The Financial Times (FT) of London has reported at least 500 staff have already left Reed Exhibitions or will be gone by the end of the year.
The world’s second largest exhibition organiser, Reed Exhibitions’ redundancy programme can be seen as a result of the industry’s slow recovery from the pandemic.
Reed Exhibitions gave EW the following statement: “The many thousands of employees at Reed Exhibitions remain committed to all the sectors and geographies in which we operate, and we look forward to launching hundreds of exhibitions worldwide as soon as it becomes possible. As a responsible company, we are implementing necessary cost reductions across our global organisation, and in 2021 are looking to run at least 90% of the annual events by revenue that we ran in 2019.”
The FT quoted sources claiming chief executive of Reed’s UK business and its regional head of finance could be among the senior executives who are set to leave, with other executive roles to be merged.
Parent company Relx told analysts in October that it was looking to cut costs at Reed Exhibitions – which last year delivered 16% of the group’s revenues - by around £100m (US$133.2m). The FT estimated that this year’s revenues could come in as low as £330m, compared with £1.3bn last year.
Photo: Reed Exhibitions CEO Hugh Jones