Informa to Buy Clarion for £2.24bn in ICE Deal

Key Points

• Informa is set to buy Clarion for £2.24bn, paying a pretty penny to get 11.1 times Clarion’s forecast 2027 profit which, incidentally, will get a nice boost from those biennial events. Informa reckon they’ll rake in £50m a year from synergies, which is roughly four times what they said they’d get after buying Ascential.
• Thousands of gamers descend on Barcelona every January for ICE. From now on, that’s going to be Informa’s show to run; they’ve agreed to buy Clarion Events (which owns the ICE and iGB brands through its gaming arm, WorldGaming) from Blackstone for £2.24bn in cash.
• But don’t get too excited, the sale isn’t done yet. Informa’s saying that they’re expecting completion towards the end of 2026, all being well with the regulatory approvals.

How Informa Managed to Raise the Cash in One Pretty Quick Move?

It all happened fast, with Informa putting their hands up and asking investors to cough up £940m in return for some new shares. And you know what? They were happy to oblige by selling the shares for about 860p each, which was only 0.2% off the previous day’s close. The speed and willingness of investors to get involved is telling.

The new shares account for about 8.7% of the company now the rest was covered by borrowing. Stephen Carter, the chief exec, was chuffed to bits saying how “great to see such a positive response” to the news and to avoid any financial shenanigans, Informa has temporarily paused its share buyback.

The market certainly liked the news at first, with shares up 3.9% by 9:30 am on Tuesday. But then things cooled down a bit, and by Wednesday, they were back to pre-deal levels. Dan Coatsworth at AJ Bell reckons without the academic publishing arm, Informa might become a ‘rollercoaster ride’ for shareholders.

Why You Should Take a Closer Look at Clarion’s 2027 Numbers?

Informa are valuing Clarion at 11.1 times its expected EBITDA (a measure of operating profit) in 2027. That works out to about £200m profit. But 2027 is a bit of a special year, revenue-wise, with about £100m extra coming in from biennial events.

Clarion’s £575m revenue forecast for 2027 is a pretty impressive number; they’re expecting a pretty big rise on their £432m revenue a year ago. And they’re only just getting started.

ICE and iGB After

In the short term, the news is positive for exhibitors because ICE will take place from 18 to 20 January 2027 at Fira Barcelona Gran Via as per Trade Show News Network. TSNN is actually part of Informa, yet another indicator of just how deep into the world of events the company goes.

According to Informa, in the first few months following the deal, the plan will be based on “Delivery” according to plans and budgets previously prepared for 2027. Lisa Hannant will remain Clarion’s CEO as well as becoming part of the leadership team at Informa.

The trade fair is relatively new to the location too. Clarion moved its event to Barcelona in August 2023 and signed a contract valid until 2029. As reported by WorldGaming managing director Alex Pratt in his conversation with InterGame, this was indeed “a big day.” He is confident that thanks to “data, digital capability and international reach” of Informa, the business will “go further, faster.”

Post-Delivery, Informa is planning a “Discovery” phase in order to work on merging the two organisations. The press release mentions lead generation, data services, non-endemic sponsorship, and hotel collaborations as some of the revenue streams. The press release also highlights India, the Middle East, and Africa as some areas with limited exposure for Clarion.

The £50m Synergy Target and the Ascential Lesson

It may be informative in light of this deal because Informa had one similar before. In connection with its plan to acquire Cannes Lions owner Ascential for £1.2bn in 2024, Informa’s Ascential offer document listed about £12m of annual cost synergies. Over 50% of those came from reductions in headcount of 6-8%.

For Clarion, which comes at less than double the cost, Informa estimates £50m of operating cost synergies annually. The sources include procurement, shared services, event delivery, and duplicative corporate cost savings for the group rather than Clarion alone. So far, there are no job cuts announced by Clarion.

This becomes especially relevant against the background of the quote made by Carter in 2024. At the time, he told reporters that Informa was acquiring Ascential for growth and “not for cost reduction”. Yet even such a growth strategy implied the job cuts within central teams.

Blackstone’s Long Journey to Sell the Company

Blackstone acquired Clarion from Providence Equity Partners in July 2017 for about £600m. At the time, Blackstone’s 2017 announcement mentioned 950 employees in 13 locations. Now, TSNN says that Clarion has 2,000 people in 12 countries.

Selling the company took several years. In 2024, Mergermarket reported that Blackstone conducted the first sale discussions in January 2020, just before the live events were shut down due to the virus. Then, in October 2020, Blackstone put in an additional $100m of capital to help Clarion survive the shutdown. After the sale process resumed in May 2025, the companies like CVC, KKR, Ardian, and Hillhouse became the targets of Blackstone. But the public company was chosen.

Although the £2.24bn enterprise value cannot be compared with the £600m reported in 2017, the difference tells a lot about the growth Clarion achieved under Blackstone. Blackstone’s global co-CIO Lionel Assant said to SiGMA that Informa “is the ideal partner for Clarion’s next chapter.”

Taylor & Francis Puts a Different Spin on Risk

As well as the Clarion agreement, Informa announced another change of strategy, which is shifting the company’s risk balance. It plans to spin off Taylor & Francis, its academic publishing unit, which is fast reaching $1bn in revenues. The decision will be made by March 2027, and after that time live events will be even more important.

Expert Opinion: Who Will Foot the Bill of Informa’s Growth Strategy?

We see it as a good deal for Informa shareholders, but a more difficult question is for the companies purchasing exhibition space at ICE. The reasons for this are Informa’s own figures, not any speculation. One part of the £50m target will be generated from the reduction of corporate duplications. According to us, the Ascential precedent shows that such reductions are felt first by central departments, but no cuts were announced by Clarion.

The revenue target is the area of potential disagreements. Informa plans to boost the sales of data, lead generation and sponsorship related to its events. Still, most of the gambling suppliers spread their event budgets among ICE, SBC Lisbon Summit, and G2E in Las Vegas. According to us, it is quite possible that the excess income will be achieved by the same exhibitors.

There is a transparency issue we cannot overlook. The investors were shown projections, margins and multiples, but nobody was told about the ICE earnings. ICE will remain important for the industry, but we expect that attendance will become more expensive. March 2027 will provide the first proof of this, as it is when the rate card for ICE 2028 will be issued.