Steve Monnington Managing director Mayfield Media Strategies
Dealmakers he exhibition M & A world is still subdued and is likely to continue that way until we start to get some visibility around the re-opening of events . Lockdown 2.0 doesn ’ t help this although the BioNTech Pfizer vaccine news , as well as those from Moderna and Oxford- AstraZeneca , is very encouraging – a single bright spot among the gloom .
Only Clarion and Tarsus from the big acquisitive organisers were involved in the small number of deals over the last two months . By far the largest deal was the acquisition by Clarion of a majority stake in Quartz Events who produce invitation-only executive summits in North America in 12 sectors ranging from Cybersecurity to Logistics , Procurement and Finance . The company is 13 years old and this was a transaction that should have happened earlier in the year but , like many others , was put on hold when Covid hit . The fact that it has happened now is testament to the management ’ s ability to pivot the business to digital , a move that has been so successful that the second half of 2020 looks like beating pre-Covid forecasts . The effect of the pandemic has also accelerated the development of an online club for C-level executives and all of this ‘ non-live activity ’ should ensure that CEO Toby Harris and his team achieve a very healthy valuation once the earn-out unwinds .
Clarion already have an existing executive summit series , MATCH , so they already understand and operate the model successfully , but there is also the opportunity for them to use the Quartz model to create additional executive summits in their other sectors .
Another business that has continued to grow despite Covid is the US brand Masters of Pediatric Dermatology ( MOPD ) and Tarsus has added it to their medical portfolio which includes Cardiometabolic Health Congress ( CMHC ), A4M | MMI , Painweek and LivDerm . Like Quartz Events , the transaction was started pre- Covid but in this case continued through lockdown and , as with Quartz , the digital element was key to providing security of profits . MOPD takes place annually alongside the dermatology event South Beach Symposium which Tarsus acquired in 2014 .
The importance in the development of the Tarsus medical business was further underlined with the acquisition of the remaining 50 % of Hubei Tarsus Hope , their original entry point into China in 2008 . The main shows are the Chengdu Dental Show and the biannual Zhengzhou Medical and Dental Show . China is one of the few territories which has successfully resumed live business events in recent months .
Turkish organiser TG Expo has acquired 100 % of Sectoral Fairs , organiser of ICCI
- International Energy and Environment Fair and Conference . Back in 2014 , Sectoral were acquired by Deutsche Messe subsidiary Hannover Fairs Turkey . This was at the time when local Turkish organisers were being snapped up by the international players . Hannover subsequently sold 50 % of the business to energy exhibition media specialists PennWell . The 2020 edition was cancelled and held as a virtual event .
Hyve has sold its entire exhibition businesses in Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan in line with their strategy of concentrating on market leading events . The events are not expected to resume for some time due to Covid-19 .
A few months ago Lupa Systems , founded by James Murdoch , entered into an initial agreement to invest into Swiss based MCH Group , organiser of many exhibitions including the Art Basel series in Basel , Miami and Hong Kong . This was driven by MCH ’ s need to strengthen the capital structure and shareholder base in order to cope with the consequences of the coronavirus crisis . A deal was subsequently blocked by LLB ( Swiss ) Investment AG who own 9.8 % of the shares and preferred a Swiss solution . However , agreement has now been reached and the deal confirmed and Lupa will eventually own between 30 % and 44 % depending on the participation of existing shareholders .
www . exhibitionworld . co . uk Issue 6 2020 13