DEALMAKERS many acquisitive organisers for some time . This will form the core of a new Future Transport and Infrastructure division . Other transactions were Open Room Events , CommerceNext , the Hydrogen and Carbon Capture events run by Trans Global Events and , right at the end of the year and only recently announced , German organiser , Trailblazer Summits .
Trailblazer Summits runs confexstyle events in logistics , accounting , procurement , digital marketing and construction and , as with the rest of CloserStill ’ s portfolio , has a strong emphasis on content . This brings the CloserStill German portfolio of events to more than 25 , several of which were acquired through the earlier 2023 deals , and continues its track record of acquiring businesses with nontraditional event formats
Hyve Another important 2023 highlight was the privatisation of Hyve and its acquisition by Providence Equity Partners for approximately £ 524m which means that two of the major UKbased organisers , CloserStill Media and Hyve , are now owned by Providence .
2024 is already off to a flying start . In January , Ascential announced the
Acquisition by market 2018-2023 completion of the sale of its Digital Commerce business to Omnicom Group and Informa announced an agreement to combine its digital business with US-based TechTarget , a data-driven marketing services company for technology vendors . Informa will contribute its Informa Tech digital businesses and $ 350 million in exchange for a 57 % stake in the combined company .
Cuil Bay Capital is Douglas Emslie ’ s new investment vehicle , set up after the sale of Tarsus to Informa . In September last year , it acquired Mike Seaman ’ s Raccoon Media Group . Now , Raccoon has made its first acquisition since then , acquiring the assets of Abilities Expo in the US from 5Net4 Productions , run by industry veterans Lew Shomer and David Korse .
This is a series of seven events for the disabled sector , which connect the disability community to a wide range of resources to help improve accessibility and promote greater independence .
The acquisition adds to Raccoon ’ s developing portfolio of health and wellbeing events following the acquisition of the ‘ Allergy and Free From ’ shows last year . Abilities Expo is also firmly in line with Raccoon ’ s strategy of owning events with strong community engagement .
January 2024 also saw two acquisitions in the cybersecurity sector . First , QG Media , a London organiser of 16 cyber security conferences around the world , sold a majority stake in its business to the Information Security Media Group ( ISMG ).
QG Media was formed in 2011 by Ravi Manji and Kudsia Kaker and has developed events covering cybersecurity for Critical Assets and Manufacturing Security . This is a very strategic sale which will allow QG Media to leverage ISMG ’ s media resources and data engines to grow the business further .
Also in the cyber space , Nineteen Group has acquired the Security Awareness Special Interest Group ( SASIG ). The business has been running for 10 years and holds meetings , round tables and online events with a vetted audience of high-level security and cybersecurity executives .
A final acquisition for this edition sees Easyfairs adding to its portfolio of engineering and manufacturing events with the purchase of the manufacturing technology event , Southern Manufacturing & Electronics , held at the Farnborough International Exhibition Centre .
And the rest of 2024 ? There are more big potential moves to look forward to in 2024 . Likely , the PE owners of Clarion ( Blackstone ), CloserStill Media ( Providence ) and Nineteen Group ( Phoenix Equity ) will either exit or at least start their sale process this year and there are also rumours that US-based Emerald Expositions is for sale .
Another company worth keeping an eye on is EasyFairs - the largest privately owned organiser with 2022- 23 revenues of € 193.8m , which makes it number 11 in the Stax Top 20 ranking of world exhibition organisers by 2022 revenues . EN
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