Fostering a strong future
Simon Foster says that Private Equity is a positive force in supporting the exhibitions industry , as his consortium , Arc , has made five acquisitions
ince partnering with
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New York-based private equity firm EagleTree Capital , Simon Foster ’ s global events industry consortium Arc has acquired five B2B shows from Fortem International as well the Farmers Guardian and LAMMA from AgriBriefing . The former CEO at Comexposium and UBM , says he sees PE as a positive way to support the exhibitions industry in its recovery .
How would you describe Arc ? Arc was really trying to take the benefit of all my experience and trying to pick the best of what a buy and build organisation can be . I was very fascinated by PE and how you can create value , not just for the shareholders but for the business .
We grandly say we want to redefine the future of networking and focus on bringing businesses together , but the truth is we want to create value by creating scale , using the backing of PE partners , but also using the experience , knowledge and networks we ’ ve got to drive and help businesses grow .
UBM were a big machine , we bought businesses and plugged them in . On the other hand we had
Above : Simon Foster , CEO , Arc some businesses at Comexposium , where they just buy the business for the profit and then don ’ t do anything with it . I want to build something that ’ s somewhere between the two and benefits from the fact that we have knowledge , networks and understanding from all over the world to be able to do that .
I do want to do that with the learning that live events always have to be blended with online and digital .
Do you think you view the events industry differently from your current perspective to when you were in your previous post as CEO of Comexposium ? It ’ s probably fair to say my position hasn ’ t changed . Even before Covid-19 I was a big believer in digital as an enhancement to the offering , with particular focus on how we best leverage our data and insight , how we understand our audiences .
Our customers are now much
40 Issue 2 2022 www . exhibitionworld . co . uk