Steve Monnington, CEO of Mayfield Merger Strategies, summarises the frenetic M&A activity in December and talks to two acquisitive organisers who don’t have the luxury of Private Equity funding.
M&A – How 2025 finished.
There was a flurry of M&A activity in December with 12 transactions pushing the overall number of 2025 event transactions to 73, the highest number since 2019 (83). There were 37 different buyers.
The six most acquisitive organisers in 2025 are all private equity-owned. Nineteen Group topped the deal activity table with eight acquisitions in total, followed by Emerald (5), CloserStill (5), Easyfairs (5), Hyve (4) and Marketplace Events (4).
Nineteen completed its first three US transactions (all in December). Reliabilityweb – a portfolio of events focusing on reliability engineering, maintenance excellence, and asset performance. The Lead – a portfolio of executive-level brand and retail leadership events and forums exploring the strategies, technology, and operating models shaping modern consumer businesses. SubSummit – a conference dedicated to subscription commerce.
A few statistics from 2025:
- 2025 was the year that UK-based organisers such as Hyve, CloserStill and Nineteen Group focused on the US. In 2024, there were 18 US transactions (29%), increasing to 32 transactions (44%) in 2025.
- 42 businesses (57.5%) were acquired by Private Equity-owned organisers
- 49 businesses (67%) were acquired from founders
M&A activity continues in 2026
The wave of events M&A that characterised the end of 2025 has continued into 2026. There have already been five transactions announced, and we are only two weeks in with transactions in the UK, US, Netherlands and China, including:
- UK – Media 10’s acquisition of Futurebuild from Easyfairs. It will merge it with its UK Construction Week to create the UK Built Environment Super Event, the UK’s largest construction show
- US – Diversified Communication’s acquisition of Marine Money, a leading brand in ship finance events and publications, from International Marketing Strategies which brings a focus on the financial side of the maritime industry to its marine portfolio.
- China – Globus Events signing a strategic cooperation agreement with Beijing Qiyang International Exhibition Group including an equity investment in the Qiyang’s series of catering industry exhibitions – the Qiyang Hotpot Exhibition.
When there isn’t a PE owners chequebook
In M&A, we consistently talk about Private Equity, but it’s not easy for privately owned organisers to compete for acquisitions, especially when they have more limited financial resources and don’t want to be pushed to valuations that PE-owned organisers are prepared to pay. I talked to two of the largest privately-owned organisers about how they approach acquisitions in today’s PE-dominated events world.
Mark Allen Group (MAG) made three acquisitions in 2025 – Estates Gazette, the Inclusive Workplace Conference and the Road division of DVV. The transaction was part of a wider breakup of DVV’s UK business, and although MAG has media properties in aviation and transport, the Road portfolio is a new vertical.
Ben Allen, CEO of MAG, acknowledges that, whilst it can be difficult to compete with PE-owned organisers on price on some of the larger transactions, MAG is not disadvantaged.
MAG is not a pure-play event organiser, and its sweet spot is a mixed portfolio of publishing and events, which doesn’t appeal to Private Equity.
DVV was a perfect deal – publishing (including Commercial Motor and Motor Transport, both over 100 years old) and exhibitions such as Road Transport Expo, first held in 2022, which has a lot of growth ahead.
Allen is confident that there are enough acquisition opportunities to continue its growth. Some will be businesses that come to market, whilst others are opportunistic, such as Estates Gazette, which was acquired when RELX announced that it was closing it down.
Terrapinn is now the world’s largest privately owned organiser and also completed two transactions in 2025 – The Digital Health Festival in Australia and the EV Charging Summit in the US – and unlike MAG, is only interested in acquiring exhibitions.
Greg Hitchen, CEO at Terrapinn, has a different set of criteria than the PE-owned organisers. “The fundamental reason for us to acquire a business is to create long-term value, not for multiple arbitrage”
Hitchen looks for single events (or a small portfolio) that fit with his existing business, and the integrity of the management is also very important to him. He likes events that focus on how new technology drives growth in the sector, as well as events that can be geocloned.
As an example, the Solar & Storage business was originally acquired as a single UK event from Solar Events in 2018. It now has 20 solar events worldwide. Some are well established, whilst others are still nascent, and growth will continue to come from this portfolio. On the flipside, he doesn’t like the 1-2-1 or executive summit style events that have been the flavour of the month in recent years (not scalable).
Hitchen is bullish about M&A prospects in 2026 and doesn’t feel constrained by competition from the PE-owned organisers.
Solar and Storage is largely responsible for propelling Terrapinn to more than $30m in EBITDA, which, together with significant funding from HSBC, means it is targeting up to five transactions ($30m – $50m in acquisition spend) this year.
Recent Transactions
There have been 15 transactions announced since my last column.
| Buyer/Investor | Business | Sector | Country |
| 2025 | |||
| Nineteen Group | ReliabilityWeb | Manufacturing | USA |
| Nineteen Group | The Lead | Retail | USA |
| Nineteen Group | SubSummit | Retail | USA |
| ALM/LBR | The Legal Tech Fund | Legal | USA |
| Marketplace Events | Build Expo | Construction | USA |
| Adventure Media & Events | Financial Brand Forum | Finance | USA |
| Mark Allen Group | DVV Road portfolio | Transport | UK |
| ProMedia Group | DVV Aviation, Transport and HR | Various | UK |
| Politico | Northern Light Summit | Business | Spain |
| Messe Frankfurt | Automation Expo | Industrial | Thailand |
| 2026 | |||
| Diversified Communications | Marine Money | Finance | USA |
| Media 10 | Futurebuild | Construction | UK |
| EasyFairs | ShowUp | Home & Gifts | Netherlands |
| RM Communications | Prolific North | Media & Tech | UK |
| Globus Events | Beijing Qiyang International Exhibition | Food | China |