an important market . With their strong experience in the events sector AMR are a logical entry point into Europe . EN
December — 09