Three Companies Make Early Q2 Buys

Even though the mergers and acquisitions market in the second quarter has all but slowed to a crawl in the wake of a struggling economy, three companies – Hanley Wood, PennWell and Canon Communications– still managed to make buys in recent weeks.

Tough times in the residential building industry didn't put Hanley Wood's plans to buy more shows on hold. Instead, the company purchased The TFM Show, for senior facility management executives, from Group C Communications for an undisclosed amount.

“We are excited to add this event to our portfolio,” said Galen Poss, president of Hanley Wood Exhibitions. “As we continue to expand our reach to facility managers, it's a logical fit and blends well with our Construct event, its audience and extensive educational offerings.”

The TFM Show will be collocated for the first time with Construct and the CSI Annual Convention July 17-19, 2009, at the Indiana Convention Center & RCA Dome in Indianapolis.

Tom Cindric, Construct's show director, said, “We surveyed current TFM Show attendees and exhibitors about a collocation, and the positive results supported our decision to move forward with the acquisition.”

PennWell ponied up funds to buy U.K.-based Avionics Expo Limited, which owns and produces Avionics, a global conference and exhibition for civil and military aerospace electronics. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Avionics was most recently held May 5-6 at the Passenger Terminal in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and is scheduled March 4-5, also in Amsterdam.

According to PennWell President and CEO Robert F. Biolchini, Avionics was an attractive property because of its 30- to 50-percent annual growth over the past few years. “Avionics has become the premier platform for the global aviation industry to learn, network, source new partners and generally do business,” Biolchini said. “Its unique niche focus has been the reason why the avionics community has adopted it as their annual platform in Europe, rather than the more generic and broader aviation industry events.”

The acquisition of Avionics expands Tulsa (Okla.)-based PennWell's reach in the $8 billion market that it serves with its magazine Military & Aerospace Electronics and its annual tradeshow and conference, Military & Aerospace Electronics Forum, held May 11-12 in San Diego.

Canon scooped up yet another manufacturing event – Stamping Days, a semiannual exhibition serving the high-precision stamping technology industry in Germany – to add to its ever-growing portfolio.

Canon also announced it would move the show from its current location in Pforzeim to nearby Karlsruhe and collocate it May 26-28, 2009, with the company's other Germany-based shows, Interpart, Surfacts and MediPart.

“Through the collocation of the premier high-technology stamping exhibition with Interpart, Surfacts and MediPart, Southern Germany's leading precision parts and surface technology event will be a very attractive model to key decision-makers in the region's automotive, machine construction, watchmaking, electronics and medical device industries,” said Mark Temple-Smith, Canon's event director for Europe and Asia.