Informa to Acquire ICE Owner Clarion Events From Blackstone

Informa PLC has agreed to acquire Clarion Events, the UK-based owner of the ICE and IGB gaming event brands, from Blackstone for an enterprise value of £2.24 billion, the company said in a regulatory announcement released through the London Stock Exchange on 6 października 2026. The cash transaction is expected to complete toward the end of the fourth quarter of 2026, subject to customary regulatory approvals.

Group chief executive Stephen A. Carter said the pairing of the Clarion acquisition with a planned separation of the Taylor & Francis academic publishing business accelerates Informa’s focus on its core B2B operations.

“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%±,” Carter said.

Deal Terms and Financing

The £2.24 billion valuation, which Informa said includes some tax benefits, represents 11.1 times Clarion’s expected 2027 EBITDA, or around nine times including identified cost synergies and around eight times once targeted revenue synergies are included. The company forecast mid-single-digit adjusted diluted earnings-per-share enhancement in 2027 and a post-tax return on invested capital of more than 10% by 2029, the third full year of ownership, above its weighted average cost of capital.

The consideration will be funded through committed acquisition financing and the net proceeds of an equity placing of approximately £940 million, equal to about 9% of Informa’s issued ordinary share capital. The placing is structured as a non-pre-emptive accelerated bookbuild launched on 6 października 2026, with a separate offer to retail investors through the RetailBook platform, according to Informa’s investor page on the transaction. Informa will pause its share buyback programme to redirect capital to the deal, and expects pro-forma net debt to EBITDA to remain below three times at year-end 2026 before falling below 2.5 times by year-end 2027.

Informa’s executive directors and PLC board, including Chair-Elect Tom Glocer, have committed to participate in the placing, and the company’s largest institutional shareholder expressed support, the announcement said.

ICE, IGB and the Clarion Portfolio

Clarion, established in 1947 and headquartered in the UK, owns and operates more than 100 specialist B2B event brands. Its 10 largest category franchises account for two-thirds of revenues, spanning Electronics, Defence/Security, Gaming, Energy and Technology. Its gaming positions include ICE, held in Barcelona, and IGB. Other brands named in the announcement include IFA Berlin and Global Sources in electronics, DSEI and UDT in defence and security, Distributech and Infocast in energy, and ITC Vegas and Affiliate in technology. Informa described ICE as the global leader in its gaming category and IFA Berlin as the world’s largest consumer electronics event.

Informa expects Clarion to generate revenues above £575 million in calendar 2027 at adjusted operating margins above 30%, reflecting underlying growth of around 10% on annual events plus roughly £100 million of incremental year-on-year revenue from biennial events. Clarion’s underlying revenue growth has run ahead of the wider B2B events market over the last three years, according to the company.

The acquisition adds eight Marquee brands generating more than $30 million in annual revenue and eight Power Brands generating $10 million to $30 million, taking Informa’s combined portfolio of such brands above 100 and lifting the number of category franchises generating $50 million or more beyond 20, the company said. Post-completion, Informa’s B2B Live Events business will generate revenues above £4.2 billion ($5.7 billion) across roughly 1,000 specialist brands in more than 40 market categories and over 30 countries.

Synergies, Leadership and Taylor & Francis

Informa has identified annual run-rate operating synergies of around £50 million from operating-model efficiencies, procurement, shared services, event delivery and the removal of duplicated corporate costs. It is targeting about £25 million of additional operating profit from revenue synergies by 2029 through the international syndication and geo-adaptation of brands, an approach it said it applied to Money20/20 and LIONS after those acquisitions, and by extending its IIRIS first-party data platform across Clarion’s portfolio. About 25% of the full run rate is expected in the first full year of ownership, with one-off delivery costs of around £50 million.

On completion, Clarion will become an operating business within Informa under current chief executive Lisa Hannant, who will remain in the role, join the Informa Executive Leadership Team and roll over a portion of her Clarion equity into Informa equity. Informa said the first three to six months after completion will centre on delivery against committed 2027 plans and budgets before the businesses move to combine more fully.

Alongside the acquisition, Informa formally launched a separation process for Taylor & Francis, its Academic Markets business. Since joining Informa in 2004, the division has grown annual published articles nearly fivefold to more than 170,000, specialist reference titles fivefold to more than 185,000 and revenues fourfold to approaching $1 billion, with underlying growth of around 4%, the company said. It operates more than 2,700 peer-reviewed journals.

Informa also reaffirmed full-year 2026 guidance for underlying revenue growth of around 6% and double-digit growth in underlying earnings per share, citing more than $1 billion of fourth-quarter group revenues already booked and committed. The outcome of the Taylor & Francis review will be reported alongside the group’s 2026 full-year results in marzec 2027.