McGraw-Hill Unit Powers Up Energy Portfolio

By Margo McCall -- Tradeshow Week, 5/31/2004

With the acquisition of 30 conferences, Platts, a division of The McGraw-Hill Cos., has added high wattage to its portfolio of energy events.

The conferences – covering such specific subjects as green power, micro-fuel cells and utility security – were owned by the Center for Business Intelligence, a Woburn, Mass., company that also produces events in the pharmaceutical and biotech, risk and insurance, and science proficiency sectors.

Platts each year holds about a dozen conferences, most of which include an expo component. Among the largest are the Global Power Markets Conference, scheduled for Oct. 11-12 in Houston; and Coal Marketing Days, planned for Pittsburgh, Sept. 20-21.

In addition, Platts produces a number of summits, such as the E Source Distributed Energy Summit, which was part of the 2001 acquisition of the Boulder, Colo.-based Financial Times Energy.

The CBI events, launched in 1995, are more focused on hot topics. "The acquisition will work well in conjunction with our larger annual conferences," said Platts spokesman Jim Keener. "What they bring is a model that has greater flexibility, which is suited to the energy market, which is constantly changing."

The CBI events typically have short lead times. In contrast, the Platts events are larger and produced annually. Ten CBI employees will join Platts to handle the CBI energy events. Keener said there's little overlap among the companies' conference customers.

"The combination will serve as a platform for future growth in both conferences and with other products. We see CBI events as serving as good feeders to our existing events," he said.

Events are only one component of Platts, which bills itself as the world's largest energy information provider. Its main revenues stem from production of 60 newsletters, dozens of wall maps, seven real-time services, six database products, four magazines and a number of research services.

CBI plans to continue producing conferences in its other sectors.