It’s eight months since President Trump declared his Liberation Day wave of tariffs or sanctions on many US trading partners including China, Canada and the EU. The potential disruption had a real impact on the events industry because insiders have blamed it for Blackstone’s failure to find a $2bn buyer for Clarion Events, the world’s largest trade show organiser, not least because of its Hong Kong-based Global Sources subsidiary.
What would have been the largest trade show deal since Informa bought UBM in 2018, might also have been expected to impact a string of other would-be transactions, including CloserStill, of the UK, which – after waiting for the Clarion dust to settle – is now expected to be be sold early in 2026.
The fallout from April’s Liberation Day also helped to frustrate the prospective sale of Questex, the $120mn-revenue, US-based events and information group to Easyfairs, the pan-European trade show organiser.
In a relatively unusual disclosure, Easyfairs group CEO Anne Lafère had confirmed the negotiations and was reported as saying: “We definitely have not abandoned the US. Questex is, as other targets are, on the list.” Her comment (including the eyecatching admission that the Trump administration was “driving us a little bit crazy”) came after months-long talks had been suspended, prompting speculation that they would resume in the summer. But the process didn’t resume and Easyfairs has, instead, made two cherry-pick trade show acquisitions in chemicals and energy as its promised entry into the US market.
Unresolved contractual issues had included Questex’s contested $400-500mn valuation. But insiders believe that, if a Clarion deal had been achieved, it might have reassured Easyfairs shareholders, including cautious founder Eric Everard. Liberation Day was a real double whammy.
Easyfairs may now have moved on from a prospective deal which would have retained the Questex management, under CEO Paul Miller, to spearhead its US strategy. Transatlantic expansion has been a key objective for the private equity firms which last year bought a majority of the European trade show organiser at a value of some €600mn.
It’s easy to understand why Easyfairs would want the management team which has transformed the private equity-owned Questex during the last seven years. But, although Questex seemed a reasonable level of investment as a US beachhead for Easyfairs, the business itself never really seemed a perfect fit for the trade show pureplay.
It’s true that Questex is primarily an events company (accounting for 70% of revenue) but just 10% of its portfolio comprises five trade shows. The large majority of its events are ‘confexes’ – and then there is the 30% of revenue from newsletters and information services. Its strategy has been to integrate its products and services in each of its four sectors: Life Sciences/ Healthcare and Hospitality, together accounting for 70% of revenue and Wellness and Experiential Technology for the rest.
In 2024, almost 30% of revenue had been accounted for by: International Hospitality Investment Forum (IHIF), in Berlin ($9mn), and the Bar & Restaurant Expo, Digital Pharma Week, Live Design International, and the International Beauty Show/ IECSC (each generating over $5mn). But the hospitality events, in particular, have been dented in 2025 – by the US disruptions in travel and trade.
Recent organic development highlights have included the 2024 launch of a TV streaming event which reached $3mn revenue this year and is expecting $5mn next. The company’s pharmaceutical conference is believed to have had revenue in 2025 of $10.5mn – more than 5x that in 2018.
Significantly, the Questex revenue divides between: exhibition space and event sponsorship (55%), digital newsletters (25%) and visitor/delegates (20%). It’s genuinely multi-channel and CEO Miller (ex UBM and Penton) is committed to building both information and events products. He is also keener on hybrid confex events than mainstream trade shows – which might produce differing valuations especially by pureplay trade show organisers like Easyfairs.
In many ways, the Questex distinctiveness stems from the digital revenue generated by its Fierce Markets whose Life Sciences and tech newsletters and account for some $30mn – more than doubled since 2019. But its sheer level of innovation and new launches (more than a dozen new brands in the last few years) is fed by its strong centralisation of databases, audience management and systems, with relatively small but focused brand teams.
The $25mn revenue from delegates (all of whom pay to attend Questex events) may be one key to the company’s future growth. Could it turn these payments (sometimes up to $4k each) into high-value subscriptions (recurring revenues) by bundling them with market information and stats?
The financials for 2025 (according to Miller, a “good year not a great one”) are expected to show 10% revenue growth but next year may reach 17%, the best for three years. The EBITDA margin is expected to remain steady at 28%, compared with 20% in pre-pandemic 2019.
| SnapShot Questex LLC | |||
| $mn | 2026* | 2025 | 2024 |
| Rev | 140 | 120 | 109 |
| Ebitda | 39 | 34 | 31 |
| Margin | 28% | 28% | 28% |
| People | 290 | 285 | |
Revenue is now 85% from the US, with Europe (12%) and Asia (3%).
