Ocean Media Group, of the UK, exhibition organiser and publisher of: Housing, National Wedding Show, Venue & Events Live, The Flooring Show, and The Stationery Show, is to be sold by its private equity majority owner, Lonsdale Capital Partners. Lonsdale had acquired the company from Dublin-based Ion Equity in 2015.
The 37-year-old London company made EBITDA of £2.3m on revenue of £17.6m in 2017. The company’s current revenue, including recent acquisitions, may be closer to £30m. It is believed the housing portfolio accounts for almost 50% of the revenue. It includes the Inside Housing publication (said to have more than 22,000 subscribers), and Housing which is claimed to be Europe’s largest housing event with 300 exhibitors, 1,000 conference delegates, and 8,000 visitors.
It is reported that 2018 attempts to sell the company had failed to attract acceptable bids, which has prompted the decision to sell the B2B housing portfolio separately from the primarily consumer events. But, given the mix of publishing and events in some of the sectors, it is believed that some prospective buyers (including publishers like Immediate Media and Hearst UK which have been acquiring and launching specialist exhibitions) may seek to cherry-pick the assets rather than buy the whole portfolio.
Ocean Media was established in 2006 by David Moran and Dublin-based investor Ion Equity to acquire the exhibitions and magazines businesses of Trinity Mirror for £41.5m. The group was subsequently sold, in 2007, to an MBI team for a valuation of £104m. In 2012, Moran and Ion Equity came back to buy the business again before Ion flipped its stake to Lonsdale. Phew.
