M&A
The
Dealmaker
Steve Monnington of Mayfield Media
Strategies runs the rule over the latest
global exhibition deals
U
ntil recently GL Events
business in China was
concentrated predominantly
on venue management and
contracting services but in the
last couple of months they have
really stepped up their M&A
activity for exhibitions.
Last month I reported on
their acquisition of 55 per cent
of CIEC Union, owned by the
state-owned China Council
for Promotion of International
Trade which runs exhibitions
for Wallpaper, Curtains, Home
Décor and Building Materials.
They have quickly followed this
up with an agreement to acquire
60 per cent of the shares of
Shenzhen Sheng Shi Peng Cheng
Exhibitions, organiser of the
Fashion Source exhibitions in
southern China. Fashion Source
covers fabrics and accessories
for the fashion sector and runs
twice a year in Shenzhen. The
three Chinese shareholders of
the business have been holding
discussions with potential
international partners for two
years and will retain 40 per cent
of the company.
This is a highly strategic
acquisition for GL – not just in
cementing their involvement
in exhibitions in China – but as
49 per cent owner of Premier
10 — May
Vision, the leading event for
fabrics and services for the
fashion industry, held in Paris. In
October 2018, GL announced a
Rights Issue which raised €106m
from its existing shareholders
primarily to fund acquisitions
in China and Japan and we can
expect further developments in
this area as they are planning to
complete a further exhibition
transaction in China before the
end of June.
Centaur Media has agreed the
sale of three of several non-
core businesses expected to be
sold. The travel division, which
consists of the Business Travel
Show, The Meetings Show and
Travel Technology Europe, will
be sold to US-based Northstar
Travel Group. One might have
expected Reed to make a play for
this, but it also makes sense for
Northstar as it already produces
75 events in 13 countries in
travel, hospitality and the
meetings industry. The price is
£9.25m for a business that made
an operating profit of £1.7m last
year, representing a multiple of
5.4x although no central back
office overheads are applied.
The human resources
division, which consists of
Employee Benefits Live,
Employee Benefits Connect
and the Forum for Expatriate
Management, will be sold to
DVV Media International, the
UK subsidiary of German
publisher DVV Media
GmbH. DVV
covers both
the transport
& logistics and
HR sectors and
already publishes
Personnel Today.
The price is
£5m for a business that made
an operating profit of £1.2m last
year representing a multiple of
just over 4x (although profits
declined from £1.4m in 2017).
The financial services division
(which doesn’t include any
exhibitions but does include
Money Marketing) will be sold
to Metropolis. As with the HR
division the price is £5m for
£1.2m of operating profit.
At the time of going to press
there was no news about a
purchaser for Centaur’s Subcon
divisions although there is
speculation that Mark Allen
Group will acquire this. The
relatively low multiples achieved
for these divisions compared
to what we normally see for the
sale of independent businesses
highlights the difficulties that
several of the large organisers
have in achieving good prices
for the businesses that they no
longer want, especially when
profits are either flat or in
decline.
Bonhill Group, publisher of
Information Age and Investment
News, don’t usually feature
in this column but they have
splashed out £8m to acquire Last
Word Media, an international
B2B media business based
in London, Hong Kong and
Singapore which addresses the
sales and marketing needs of
the global asset management
industry and information
requirements of
the wealth
management
industry. The
business includes
seven news and
information
websites, two
of which have