In my last column I said that anyone who isn’t yet in Turkey is too late and recent activities only serve to underline how true this is. Last October saw two more acquisitions of local companies involving the two international companies first on the scene in the early 2000’s as they further consolidate their market share.
Hannover Messe, through their Turkish subsidiary Hannover Fairs Turkey, has acquired a majority stake in Sektorel, organiser of ICCI – the market-leading power generation exhibition and conference.
In the same week ITE acquired Platform, the company that owns Beauty Eurasia. ITE has acquired a number of Beauty shows recently – Intercharn and Estet Beauty in the Ukraine and CosmoBeaute in Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam through their acquisition of ECMI.
The Turkish tax laws are changing from the beginning of 2014 and profits from the sale of shares will now be taxed whereas up until now these transactions were tax-free after a qualifying period of ownership. This has prompted a flurry of activity for deals to be completed before the end of the year, speeding up the internationalisation process. We expect at least two more acquisitions between now and the end of the year.
For the last month I have been working in South East Asia and China – both on existing projects and also meeting independent organisers who want to find an international partner. Most good businesses have been approached by one or more international organisers and, when we have been discussing potential partners for their businesses, a number of Chinese organisers have made the same very interesting and unprompted comment. They prefer to find a partner who either isn’t yet in China or who has a limited number of existing partnerships. Their rationale is that they don’t want to be “yet another joint venture” with a large international organiser because they feel they wouldn’t be given enough attention. They don’t place a lot of value on a large number of shows worldwide or promises of an international sales network. Much greater emphasis is being placed on personal relationships than corporate power.
We had the same situation with one of our Turkish clients recently who complained to us that the first thing that one prospective purchaser did when they met for the first time was to open up a Powerpoint presentation about the strength of their worldwide network rather than talking about what the seller wanted. It is also clear that the local organisers talk amongst themselves and share their experiences of existing partnerships and, if they feel that the joint venture is not fulfilling their expectation, word gets around quickly.
It seems that a different approach may be needed as big is not considered beautiful any more.
This was first published in issue 4/2013 of EW. Any comments? Email exhibitionworld@mashmedia.net
