Informa, the Business Intelligence, Exhibitions, Events and Academic Publishing Group, is to acquire Penton, the independent US- based Exhibitions and Professional Information Services group, from MidOcean Partners and Wasserstein & Co for £1.18bn.
The Acquisition will be funded through a combination of new debt and equity, including a fully underwritten rights issue of one Rights Issue Shares at 441 pence each for every four Existing Informa Shares to raise £715m. The Sellers will receive £1,105m consideration in cash and £76m in new Informa equity with a holding period of up to one year. Within this, £6m is to be paid to the management of Penton who own shares in the New York-based Group.
Based on Penton’s results for the 12 months ended 30 June 20161, the Board consider that these results imply a trailing acquisition multiple of approximately 11x adjusted EBITDA.
The acquisition will create one of the world’s largest owner/operators of Exhibitions, Events and Conferences. On completion, Informa’s US business will account for 47% of annual pro-forma revenues. It will also mean that less than 10pc of Informa’s revenue will be earned in the UK.
Penton’s portfolio of around 30 Exhibitions includes brands in Natural Products & Food (Natural Products Expo), Agriculture (Farm Progress), TMT (IWCE), Infrastructure (WasteExpo) and Transportation (MRO Event Portfolio).
Additionally, Penton has more than 20 digital subscription data Brands in verticals including Infrastructure (Equipment Watch), Transportation (Aviation Week Intelligence Network) and Design & Manufacturing (SourceESB), and a portfolio of 100+ print and digital B2B insight products .
Stephen A. Carter, Group Chief Executive, said: “Today we are announcing continued progress on our Growth Acceleration Plan with the proposed addition of Penton Information Services. This combination will further strengthen our capabilities in Global Exhibitions and Business Intelligence and extend our US presence.”
ACQUISITION TIMETABLE
The acquisition is expected to complete by early November.
|
15 September 2016 |
Announcement date |
|
15 September 2016 |
Posting of Circular to shareholders and Prospectus published |
|
10 October 2016 |
General Meeting for Shareholders |
|
11 October 2016 |
Admission of Rights Issue Shares and dealings in Nil Paid Rights on the London Stock Exchange |
|
26 October 2016 |
Results of Rights Issue announced |
|
26 October 2016 |
Dealings in Rights Issue Shares, fully paid, commence on the London Stock Exchange |
|
November 2016 |
Expected date of completion |
UK, London & USA, New, York
Related articles:
Informa
- Progressive Digital Media Group completes the acquisition of Datamonitor Financial, Datamonitor Consumer, MarketLine and Verdict businesses from Informa Posted on September 1, 2015
- A Fusion Deal: UK Health IT exhibition EHealthLIVE sold to Informa PLC Posted on February 26, 2015
- Informa acquires a stake in Chinese company Baiwen Posted on November 27, 2013
- Informa completes the disposal of its five Corporate Training businesses Posted on October 1, 2013
- Informa disposes of its five corporate training businesses Posted on July 19, 2013
- Stephen Carter to replace Peter Rigby as Informa Group Chief Executive Posted on July 11, 2013
- Informa acquires Zephyr Associates for $62M Posted on October 16, 2012
Penton
- Penton Media acquires Farm Progress From Fairfax Media for $80M Posted on November 16, 2012
- Penton Media acquires Highline Posted on June 27, 2012
- Penton Media has acquired Nine Lives Media Posted on September 5, 2011
- Penton acquires EyeTraffic Media Posted on March 10, 2011
Fusion Corporate Partners 
You must be logged in to post a comment.