Steve Monnington Managing director Mayfield Media Strategies
Dealmakers – 2022 retrospective and into January 2023
Steve Monnington reviews the deals of 2022
I n the normal pre-pandemic years of 2018 and 2019 there were over 80 reported exhibition transactions with over 50 buyers . As I reported at the end of 2020 and 2021 , Covid resulted in a halving of the normal M & A activity .
2022 , with 54 transactions from 36 different buyers , represented the first post-Covid year but activity was still well below historic levels . This was due to a combination of almost no deals in China , low activity across South East Asia and the need for potential sellers to get back to at least 2019 levels of profitability before going to market . The US and UK continue to lead the way with 32 of the 54 transactions .
One notable feature of 2022 was the lack of M & A activity from many of the larger organisers – Informa , Reed , Clarion , dmg , Tarsus and Hyve managed just five transactions between them . Instead , it was left to Marketplace Events ( 5 ), Arc Group ( 4 ), IEG - Italian Exhibition Group ( 4 ) and Nineteen Group ( 3 ) to drive transaction activity . Three of these buyers ( IEG being the exception ) are Private Equity owned and Arc and Nineteen are both in the early stages of their first PE investment cycle .
No . of deals and buyers 2018-2022
100
Acquisition by market 2018-2022
100
|
40
30
20
10
0
|
41 |
40 |
36 |
|
|
29 |
27 |
|
2018 |
2019 |
2020 |
2021 |
2022 |
|
40
30
20
10
0
|
22 |
12 |
7 |
7 |
26 |
6 |
7 |
17 |
19 |
24 |
|
14
12
9
|
15
7
|
13 |
|
|
|
11 |
|
2018 |
2019 |
2020 |
2021 |
2022 |
|
Deals n |
Buyers n |
UK n USA n Emerging n Other n |
10 Issue 1 2023 www . exhibitionworld . co . uk