Questex had been co-founded in 2005 by former Reed and Advanstar executive Kerry Gumas. In 2009, in the wake of the global banking crisis, it was bankrupt and acquired by its lenders. After almost a decade in financial rehab, it was acquired in 2018 by MidOcean private equity for an estimated $180mn. It is believed that the company’s acquisition spend has totalled some $30mn in the last six years.
Paul Miller was apppointed in 2018 at almost the same time as his former employer UBM (which had previously ditched even complementary B2B information services and magazines to concentrate on events) was snapped up by Informa. He had been convinced then (and still is now) that the integration of events and information services not only helps to strengthen customer relationships but also aids the development of new-style events in a changing world.
The strategy had been endorsed by David Kieselstein, chair of MidOcean’s private equity board and a former CEO of Penton Media, who became chair of the Questex board. Penton itself had been a MidOcean portfolio company, led by Kieselstein, until late 2016 when it was sold to Informa for $1.6bn as the UK listed company began its exhibition acquisitions. He said: “As opposed to narrowcast events-only businesses, MidOcean believes in the value of surrounding a market with integrated event and media assets. We focus on the customer journey, from discovery and awareness through to consideration and purchase, and the breadth of Questex’s assets in each of their markets allows them to support both their audience and marketers through each step of the journey.”
The expected sale of Questex will have been delayed by Covid and also by the failure of a transaction in 2023-4. But the pe owners had good reason to feel reassured about their multichannel strategy during the pandemic paralysis of events, even though the mixed portfolio may have affected valuations – including by Easyfairs.
But Paul Miller is convinced that his strategy is made for the times: “Well, we’ve doubled the business in seven years from $65mn to $130mn. Some 90% of that is organic growth. I would say almost all of it can be attributed to our integrated business model which has helped us be close to our customers and using that data to to be data-informed and drive a better event experience. At its best, it really, really sings. Our people know what’s going on deep in their markets because that’s our business.”
But he believes there is even more power in the model as trade shows seek to meet the changing requirements of a new generation of B2B customers: “Today, for the first time, there are four generations attending an event at the same time. You’ve got people like me from the baby boomer generation who have been brought up on: I book my flight, I book my hotel, I pay my money, and I turn up at the Frankfurt Messe, and look for the guidebook. But my 25-year-old, who has just started work, wants her agenda to be delivered. She wants to make sure there’s some fun and Instagram-able moments so she can tell her friends, “Look, I’m having fun at work”. She wants to be helped with networking. She doesn’t want to just go there and find people. And she even wants to be helped with the serendipity. She’s saying, “Look, I don’t want to just walk into a bar. I actually want somebody to tell me that, Hey, anybody wearing a yellow badge like mine is interested in the same stuff as me.”
Warming to his theme, Miller adds: “Tech is in the events industry like never before. Covid opened the door to tech and, although companies like Hopin failed and proved that you really can’t emulate face-to-face online, it showed the tech companies that ‘these guys are working on 35% EBITDA margins. We can disrupt this a little bit’. Now, you get a slight disruption, then you can start to individualise experiences for people. I don’t come from an events background but from B2B media. Over the last three decades, as I’ve been introduced to events, I always found that there was an intellectual laziness. It was all too easy.”
Its tech innovation award by trade show body UFI for its Q-activate framework was a good illustration of how Questex equips its people and their customers: “What it does, very simply, is it says, ‘Hey, you’ve been reading about how to launch a clinical trial in the oncology marketplace, specifically particularly around spinal cancer for the past six weeks.’ The data is all there in the background. We then say: ‘you probably ought to come to the spinal oncology track at our conference in two weeks’ We then give the customer information a series of things they can do and special people they can meet. It’s all a lot more subtle and useful than ‘Why not come to the show’. This is all about getting close to and understanding the customer and, therefore, maximising the benefit for them.
“It’s an approach that, inevitably, appeals to the CMOs who have started to realise that, in a world of AI, the face-to-face event is a great place to build trusted brand environments. They are now starting to say, ‘We’ve got to increase our investment on events’. But that comes with a requirement to prove the RoI. That’s why technology is becoming so important to events.”
The Questex CEO makes a persuasive case for how – beyond the mere tide of festivalisation – classic trade shows must comprehensively adapt to the changing appetites of younger audiences, along with the application of smart technology to create year-round dependency.
Beyond the transient politics, only time will tell whether it was the US company’s integrated approach to events and information services that most attracted – or even slightly worried – the pureplay Easyfairs. What will happen in 2026 if/when Questex achieves its expected record growth and the eight-year pe owners get more flexible on price and equity?
