The listed Emerald Holding Inc, the largest US-owned B2B exhibitions company, has acquired MJBiz, a cannabis industry content and event company for a total price that may reach $170m – some 60% of its market cap.
MJBiz was founded in 2011 and produces the MJBizCon B2B event and several news titles including mjbizdaily.com. It had revenues of $27m in 2021. Its key event claimed 27k attendees (18k paid) and 1,200 exhibitors.
Emerald Holding has paid an initial consideration of $120m with earnout potential of $30-50m, said to be: equal to the EBITDA growth of MJBiz – calculated as the average MJBiz EBITDA in 2020 and 2021 less $13m – multiplied by 9.3. It is assumed that the upfront payment is based on that same 9.3 x EBITDA multiple.
Emerald’s largest shareholder is the Toronto-based Onex Corp. Its market cap is currently $276m.
