Informa and Clarion: What a £2.24bn Deal Means for the Events Industry
Last week, Grant Thornton Stax published its annual Top 20 organiser rankings, and it looks like its number one is only getting bigger, as today Informa announced its agreed acquisition of Clarion. According to the report, the Top 20 organisers brought in $11.7bn between them last year, increasing around 14% from the year prior. Informa was responsible for 65% of that rise, largely driven by its acquisition of Ascential, the business behind marketing festival Cannes Lions and fintech event Money20/20. Informa is already the leading industry powerhouse, but this £2.24bn deal will only accelerate its dominance.
Clarion itself is a major player in the industry, having secured third place in the Stax ranking and taken back its position from Messe Frankfurt. Its portfolio spans 125 brands across events and media, with headline names including IFA Berlin, one of the world’s biggest consumer electronics shows, gaming industry event ICE Barcelona and defence exhibition DSEI. Since its founding in 1947, Clarion has grown to around 2,000 people based across 12 countries, and today describes itself as “the world’s largest privately owned event and exhibition organiser”. Along the way, it has passed through several private equity owners, with Blackstone, a US investment firm, acquiring the business in 2017 from Providence Equity Partners, which had itself bought Clarion from Veronis Suhler Stevenson in 2015.
The deal is expected to complete late in Q4, once approvals are in place, with Lisa Hannant staying on as Clarion’s CEO and taking a seat on Informa’s executive team. Hannant will also be swapping some of her Clarion shares for Informa shares, signalling her confidence in the combined company’s continued growth. Speaking on the acquisition, Hannant touched on what Informa’s investment says about Clarion: “Informa’s decision to invest in Clarion is a recognition of the quality of our business, our brands and our people. […] Their passion, expertise and commitment have helped build the successful business that Informa is investing in today.”
Informa’s growth as a company has continually been fuelled by its acquisitions, with major deals over the past decade including Penton for £1.2bn in 2016, UBM for £3.9bn in 2018 and Ascential for approximately £1.2bn in 2024. Although the news may have caught some off guard, Informa’s interest in Clarion is no surprise when you look at the numbers, with Informa forecasting Clarion’s revenues to top £575m by 2027. According to Informa’s own announcement, its B2B live events business will bring in more than £4.2bn in revenue once Clarion joins, with a portfolio of around 1,000 brands in over 30 countries. Informa is also planning to separate Taylor & Francis, its academic publishing arm, which is nearing $1bn in revenue, and is still weighing up how best to do so, with a decision expected in March 2027.
The wider question this deal unearths is: who can compete? Informa already holds the top spot in the Stax ranking, with $3.7bn in revenue from exhibitions, and now stands to acquire one of its closest competitors. Second place belongs to RX, which is owned by FTSE 100 group RELX, with $1.6bn, less than half of Informa’s total. So, does any company other than RX have the scale to compete at the top, or will the gap only continue to grow?
According to the Stax report, a record six of the Top 20 are now in private equity hands: CloserStill, Easyfairs, Forge (formerly Emerald and Questex), Hyve, Infopro Digital and Clarion. With Clarion now set to leave Blackstone, the remaining five are becoming more obvious candidates for future deals, so before any of them can emerge as fierce competitors, could they too be absorbed into the Informa fold? It’s a question worth asking, but the answer may well be no. Private equity owners are investing more time in building rather than just buying to flip, with Dr Barış Onay’s analysis in Exhibition News showing that since 2023, owners have held on to events businesses for close to eight years on average, roughly double the three and a half years typical in the mid 2010s. If and when these businesses do change hands, they could just as easily sell to RX or another private equity buyer. For now, Informa’s lead is undeniable, but how the rest of the market responds will shape the industry for years to come.
Visit Jackson Barnes Recruitment’s website www.jbrecruitment.co.uk to learn more about how we connect top commercial talent with world-class media and events organisations.
About Jackson Barnes Recruitment
Jackson Barnes Recruitment delivers international recruitment solutions within the events, media, and publishing sectors. Jackson Barnes recruits Graduate to MD level in the following positions:
• Sales – delegate, sponsorship & Business Development
• Editor
We recruit for organisations in the UK and overseas, with success in London, Dubai, New York, Singapore and Australia.