Informa Agrees to Buy ICE Owner Clarion Events From Blackstone for £2.24bn

The London-listed events group is paying 11.1 times Clarion's expected 2027 EBITDA, part-funded by a £940 million share placing. The gambling industry's largest trade show is about to pass from private equity to a listed owner that names gaming as a growth category.

• Informa plc agreed on 6 October to buy Clarion Events from Blackstone for an enterprise value of £2.24 billion in cash, 11.1 times Clarion's expected 2027 EBITDA, or about 9 times after £50 million of targeted cost savings
• Clarion's gaming business, which trades as WorldGaming, runs ICE Barcelona and the iGB brands including iGB Affiliate, and Informa names gaming as one of three "high growth strategic categories" the deal gives it scale in
• The deal is funded by acquisition financing and a placing and retail offer of about £940 million, roughly 9% of Informa's shares, with completion expected towards the end of the fourth quarter, subject to customary regulatory approvals
• Clarion is forecast to generate more than £575 million of revenue in 2027 at an adjusted operating margin above 30%, but neither company has disclosed how much of that comes from gaming
• Blackstone bought Clarion in 2017 for a reported £600 million and began sounding out buyers last year; Informa is also separating its academic publisher, Taylor & Francis

Informa Buys the Owner of ICE as It Prepares to Separate Taylor & Francis

Informa, the FTSE 100 business-to-business events and publishing group, announced on Tuesday 6 October that it will acquire Clarion Events from Blackstone at an enterprise value of £2.24 billion, a figure that includes some tax benefits, with the consideration paid in cash. Clarion, founded in 1947 and headquartered in the United Kingdom, owns more than 100 B2B event brands, according to Informa's company update. Eight are what Informa calls Marquee brands, with revenue above $30 million, and its ten largest category franchises account for two thirds of revenue.

Gaming is one of those franchises. Informa describes ICE as the "global leader" in gaming and says the deal gives it "immediate scale entry" into three high-growth categories: electronics, through IFA Berlin; defence and security, through DSEI; and gaming. Clarion's gaming division, formerly Clarion Gaming, now trades as WorldGaming. Its brands include ICE, the iGB Affiliate show and the trade publication iGaming Business. The next ICE is scheduled for 18 to 20 January 2027 at Fira Barcelona Gran Via, according to the event's website.

Alex Pratt, managing director of WorldGaming, called it a "big day", according to InterGame. "I joined iGamingBusiness in 2004. Seeing what we've built at WorldGaming recognised like this means a lot," he said, adding that Informa's "data, digital capability and international reach are exactly what our live and digital ecosystem needs to go further, faster." Clarion chief executive Lisa Hannant will stay in her role and join Informa's executive leadership team, and will roll part of her Clarion equity into Informa shares on completion, according to the announcement.

Informa has also launched a process to separate Taylor & Francis, its academic publisher, which it says is approaching $1 billion in revenue, and will report the outcome in March 2027.

The Price, the Placing and the Conditions

Informa puts the price at 11.1 times Clarion's expected 2027 EBITDA before synergies, about 9 times after the £50 million of annual cost synergies it has identified so far, and about 8 times if a targeted £25 million of extra operating profit from revenue synergies is included. On the headline multiple, that implies expected 2027 EBITDA of roughly £200 million, by iGaming Times' calculation. Clarion is forecast to generate more than £575 million of revenue in calendar 2027 at adjusted operating margins of more than 30%, a figure that includes about £100 million of extra revenue from biennial events that run in 2027. Informa expects a mid-single-digit uplift to adjusted diluted earnings per share in 2027 and a post-tax return on invested capital above 10% by 2029.

The cash comes from committed acquisition financing and an equity issue of about £940 million, roughly 9% of Informa's share capital: a non-pre-emptive placing through an accelerated bookbuild launched on Tuesday and led by Morgan Stanley, a retail offer through RetailBook, and up to £1.6 million from directors and executives. The placing price will be set when the bookbuild closes and had not been announced at the time of writing; Informa said its largest institutional shareholder intends to take part pro rata. The shares are issued under authorities granted at the June annual general meeting, and neither announcement refers to a shareholder vote on the deal. Informa is pausing its buyback and expects net debt to stay below 3 times EBITDA at the end of 2026. Completion is expected towards the end of the fourth quarter of 2026, "subject to customary regulatory approvals". Informa shares were up 3.9% at 895.4p by 09:30 BST, according to Sharecast.

Three Years of Change for ICE

Blackstone bought a majority of Clarion from funds managed by Providence Equity Partners in July 2017, in a deal reported at the time to be worth £600 million. In May 2025 reports said it was preparing a sale that could value Clarion at about £2 billion, with private equity firms including CVC, KKR, Ardian and Hillhouse approached. The buyer turned out to be a trade buyer. On the reported figures, Blackstone sells for more than three times what it paid, although an enterprise value and a reported deal value are not directly comparable. Its gambling exposure continues elsewhere: it became the largest shareholder in Lottomatica when the Italian operator absorbed Cirsa last month.

ICE itself has changed a great deal since then. Clarion announced in August 2023 that ICE and iGB Affiliate would leave ExCeL London for Fira de Barcelona on a five-year contract from 2025 to 2029, iGaming Business reported at the time. The first Barcelona edition ran in January 2025, putting the show in Spain, and the event's website now claims 65,000 attendees and more than 600 exhibitors. The move reshaped the calendar: SBC took its flagship conference from Barcelona to Lisbon from 2024, saying it had outgrown its Barcelona venue, and the SBC Summit was held there last week. In the United States, the Global Gaming Expo (G2E) is presented by the American Gaming Association and organised by RX.

Gaming Is a Growth Category for Informa, Not the Reason for the Deal

ICE is one of eight Marquee brands in a portfolio of more than 100, and Informa lists gaming third among the categories it is entering. That should simplify the competition review. Informa says Clarion "deepens" its existing positions in technology and energy, where both companies already run events, but it describes gaming as a new category, and it does not run a gambling trade show of its own, so the transaction moves ICE to a new owner without combining it with a rival. For exhibitors and delegates, little changes in the near term. Informa says the first three to six months after completion will be spent on "Delivery", operating to the plans and budgets already set for 2027, and ICE's January edition falls inside that window.

Informa's Playbook Points to More Revenue From Each Visitor

The synergy case shows what Informa wants from the brands it buys. It plans "international syndication and geo-adaptation" of brands into new regions, as it did with Money20/20 and LIONS, and points to the Middle East, where Clarion has "minimal presence". It also wants to sell lead generation, data services, sponsorship from outside each event's core industry and AI-driven products on top of exhibitor and delegate income, targeting £25 million of extra operating profit from new revenue by 2029. Informa has not said whether gaming is part of the regional plan. But in an events business revenue synergies are paid for mainly by exhibitors and sponsors, and gambling suppliers already split their budgets between ICE, SBC's events and G2E. Whether the extra revenue comes from services they value or from higher prices for space they already buy will decide how the industry sees its new owner.

In three years ICE has changed city, brand and, once the deal completes, owner. The January show will run to plans already set; what Informa does with the gaming brands after that is the part the industry should watch.