New York City-based private equity firm MidOcean Partners is acquiring, from Shamrock Capital, Questex, the Massachusetts-based B2B exhibition organiser in the travel, hospitality, pharma, healthcare, beauty and tech markets. Questex has over 125 tradeshows including the International Beauty Shows.
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed, although the price is rumoured to be around $180m which is 1.8 x revenue. Questex employs over 350 people in offices throughout the US, Europe and AsiaPacific. The MidOcean deal features some interesting exhibitions-steeped personalities. The acquisition sees a change at the top where Questex’s founding CEO Kerry Gumas (ex of Advanstar, Reed Exhibitions and IDG) is handing over the reins to Paul Miller (long time at UBM) who has been with Informa since its $1.6bn acquisition of US-based exhibitions and B2B group Penton.
The man who helped to clinch that whopping price from the voracious Informa is David Kieselstein, former Penton CEO (and executive from D&B, Kantar TNS and Time Inc.) negotiated the deal for MidOcean and will now become chair of Questex. In these years of exhibitions consolidation, where will Kerry Gumas end up after the expiry of his Questex advisory contract?
