Informa to Buy Clarion for £2.24 Billion, Separate Taylor & Francis

Investing.com·6 Oct 2026·Read original

0▲0 ▼0Impact / 5

Summary · why it matters

Informa announced Tuesday it will acquire events organizer Clarion from Blackstone for an enterprise value of £2.24 billion, or about $3 billion, and separate its Taylor & Francis academic publishing arm to focus on business-to-business events. The deal values Clarion at 11.1 times expected 2027 EBITDA, falling to about 9 times when £50 million of annual run-rate cost savings are included, and Informa expects it to lift adjusted diluted earnings per share by a mid-single-digit percentage in 2027, with a post-tax return on invested capital above 10% by 2029. Clarion owns more than 100 B2B event brands, including Germany's IFA consumer electronics show, the DSEI defense exhibition and the ICE gaming event in Barcelona, and is expected to generate revenue of more than £575 million in 2027 with adjusted operating margins above 30%. Informa said the combination would create the leading U.K.-listed B2B events operator, with group revenue above $6 billion and underlying growth of around 7%, and identified £25 million in additional operating profit from revenue synergies by 2029. The purchase will be funded with acquisition financing and a roughly £940 million equity raise, equal to about 9% of its share capital, consisting of an institutional placing and a retail offer, while the company pauses its share buyback; net debt to EBITDA is expected to stay below 3 times at year-end and fall below 2.5 times by the end of 2027, with completion expected late in the fourth quarter subject to regulatory approvals. Taylor & Francis, which has revenue approaching $1 billion and is growing about 4% a year, will go through a formal separation review, with the outcome reported alongside full-year results in March 2027; Informa did not say whether it favors a sale or a spin-off. Blackstone bought Clarion in 2017 from Providence Equity Partners for £600 million.