Steve Monnington of Mayfield Merger Strategies reports the most recent transactions and analyses the M&A news.

Clearly the acquisition of Tarsus Group for $940m wasn’t enough for Informa, which has now splashed out $380m for Winsight, a US-based event organiser and digital information services group for the food sector. Winsight expects to achieve EBITDA of $35m in 2023 meaning a multiple of just under 11x on current year profits.

Winsight operates in four main areas:

  • A series of trade shows for the restaurant sector including the National Restaurant Association Show.
  • Training, networking and publications for the Convenience Retail sector
  • Information services and networking for the non-commercial foodservice sectors (kindergarten, universities, senior living etc)
  • Research and analysis for the Grocery sector

Informa runs food shows such as National Products Expo (Philadelphia and Anaheim), Supplyside West (Las Vegas) and Vitafoods (Geneva) as well as Hotelex, Food & Hospitality and HOFEX in Asia. The recent acquisition of Tarsus also brought them WOFEX in the Philippines.

Arc Group continues to be one of the most prolific acquirers in the sector. This time it has acquired UK-based Marketing in Partnership (MiP) operating in the asset management sector. MiP organises its own events – Joint Investment Conference, Select, and Global Investment Management Summit – as well as providing marketing solutions and organising events on behalf of its clients. The acquisition will complement some of the brands run by Incisive Media (Investment Week Professional Adviser) which it acquired in April last year.

Proving that it’s never too late to sell a long-running brand, Faversham House has sold Sign & Digital UK (SDUK) to Datateam Business Media. SDUK has been running for 34 editions and is the UK’s biggest and longest-running trade show for the visual communication sector. Datateam has media properties across several sectors including Building Services, Healthcare, Retail, and Industry sectors and organises the Printwear and Promotion Live! Exhibition which will presumably be co-located with SDUK at the NEC from 2024.

Raccoon Media Group has purchased the Allergy and Free From and Just V show brands. The shows were originally launched by F2F events but lockdown took its toll and the business went into liquidation in November last year and the assets have been acquired from F2F Events’ liquidators. Although Racoon focuses on outdoor sports shows – running, cycling, snow – there is a logic in this opportunistic acquisition given that Raccoons’ visitors focus on healthy lifestyles and nutrition. The Allergy show was launched in 2010 and Just V in 2012 and they expanded the footprint to take place in London, Birmingham and Glasgow. Raccoon will run the show in London only. The last London edition was held in July 2022 and the Raccoon team has given themselves another year – until June 2024 – to get everything back on track.

If Flashes and Flames have their market intel correct (and they usually do) we will be seeing an announcement soon that RX has acquired Tony Robinson’s UKI Media and Events, one of the last standing independent media groups created in the 20th century (1991 to be precise). This is a true global “omni channel” business with 17 exhibitions, 12 conferences and 13 magazines dedicated to the automotive and aviation and related transportation sectors. Back in 2007, Reed Exhibitions (as they were known then) acquired UKI’s aviation portfolio which included Aircraft Interiors Expo.

Over in the USA, Questex, owned by Private Equity firm MidOcean partners, has acquired the NYU International Hospitality Industry Investment Conference. The event was acquired from the NYU School of Professional Studies which will use the money to fund scholarships. Questex is already active in the Hospitality Investment Sector owning the International Hospitality Investment Forum (Berlin) and the Annual Hotel Conference in Manchester as well as owning several hospitality and food and beverage exhibitions.

There have been several interesting moves by some of the German Messes in the last few weeks.

  • Koelnmesse has bought out Ashwani Pande, their JV partner in India since 2008, to create a wholly-owned Indian subsidiary company.
  • Hamburg Messe has announced a long-term partnership with Hydrogen Technology Expo Europe, organised by UKI-based TransGlobal Events which will see the show move from Bremen to Hamburg.
  • Messe Frankfurt Middle East has formed a partnership with 1st Arabia which has been operating in Saudi Arabia for 15 years. 1st Arabia will act as local partner for Intersec, Beautyworld and Automechanika.

Finally, congratulations to Douglas Emslie, this year’s winner of the AEO’s Award for “Outstanding Contribution to the Industry.” I originally met Doug over 30 years ago him when we were both at Blenheim – I was handling the acquisitions and business development and Doug was group tax planning manager. When Blenheim was sold to United News and Media, Neville Buch, founder and Chairman of Blenheim, decided to start another group and bought a small public quoted company – BBB Design.

BBB Design changed its name to Tarsus, acquired Labelexpo, and Doug became the first full time employee. The rest is history – 25 years later, Informa have acquired Tarsus for $940m and Doug has rightly been honoured. Anna and I have the utmost respect for Doug and have enjoyed working with him through the years – during that time, Mayfield has handled the sale of many of the businesses that Tarsus has bought – including two in China, four in Turkey, plus Philippines and Malaysia – and each transaction was a fair (if robust) process. it has always been fun as well as challenging.

The Outstanding Contribution Award is often thought to be presented to people at the tail end of their career, but I am absolutely sure that we will be seeing a lot of Doug in the future – he definitely won’t be running out of steam anytime soon. Well done Doug – really well deserved.

On a final note – Dan Assor has conducted a fascinating interview with Stephen Carter, group chief executive of Informa, immediately following Informa’s trading update for 2023. The interview is wide-ranging and includes the acquisition of Tarsus. Mayfield sponsored the interview and it’s well worth a watch here.