Events. It is a long year since Blackstone private equity acquired Clarion Events for £600m, almost three times its previous sale price in 2015. The surprise might have been that the company, which had been owned by a succession of private equity firms in the 14 years since it was spun-out of London’s Earls Court & Olympia exhibition venues, could still such price gains. But it reflects a heady combination of executive chairman Simon Kimble’s estimable long-term management, some deals, and the steadily rising values of exhibitions in a world where almost every other media category has been blown apart. In the year when Clarion has been voted as the UK’s “Most Influential” exhibitions company in the past quarter-century (wonder what the 2-3 larger companies think about that), it has started to become a truly global operator with the acquisition of Urban Expositions and Penwell in the US and Global Sources in Hong Kong. In 2016, Clarion was an 80% UK business; it’s now well below 50%. It operates more than 200 events in 50 countries and has revenues of more than £200m. So, rumours that Blackstone (which a few years ago wanted to buy what has become Ascential, operator of Cannes Lions et al) has approached RELX about buying Reed Exhibitions may be just that. But the price tag for the former long-term exhibitions leader (until Informa swallowed UBM this year) could reach 15-20 x EBITDA, and the parent company knows that a global auction could work great in what is a pretty soggy year for its core information businesses. A RELX investor presentation in London last week artfully kept the Informa and UBM exhibitions market shares separate so Reed could still claim leadership for the last time. But nobody is fooled. If you think this has been a big year for exhibition deals, just wait for a doozy in 2019.
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Blackstone gets ready for Reed Exhibitions
