Easyfairs Eyes Questex; Trump Tariffs May Jeopardize Any Deal

Easyfairs, a European events organizer, nearly acquired Questex in April, but got cold feet due to Trump’s tariffs, multiple sources told A Media Operator.

This is the second time that Questex has come up for sale and seen a deal disappear at the last second. While the deal didn’t close, sources told AMO that it’s not dead, only on pause with the possibility to start dialogue again this summer.

“We will have a board meeting end of June again to discuss U.S. strategy,” Anne Lafère, Group Chief Executive Officer of Easyfairs, told AMO, confirming that Questex was on its list of possible acquisitions. “We definitely have not abandoned the U.S. Questex is, as other targets are, on the list.”

In an email to AMO, Paul Miller, CEO of Questex, said, “it’s flattering to hear these stories and speculation as we continue to focus on our growth trajectory. As you would expect, we get many inquiries about Questex, but it is our policy to not comment on deals or acquisition rumors.”

Questex is a media and events company that operates across healthcare & life sciences, hospitality, technology and wellness, largely in the U.S. Late last year, it was projecting finishing 2024 generating $112 million in revenue with $32 million in profit with events accounting for 73% of the business and digital the other 27%.

Bankers had expected that 2025 would be a robust year for M&A in events and media. So far, things remain relatively quiet, with fewer deals happening than even last year. Private equity firms have been holding onto companies for longer than usual, in part because the pandemic threw everyone for a loop and the events industry in particular on its head, and in part because of economic uncertainty—first with elevated interest rates and then U.S. President Donald Trump’s back and forth on tariffs and other issues.

In early 2024, Questex was in the latter rounds of selling itself with nine buyers interested, but the buyers, still risk averse due to elevated interest rates, couldn’t meet the price that Questex’s owner, MidOcean Partners wanted. MidOcean bought Questex in 2018. According to a source familiar with that MidOcean acquisition, Questex was generating more than $98 million in revenue with over $20 million in EBITDA.

Between that deal and this second attempt at selling, Questex has operated through a global pandemic and improved margins from about 20% to 28% with top line revenue growth. That growth doesn’t appear to be slowing down. In February, Miller told AMO that digital revenue was pacing 20% ahead of where Questex was in January 2024, with events pacing up 16% from a year ago. And in April, he reconfirmed saying:

As of right now, we are still pacing very strongly on the media business—a combination of content marketing programs and newsletter advertising—our Fierce products are on course for a record year as discussed earlier in the year and other markets holding up quite well to produce double digit growth on the whole.

For Easyfairs, this would have given it a strong platform to expand into the United States. In July 2024, Easyfairs completed strategic investments from Cobepa, a privately-held investment company, and Inflexion, a London-based private equity firm. PE Hub reported the deal was valued at over €600 million (~$650 million).

Through June 2024, recurring revenue totaled €260 million ($271 million) with an EBITDA of €52 million ($54 million). Easyfair’s Lafere told AMO in this week’s interview that revenue was up. “This last year, almost 14% organically, so double digit, of which 3, 4% are coming from launches, and then the rest through acquisition.”

The U.S. would add an entirely new growth lever for them. In January, Lafère told AMO that, “we would love to be more present in fast growing industry verticals like healthcare or tech, that would be great.”

Lafère reconfirmed that to AMO this week. 

“We are investing resources to actively do that [buy in the U.S.]. We want to go to the U.S., but we need to find the right moment and the right targets,” she said. The company has an M&A person in the United States screening for operations with a second M&A person based in Europe solely focused on the U.S. market.”

The problem is the current administration and the uncertainty tied to tariffs.

“What is happening in the U.S. right now with Trump [is] driving us a little bit crazy. I don’t know about you, but for us, it’s quite hard to follow. It’s true that the momentum is quite, quite hard to invest right now. It doesn’t prevent us to actively screen, but yeah, for our shareholders, private equity partners, we have to see what would be the effect of the tariffs,” Lafère told AMO.

While this deal could happen once things become clearer, Questex is also on the hunt for its own acquisitions. Last October, Questex’s Miller told AMO that he is looking to make some meaningful deals, either as bolt-ons or “widening the aperture into new markets.” At the time, he said:

If it’s a new market for us, we have to have a size play there. We have to be able to be influential. So that would probably mean tens of millions of revenue as an acquisition, rather than $2 million of revenue as an acquisition to a new market.

One banker told AMO that the reason Easyfairs ultimately didn’t acquire Questex was due to a valuation gap “by a few turns of EBITDA from what I understand.” However, this banker finished by saying: “if Clarion finally trades and for a high enough multiple, maybe will give someone else the confidence to give Questex what they are looking for.”

Clarion, owned by Blackstone since 2017, is currently going through a sales process. Bids for the events giant are due June 16, people familiar told AMO. That sale has also been delayed amid the Trumpian uncertainty.

Additional reporting by Christiana Sciaudone.