Expomedia Group Expands

London-based Expomedia Group recently purchased Homebuyer Events. The acquisition is Expomedia's largest to date, and just the latest in a long string made in the last year.

"Homebuyer Events is the leading brand in its industry sector," said Mark Shashoua, CEO of Expomedia. "Due to the international base of the exhibition, we believe that these shows will be the foundation from which we can clone our shows into our core territories of Russia, India and Germany."

The Homebuyer Events brand encompasses five events: the Homebuyer Show at London's ExCeL in March; the Property Investor Show, at ExCeL in September, and launched in April of this year at the Natl. Exhibition Centre in Birmingham; and two other Homebuyer and Property Investor shows in Glasgow and Manchester. Another is planned for Leeds in 2008.

Expomedia has made several other acquisitions recently:

• The Spa Show, a U.K.-based consumer event, from Spa Shows. It will collocate with Expomedia's existing Body Beautiful Show.
• The World Food Market, held at London's ExCeL Centre for the ethnic food business, from Ithaca Media.
• ATS Events, which included the Daily Telegraph Travel & Sports Show, held at London's Earls Court and Olympia in January.
• U.K.- and Germany-based MacExpo, focusing on everything Mac and iPod-related.
• Russian conference company, BBPG.

Beyond the United Kingdom, and expansion into Russia — where in 1990 Shashoua also founded the ITE Group, the largest organizer in the country and valued at $1 billion — Expomedia has also branched out into other untapped markets, such as Poland, Hungary and India, under the banners of three of its business units: venues, Expo XXI; exhibitions, Expomedia Events; and conferences, Informedia.

"In each of these markets, we try to establish these business units and then look to clone either our own events or give access to international organizers to clone theirs through our venues," Shashoua said.

For example, MacExpo has a core international exhibitor base of companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Apple and Adobe, "clients that enjoy the MacExpo brand and want us to replicate this show into other growth markets for them," Shashoua said. "Therefore, we are now planning the Russian and Indian versions of this event for 2008."

Even with cloned events in the pipeline for Poland and Russia, India is the country with the most potential right now, according to Shashoua. "I believe that India represents the last great untapped market in the world in terms of the event business," he added. "China generated over $600 million in exhibition sales, and yet India only $60 million last year. This is truly a great opportunity."

In addition, the company is considering building venues in India because of what Shashoua called a "chronic shortage."

And don't expect Expomedia to be satisfied with all of its recent acquisitions. The firm appears poised for even more aggressive growth in the next few years, particularly in the conference and exhibition sector. "We currently have 400 conferences projected across the group for 2007 — we would be looking to increase that to over 1,000 conferences by 2010, and over 100 exhibitions," he said.