After a year of industry disappointment at the apparent failure of the world’s fourth largest trade show organizer, Clarion Events, to find a buyer, this week’s sale of the 18-year-old CloserStill Media was welcome relief, to say the least. Some four years after the pandemic, it was affirmation of the value of B2B events and of their resurgence.
The fact that most bidders for the fast-growing UK company were US-based underlined not only the attraction of CloserStill’s 25% share (and rising) of American revenue but also the country’s appetite for trade show investments. This was reinforced by our own DealMakers’ disclosure that the US has accounted for almost 50% of events deals so far this year.
The fact that Searchlight Capital was acquiring an estimated 40% of CloserStill at an enterprise value of £1.35bn ($1.77bn), right at the top end of investor ambitions, spoke to the powerful support for trade show businesses from private equity firms, which dominated the auction process.
That’s why Searchlight and existing CloserStill pe owner Providence, which will equally own some 80% of CloserStill (and share admittedly less equal stakes at the Providence-controlled Hyve Group), agreed a valuation equivalent to 13x the £100mn of EBITDA expected (but likely to be exceeded) in 2026 and 16x the 2025 profit. The CloserStill management and staff have held 36% of the shares and are expected to continue to hold about 20% after the Searchlight investment.
That was how it became the second largest trade show deal, after Informa’s £4bn acquisition of UBM, back in 2018 – when CloserStill was a £50mn-revenue UK minnow.
Among the four bidders which (out of an initial six) made the second round of the auction, there was almost universal excitement about the company’s consistent growth rates and about how the 2026 result is expected (both by CloserStill managers and pe analysts) to be better than the £100mn EBITDA in the Information Memorandum, perhaps reaching even £115mn, as a result of the company’s (soon to be) seven booming data center events. We have assumed the revenue will be at least £105mn this year.
Some predict that 2027 revenue will again increase by at least 16% to some £330mn – even before the new owners encourage them to keep ticking off their acquisitions list. Two different pe firms enthused to Flashes & Flames about CloserStill’s organic development record (three of its five largest shows are home-grown) and about the 30 shows which have grown at a CAGR of 20%+ for the past four years.
The absence of serious trade bidders for CloserStill need not be surprising, even if RX was known to have been interested. Perhaps a 20% fall in the RELX parent share price in the past six months over AI fears (despite strong financials), would have rankled with investors if it had dared to pay £1bn+ for a mere trade show business.
Informa, which is preoccupied with the risk to its Middle East ambitions of the war with Iran, seemed distinctly uninterested in CloserStill. But some insiders suggested that the world’s largest trade show organiser might instead be more interested in acquiring Hyve Group (and its ShopTalk new wave events) as and when Providence/ Searchlight decide to sell.
The ‘new’ pe owners of CloserStill have, incidentally, been at pains to emphasize that they have no intention of bringing Hyve and CloserStill together. They will apparently remain separate businesses – albeit with the same pe ownership – at least for the foreseeable future.
| SnapShot CloserStill Media | |||
| £mn | 2026* | 2025* | 2024 |
| Rev | 285 | 245 | 200 |
| Growth | 16% | 23% | 39% |
| Ebitda | 105 | 80 | 63 |
| Margin | 37% | 33% | 32% |
| People | 950 | 890 | 720 |
