Events. The A$4.2bn ‘merger’ of Australia’s Nine Entertainment and Fairfax Media to form the country’s largest media group – embracing everything from network TV, to streaming, digital classifieds, radio and news brands – is almost certain to get approval from the competition authorities in November. The recent change of Prime Minister from Malcolm Turnbull (who had explicitly supported the deal) to his same-party rival Scott Morrison has made the dealmakers nervous. But nobody expects Australia’s first mega-media deal to be blocked, not least because the industry’s other large players, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and Kerry Stokes’ Seven West, have deals of their own to push through the newly relaxed media ownership laws. But many companies are picking through the detail to find Fairfax divisions that Nine may not want. The first of these may well be Fairfax Events which organises Sydney’s brilliant City2Surf race, the Night Noodle Markets, and the country’s open-air movies. First to show an interest in the $70m-revenue division – which is said to make EBITDA profit of some A$10m – was the three-year-old, Denver-based Motiv Sports. The call was unsolicited but unsurprising to Fairfax since it came courtesy of Sarah Pohlman who used to manage the business before joining Motiv, which organises Blackmore’s Sydney Running Festival. Motiv Sports self-describes as “an active lifestyle and entertainment company focused on delivering authentic and immersive live and digital experiences”. It currently operates some 40 running and multi-sport events in the US, Canada, Australia and the UK. The interesting thing is that such headlining events, which are growing everywhere on the back of encouragement by tourist, media and health -conscious governments, mostly operate well beyond the orbit of the exhibitions companies which have all the infrastructure, skills and connections needed for what might be neat diversification. Given the local estimate that the Fairfax Events business is being valued at only 6x EBITA (compared with at least double that for exhibitions), we know some people who should get with the program.
Motiv
