Access Intelligence Is Back in (Show) Business
AI buys TradeFair Group, gaining five events and the execs to run them
By Heidi Genoist -- Tradeshow Week, 7/2/2007
Rockville, Md.-based Access Intelligence has acquired the Houston-based TradeFair Group from owners Sean Guerre and David Johnson.
The deal, which closed June 20, was the fourth in a little more than a year for Access Intelligence. It gets the business-to-business media firm that has focused mostly on publishing more seriously into the tradeshow game. It also expands AI's holdings in energy, a prominent sector in the company's portfolio.
"The acquisition of the TradeFair Group is a transformational event for Access Intelligence," said company President and CEO Don Pazour, who added that the deal had been in the works since he and Guerre talked about it at an industry meeting in December.
Terms were not disclosed.
Asked why he and Johnson decided to sell, Guerre said, "Basically, timing. The energy markets are doing well, our business is doing well, and the M&A market is doing well."
He added, "More importantly, it was a great fit. AI is building out their energy group, and we're growing in that sector."
Private equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson owns AI, whose properties prior to the TradeFair Group acquisition included dozens of multimedia publications for the aerospace, chemical, communications, defense, energy and satellite industries, as well as Satellite, a conference and exhibition that features approximately 250 exhibits and attracts some 8,000 satellite executives to the Washington (D.C.) Convention Center each winter. It is next scheduled Feb. 25–28.
Apart from that, however, AI events had included only high-level conferences until now.
With the addition of the TradeFair Group, AI has about a half-dozen tradeshows: the Clean series (Clean Atlantic, Clean Gulf and Clean Pacific), Electric Power and Industrial Fire & Security Conference & Exhibition/Industrial Safety & Response Expo. Further enhancing AI's chemical and energy holdings, the TradeFair Group also produces conferences and user-group events.
There's more to AI's bounty. Guerre, who remains president of now-AI subsidiary the TradeFair Group, also becomes a senior vice president at the corporate level, making him the company's top tradeshow executive. Guerre will report to Heather Farley, the division president who oversees AI's energy group, and he will maintain autonomy in running the firm's tradeshows out of his existing Houston office.
"I am particularly pleased to have a tradeshow executive of Sean's stature join our management team," Pazour said.
In addition to those events the TradeFair Group already has, Guerre and his team will also take over management of AI's recently acquired LDC Forum series and daratechPlant.
In fact, unlike most acquisitions, this deal will lead to an overall increase in staff, as Guerre hires personnel to transition management of the LDC and daratechPlant brands from their former owners to AI.
The new ownership not only frees the TradeFair Group staff to focus on running events, but also gives Guerre and Johnson, who will stay on board as a consultant, the freedom to fulfill their new corporate mandate: continue growing AI's chemical, energy, and safety and security business.
"As at most small companies, we (at the TradeFair Group) wear several hats," Guerre said. Gaining AI's infrastructure means that "some of our folks will be able to take off one of their least favorite hats. Human resources, invoicing, some of those things are going to be transitioning to AI headquarters in Rockville," he added.
It puts Guerre in a situation more typical to buyers than those being bought, Pazour added. Any integration issues will come from taking on the LDC Forum and daratechPlant businesses.
Pazour said he's excited to have a good tradeshow platform for expansion: "It's never been easy for me at AI to look at the big tradeshows and events and integrate them, but with Sean and his staff and infrastructure that will now be possible. ... When Sean and I look at all the possible acquisitions and launches, there is enough opportunity in energy and chemical to keep us busy for at least 12 to 18 months."
And then? Pazour added, "If I had an opportunity to buy something significant, say in the cable TV area, I wouldn't hesitate to do that and expand the market coverage of the group down in Houston."
