Three reasons why 2022 is all about PE There are three reasons why 2022 and indeed the next few years will be “ all about private equity ”. i ) PE firms usually have a five-year time horizon but in reality it ’ s often shorter as the sale dates for CloserStill Media above shows .
It ’ s generally accepted that the last two years have put the exit plans of PE firms such as Blackstone ( Clarion ) and Providence ( CloserStill ) back by a couple of years . Blackstone acquired Clarion in 2017 and Providence acquired CloserStill in 2018 so we should expect an exit by both in the next three years , probably sooner in the case of Blackstone . Whether the sale is to another PE firm ( in which case incoming capital is likely to be quickly deployed in the form of an acquisition drive ) or a trade sale with the accompanying integration issues and senior management exits , it will be very interesting to see what happens post-sale . ii ) Several of the PE firms are serial investors . Notable among these are Providence ( who have held investments in George Little Management , Clarion and now CloserStill Media ), Phoenix Equity ( former owner of CloserStill Media and now invested in Nineteen Group ) and Charterhouse ( who owned 50 % of Comexposium and now own Tarsus ). So it ’ s nice to see a couple of new entrants backing UK exhibition executives . Apiary Capital backed Duncan Kirk and his team ( ROAR B2B ) who have made two acquisitions so far – several shows from what was Prysm and also the Environment Media Group . EagleTree and their partners Canson Capital backed Simon Foster ( Arc ) and have also made two acquisitions – Lamma and Farmers Guardian from AgriBriefing and Farm Business Innovation from Fortem International ( formerly Prysm ).
Along with Phoenix / Nineteen , Arc and ROAR are very much in their early stage and are hungry for acquisitions . As Simon
Foster points out ( p26 ) there is a lot of money looking for a home so this can only be good news for potential sellers . There will undoubtedly be several acquisitions made by these three . iii ) Several senior executives have left the exhibition sector in the last couple of years and several are in discussion with potential PE backers ( especially in the USA ) which means that there are likely to be more PE firms entering the sector which will fuel the demand for more deals .
All this activity raises the question of whether there are enough high-quality exhibitions available to feed collective appetites . In the short term I believe that there will be , but over time it ’ s inevitable that demand will outstrip supply . The PE model depends on growth by acquisition and then exit – standing still isn ’ t an option , so we could start to see consolidation amongst the PE owned exhibition groups as we have among the publicly quoted trade organisers . EN
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