M&A
The
Dealmaker
Steve Monnington of Mayfield Media
Strategies runs the rule over the latest
global exhibition deals
T
arsus Group took a further
step in the business
information arena with the
acquisition of several media
properties from North American
Journeys Inc (NAJ). The assets
include three RTO (Receptive
Tour Operator) Summits,
which are based on one-to-one
scheduled appointments rather
than traditional exhibitions, and
Active America China, which
focuses on building inbound
Chinese tourism into North
America. The assets acquired
also include the Inbound Report
and TourOperatorLand.com. The
acquisition was made by Connect
Travel, one of the US divisions
of Tarsus, and follows the
acquisition of eTourism Summit
(also purchased from NAJ) in
March last year.
Tarsus originally acquired 80
per cent of Connect Meetings in
December 2016 and bought out
the remaining shareholding in
earlier this year.
Centaur has completed its non-
core exhibition disposal program.
Having sold the travel division
to Northstar and the HR division
to DVV Media, the engineering
division, which comprises of
The Engineer magazine and the
Subcon exhibition, has been
acquired by Mark Allen Group
10 — June
for £2.5m, which represents a
multiple of 2.75x operating profit.
Overall, the multiples achieved
(5.4x for Travel and just over four
times for HR) are below markets
rates but this is often the way
with non-core disposals and,
having announced its intention to
re-focus the group, Centaur was
in a must-sell situation.
Mark Allen Group has been
acquiring both exhibitions
and publications, over the last
few years. Although primarily
known as a publisher, it has
tripled the revenue derived from
exhibitions and conferences over
the last four years and they have
become a significant part of its
overall revenue. As one of the
few remaining family-owned
publishing/exhibition groups
we might expect it to follow
Mack Brooks to market. It did
strengthen its board a couple
of years ago by appointing ex-
Informa CEO Peter Rigby as a
non-executive director.
In India, Reed Exhibitions has
acquired PackPlus from Next
Events. As well as the main show
in Delhi, the portfolio includes
packaging exhibitions in Mumbai
and Hyderabad. This follows hot
on the heels of its acquisition in
March of India BIG7, the gifts,
stationery and housewares
exhibition and brings the total
portfolio of exhibitions in India to
over 20. After a period of relative
inactivity in M&A, this is Reed’s
fourth deal this year following the
acquisition of Mack Brooks and
Shanghai Forever.
Another month, another home
show acquisition by Sentinel
Capital Partners-owned US
organiser Marketplace Events.
This time it’s nine home shows
acquired from Show Technology
Productions of San Antonio and
puts them in three new markets
- Austin and San Antonio, Texas
and Lexington, Kentucky. This is
the 11th acquisition completed by
Marketplace Events since being
purchased by Sentinel in 2016,
bringing its portfolio to 75 shows.
I’ve been watching the surge
in the share price of Future plc
with interest – it has more than
doubled from 375p to 840p in
just nine months. The company
IPO’d in 1999 and seems to have
successfully created a global
e-commerce and publishing
business strengthened by last
year’s acquisition of Purch for
$132m, which gave it the number
one position in US consumer tech
publishing, and the more recent
acquisition in the US of Mobile
Nations, a digital publisher
focused on consumer electronics,
for up to $120m.
What is particularly interesting
is that almost 20 per cent of
its revenue now comes from
commissions on products
purchased by its readers. The
one area where it is underweight
is exhibitions and it’s surprising
that it hasn’t been more active in
making acquisitions in this area
given the nature of the specialist
audiences that it engages with
through its other media products.