Informa is buying Blackstone-owned Clarion Events for £2.24bn and raising about £940m of new equity to help pay for it, and has paused its share buyback while the placing price is still to be set.
Informa (LON: INF), the events and information group behind Black Hat and CPHI, has agreed to buy Clarion Events from private equity firm Blackstone for an enterprise value of £2.24bn. Its shares were slightly lower in early trading today.
The stock was at 854.8p in a delayed quote at 8.11am, down 0.81% from yesterday’s close of 861.8p. That is 7.7% below the 925.8p close of the 14th of August, the highest of the past three months.
Clarion, a UK-based owner of more than 100 business-to-business live events brands including IFA Berlin, DSEI and ICE, is being bought for cash. Completion is expected towards the end of the fourth quarter, subject to approvals, and Clarion chief executive Lisa Hannant will stay and join Informa’s executive team.
Informa is raising about £940m through a placing and a retail offer, roughly 9% of its issued share capital. The placing is an accelerated bookbuild, a quick sale of new shares to institutions. The new shares dilute existing holders’ stakes, and the buyback is paused.
The price is 11.1x Clarion’s expected 2027 EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation), or about 9x including £50m of expected run-rate cost synergies. Informa expects a mid-single-digit boost to 2027 adjusted diluted earnings per share, against a 2025 base of 49p, and a post-tax return on invested capital above 10% by 2029. Net debt should be below 3x EBITDA by the end of 2026.
Stephen A. Carter, Informa’s Group Chief Executive, framed the deal as a step in scale:
The combination will underscore Informa as the UK-listed, international leader in B2B Live Events, with annual Group revenues exceeding $6bn and underlying revenue growth of 7%±.
Stephen A. Carter, Group Chief Executive, Informa
Clarion is expected to generate revenue of more than £575m in 2027 at adjusted operating margins above 30%, on the company’s own forecast. Informa’s largest institutional shareholder, which is unnamed, intends to take up its share of the placing.
The placing price and any discount are not yet known and are due when the bookbuild closes, expected by 6pm today. UK retail investors cannot join the placing and can take part only through a separate RetailBook offer.
