BtoB Media Business - March 2012 - (Page 19)

M&A Wheeling and dealing UBM maintains a robust M&A strategy, continuing string of recent acquisitions BY MATTHEW SCHWARTZ ANALYST INSIGHT Ed Fitzelle Managing Director, Whitestone Communications W hen UBM CEO David Levin spoke at DeSilva+Phillips’ annual media bankers conference last year, he said that from 2005 through the end of 2010 UBM had closed 80 bolt-on acquisitions. Despite the ecoonomic downturn and the slow recovery, UBM has remained one of the most active players on the media M&A front. The U.K.-based publisher continues to expand its portfolio by acquiring digital properties and events. The company last year made four acquisitions and has continued its deal-making this year. In late February UBM acquired four Asiabased trade shows. The total value of the deals was $30.8 million in cash plus potential earnouts of $7.0 million. The trade shows acquired are the Malaysian International Furniture Fair, the China International Exhibition & Symposium on Dental Equipment, Technology and Products (known as DenTech China), Renewable Energy India Expo and Airport Cities Exhibition & Conference. Earlier in February, UBM acquired the 4G World trade show. Last year’s 4G World generated about $3.2 million in revenue. The event will be one of the largest trade shows in UBM TechWeb’s events portfolio, which also includes Interop. In addition to this year’s Chicago show Oct. 29–Nov. 1, UBM will debut 4G World Asia in Singapore in May, said Berge Ayvazian, conference chairman of 4G World. “It’s a global platform, so we’ll be adding other venues and locations,” he said. “We’ll look to Europe and Latin America over time.” Ayvazian added that 4G World has synergies with Mobile Connect, which UBM TechWeb will introduce in June. “It’s a place we’re looking to collaborate on content,” he said. Also in February, UBM agreed to sell its U.K. agricultural and medical general practitioner businesses, which include the Farmers Guardian brands, to Briefing Media. The deal, expected to close this month, is valued at $15.8 million. The acquisition of 4G World picked up where UBM had left off in 2011. In November, UBM TechWeb acquired the Online Marketing Summit, a digital marketing event, from Online Marketing Connect. In August, UBM acquired International Business Events, which produces Ecobuild, a trade show focused on sustainable building products, in a deal valued at $51.0 million. “I would anticipate that UBM will continue with its strategy regardless of market conditions,” said Reed Phillips, managing partner at DeSilva+Phillips. “That doesn’t mean they’ve got their heads stuck in the sand, because [the company] is a much more worldwide organization than most b-to-b players in the U.S. So when they do acquisitions, they can be doing them in China, India and South America, where the markets are still frothy, and don’t necessarily have to do [deals in] markets that are challenged.” Strong outlook for dealmaking d Fitzelle is managing director at media investment bank Whitestone Communications. Media Business: Do you think the latest flurry in media deals will continue well into this year? Ed Fitzelle: I think it will for a couple of good reasons. One, buyers recognize that they can’t wait around any longer for things to come to them. If they’re going to grow, they need to start building again and putting in place the assets that will generate more cash flow and build up the scale that will improve the margins. Two, the business model has been sorted out. Sellers that have decreased their dependence on print and added many new lines of business—like sponsorships, conferences, training—are getting much more respect from buyers. MB: Is QuinStreet Inc.’s recent purchase of Ziff Davis Enterprise a harbinger of other major b-to-b media deals in which the buyer purchases just the publishing assets? Fitzelle: That’s going to happen. Everything has a life cycle. Product life cycles were accelerated by the onset of the digital age, so you will see more of that. A digitally oriented organization goes into some place like (ZDE) where an offshoot of the magazine publishing was data and customer lists and says, “Look, there’s real data in here, and there’s a database of customers. So let’s go get those, and we don’t need to continue the old model that was used to produce that data.” M&A E A roundup of recent mergers and acquisitions Date Property Description Seller R Financial Technologies Buyer S&P Capital IQ (McGraw-Hill Cos.) CFO Publishing M&A ACTION 2/12 R Financial Provider of risk and Technologies scenario-based analytics to traders, portfolios and risk managers Innovation Enterprise Group Airport Revenue News 1/12 Multichannel media Innovation Enbrand focused on finance, terprise Group strategy and planning for executives Magazine, trade show and data source for the airport industry Airport Revenue News 1/12 Urban Expositions Source: Jordan, Edmiston Group Transaction Database, 2012 mediabusinessonline.com | March 2012 | Media Business | 19 http://www.mediabusinessonline.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of BtoB Media Business - March 2012

BtoB Media Business - March 2012
Contents
Q&A with new Summit CEO Steve Weitzner
Publishers pursue revenue opportunities in mobile
Data immersion drives circulation management
Sales & Marketing
M&A
Events
People
The increasingly complex role of editors

BtoB Media Business - March 2012

https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb1112
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb1012
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0912
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0212
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0312
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0412
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0612
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0512
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb1111
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb1011
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0911
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0611
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0511
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0411
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0311
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0211
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb1210
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb1110
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb1010
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0710
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0610
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0510
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0410
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0310
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0210
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb1209
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb1109
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb1009
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0909
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0709
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0609
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0509
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0409
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0309
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0209
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb1208
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb1108
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb1008
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0908
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0708
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0608
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0508
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0408
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0308
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0208
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0108
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0707
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0607
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0507
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0407
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0307
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0207
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb0107
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crain/mb1206
https://www.nxtbookmedia.com