Steve Monnington, CEO of Mayfield Merger Strategies, reports on Informa’s £2.24bn acquisition of Clarion and a big follow-on acquisition from Apollo Funds.
The trade show big bang continues
It has been another high-spending month dominated by the news that Informa is buying Clarion Events in a deal worth £2.24bn ($2.95bn). This is after the summer surge of transactions where we saw four Private Equity firms – Providence/Searchlight, Hellman & Friedman and Apollo – in the acquisitions of CloserStill Media, Hyve, Emerald and Questex. This latest transaction in which the world’s largest organiser buys the world’s 3rd largest, brings the total spend in this mega category to $9bn. Unprecedented.
The sale of Clarion was the next logical deal given that their owners Blackstone invested in 2017. Normal Private equity time horizons are 3 to 5 years but COVID disrupted plans for exit and more recently a potential transaction was complicated by the ownership of Hong Kong based Global Sources. Blackstone acquired Global Sources separately, also in 2017 and the businesses were merged into Clarion in early 2018. I doubt that Clarion would have acquired Global Sources of their own volition and there was talk of demerging it to make the prospect of a sale of the main business more likely.
It was expected that Apollo would have followed up their acquisitions of Emerald and Questex (merged together to create Forge) – and Becker’s Healthcare (see below) – with the acquisition of Clarion but Global Sources, which accounts for approx. 25% of total Clarion revenues, didn’t sit well with them. Cue Informa who have no such issues with HK/China meaning a simpler, faster transaction and a deal that reportedly took only 2 months from start to finish.
One of the questions I am most asked (more or less on a daily basis) is – what are the multiples for exhibition businesses today? and my answer is always the same. Within reason it can be what you want it to be, depending on how the profits ae computed and the numbers attached to the Clarion deal are a case in point We have grown used to hearing about multiples of 14x or more for these big transactions yet the multiple for the second largest deal in trade show history (after Informa’s acquisition of UBM for £4bn in 2018) is reported as just 11.1x. I guess it’s in Informa’s interest to report the multiple to its shareholders as low as possible. The multiple has been calculated on forecast 2027 EBITDA which benefits from biennial events. Using the annualised 2026 & 2027 EBITDA brings the multiple up to 12.25x and applying a multiple of 10x to the global sources part of the business (where growth prospects could be lower than the rest of the portfolio) would mean that the European and US business traded at 14x, more in line with what we would expect.
There is a sense of unease in the news that Informa is targeting £50m per annum of cost synergies from the acquisition. For synergies, read savings and several Clarion (and maybe Informa) people across the world in back office or support functions and even suppliers who had both companies in their client base will be worried about their futures.
Forging ahead
After the announcement in May (and completion in July) of the acquisitions of Emerald and Questex by Apollo Funds and the merging of the two businesses under the name Forge, the first follow on acquisition has been announced and it’s meaningful, setting the stage for significant further transactions. Becker’s Healthcare, a media and events platform with EBITDA in excess of $50m serving hospital, health system and healthcare executives has been acquired from Pamlico Capital for a price thought to be around $650m. This is more about synergies with the Questex portfolio than with Emerald as the acquisition will significantly expand their presence in healthcare and life sciences by combining Becker’s with Forge’s existing healthcare portfolio, Fierce Healthcare and Life Sciences. As mentioned above, Apollo wanted to maintain M&A momentum and had Clarion in their sights but expect more transactions to follow soon.
A new sector for Opus Origin
Following the divestment of InfraXMedia to Bowmark Capital last month, Opus Origin, set up by Stephen Brooks in 2019, has wasted no time in deploying capital, announcing a strategic partnership with U.S based Life Science Intelligence (LSI). LSI was founded in 2006 by Scott Pantel and focuses on medtech market intelligence, media and events. The events side of the business comprises the portfolio of LSI Emerging Medtec Summits held annually in USA, Europe and Asia whilst the Compass AI platform provides reports, research and live deal tracking across private medtech companies. The Lens provides the digital media element of the business.
This is a new sector for Opus but the mix of events and data shows similarities to the InfraXMedia portfolio. LSI joins fellow investment WHD, organiser of the tech festival Cloudfest, under the Opus umbrella. Cloudfest, the event for the Cloud and Hosting sector was acquired in 2024 and is held in Germany and the U.S. Opus recently gained a new top executive in industry entrepreneur Greg Topalian who will head up their North America business and who joins the LSI board as Chairman.
Manta Media invests again.
Manta Media Capital the fund investing in founder led businesses has followed up the two investments reported last month with a strategic investment in On Sale Group, backing the only exhibition built for the experience economy. On Sale Group, founded by Dawn Farrow targets the marketing, ticketing, sales and communications professionals of the experience economy. It runs a free community network for the sector, the GIEM Experience Marketing Masterclass and organises On Sale Live: The Experience Economy Expo at the Business Design Centre.
A record breaking year?
In total there were 9 deals reported this month bringing the total for the year so far to 77. The final tally for last year was 79 and the highest number of transactions ever was 87 in 2018. We may see a flurry of UK transactions timed to beat the UK budget and a potential increase in Capital Gains Tax but it looks like this record breaking year in terms of deal values should also go down in history as the busiest in terms of the number of transactions.
Transactions announced since the last column.
| Buyer/Investor | Business | Sector | Country |
| Informa | Clarion Events | Portfolio | Global |
| Forge | Beckers Healthcare | Health | USA |
| Opus Origin | Life Science Intelligence | Life Sciences | USA |
| Manta Media Capital | On Sale Group | Experience | UK |
| Nineteen Group | Payments Association EU | Payments | Luxembourg |
| Simply Health Group | FMC | Dentistry | UK |
| United Expo | International Café & Beverage Show | Hospitality | Malaysia |
| Raccoon Media | Edition Dog Live | Pets | UK |
| Gamigion | HIT Games Conference | Gaming | USA |
Note: Part of this column was first published in Flashes & Flames: Global Media Business Weekly