Terrapinn, the London-based events company, has acquired the privately-owned Essential Infrastructure Events, operator of Highways UK. The annual show was launched in 2015 and claimed to have attracted 6k visitors and 170 exhibitors to the NEC in November. The attendance was claimed to be 40% up on 2018.
Terrapinn’s complementary global portfolio includes: Roads and Traffic Expo in Australia, the Philippines, Thailand, and in North Africa. Terms were not disclosed. Terrapinn’s main UK-based operations (registered in Jersey, in the UK Channel Islands) had 2018 revenue of £19.9m and operating profit of £4.2m – 17% and 20% respectively ahead of 2017. Some 75% of the revenue was from outside the UK. In 2013, the company had revenue of only £2m and was loss-making.
Terrapinn’s Australian parent is forecasting total global revenues of some US$100m for 2020. The company employs about 400 people and operates 90 events across the world.
Terrapinn has been operating for some 30 years from offices in London, New York, Dubai and Johannesburg, and has events across telecoms, aviation, energy, transport, retail, health, finance and tech.
Group CEO Greg Hitchen has been with the company for more than 30 years having joined as a conference producer in Sydney in the days when it was primarily a publishing company with just four people managing ancillary events.
By 1995, Terrapinn was a conference and training company organising 1,500 events and hundreds of training programmes – before the expansion into exhibitions.
In January 2018, Terrapinn UK acquired Science Media Partners for £4m. The company was focused on “next-generation government, citizen and consumer-based identity solutions”.
Terrapinn’s principal events and publishing are operated under a licence from Terrapinn Holdings Pty Ltd, in Australia. The Sydney-based Tony Steel is chairman, founder and majority owner of the company (once known as AiC Worldwide).
