Dealmakers
Steve Monnington Managing director Mayfield Media Strategies
Dealmakers
Steve Monnington rounds up some busy weeks of M & A activity
T he number of inbound enquiries at Mayfield Towers has really spiked in the last couple of months and almost every day we are talking to another potential seller discussing their options for exit . More than 50 % of the time our advice is to wait another year and really consolidate the growth . While it ’ s important to leave growth in the business for the purchaser , the seller shouldn ’ t try to sell before the concept is proven as buyers won ’ t take that risk .
The biggest exhibition M & A news of the last couple of months paves the way for what is likely to be a major exhibition transaction in the future . In January , Ascential delivered the results of their strategic review – the plan was to sell off WGSN , their trend forecasting business , and then split the rest of the business into a US listed company that would own the Digital Commerce business with Ascential Events continuing under a UK plc listing .
WGSN will be sold as planned with APAX Partners offering £ 700m ( US $ 866.5m ), but rather than floating Flywheel , the digital commerce division , on the US stock exchange , it will be sold to Omnicom for £ 741m . The sale of two of the three Ascential divisions must make it more likely that the events division ( primarily Money 2020 and Cannes Lions ) will also be sold , either to a PE firm or maybe in two separate transactions to strategic organisers .
Nineteen Group continued their expansion with their largest acquisition to date and their first that takes them outside the UK . Oliver Kinross runs Build Expos in New York , Chicago , Sydney and London . Thirty-four 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 business . With offices in Hong Kong as well as the UK , it opens up the opportunity for Nineteen to start geo-cloning their UK shows into Asia . Phoenix Equity invested in Nineteen in 2018 and , since then , the company has been
transformed with six acquisitions which has brought 14 shows and over 100 people into their business .
At the time of writing this , Web Summit was in full flow in Lisbon . Three weeks before your main event is not the ideal time for Paddy Cosgrave , figurehead and CEO of the business to have to resign over comments he made about the Israel-Hamas war which sparked the withdrawal of several companies including Amazon , TikTok , Google , Intel and Stripe . Many of the top European VCs followed their US peers and backed out . How this plays out will depend on whether new CEO Katherine Maher can bring these companies back to the 2024 show . On the plus side , governments were pitching to investors for their own tech ecosystems , there were many big and expensive stands and it was buzzing .
Jair Rattner , a journalist in Portugal , said that “ people in Lisbon were afraid that the Web Summit wouldn ’ t happen ” given that about 70,000 visit Lisbon for the event each year and tourism accounts for about 15 % of GDP in Portugal . In addition , Web Summit has helped to change outside perceptions of Portugal from port , wine and olive oil to technology . Paddy Cosgrave might have been cancelled but Portugal seems determined to hold on to Web Summit .
Transactions and partnerships this period . ( October / November )
Buyer Business Country Sector Nineteen Group Oliver Kinross Global Construction Mark Allen Group Glazing Summit UK Glazing Mark Allen Group Lewis Business Media UK Agriculture MPE SAHBA Home Shows USA Home Shows
Easyfairs QUICKFairs
Italy / Germany
Industrial
IEG A & T Italy Automation
www . exhibitionworld . co . uk Issue 6 2023 13