DEALMAKERS
Paving the way and
buying big
Steve Monnington of Mayfield Merger Strategies rounds up another busy period
for M & A activity
The biggest potential exhibition M & A news of the last couple of months doesn ’ t involve the sale of any exhibitions – but it paves the way for what is likely to be a major exhibition transaction . In January , Ascential delivered the results of its strategic review - the plan was to sell off WGSN , its trend forecasting business and then split the rest of the business into a US-listed company that would own the Digital Commerce business with the remaining business , Ascential Events ( primarily Money 2020 and Cannes Lions ) continuing under a UK plc listing . WGSN will be sold as planned with APAX Partners offering £ 700m , but rather than floating Flywheel , the digital commerce division , it will be sold to Omnicom for £ 741m . Just before the January announcement , the total market value of Ascential was around £ 900m but these divestments alone will realise more than £ 1.4bn . The sale of two of the three Ascential divisions must make it more likely that the events division will also be sold , either to a PE firm or maybe in two separate transactions to strategic organisers . Nineteen Group continued its expansion with its largest acquisition to date and the first that takes it outside the UK . Oliver Kinross runs Build Expos in New York , Chicago , Sydney and London . Some 34 people , including the Oliver Kinross founders , Neil McKenzie and James McKenzie join Nineteen and , with the usual model that Nineteen uses with acquired businesses , will continue to grow the company . With offices in Hong Kong as well as the UK , it opens up the opportunity for Nineteen to start geo-cloning its UK shows into Asia . Phoenix Equity invested in Nineteen in 2018 and , since then , the company has been transformed with six acquisitions that have added 14 shows and over 100 people . The next big milestone is likely to be in 2024 when Phoenix exits with a
10 — Winter