Europe’s premier gaming industry event organizer, best-known for the casino-focused ICE Totally Gaming show in London, has been sold to private investors for a reported US$300 million.
Providence Equity, US-based investors specializing in media, communications, education and information systems, reportedly beat out major names of the likes of Carlyle Group, Penton Media, ITE and Charterhouse Capital Partners to acquire Clarion Events.
UK-based Clarion, which produces more than 200 shows and conferences annually—including the European iGaming Congress and Expo and North America’s Global iGaming Summit and Expo—took control of ICE in 2004 after a $76 million buyout by British private equity interests at a time when the International Casino Exhibition, as it was known then, was an offshoot of a British amusement industry trade group.
ICE has grown exponentially under Clarion’s management and was moved in 2013 from its original home in an aging West London venue to the new ExCel Centre in the Docklands across town. Last year’s installment was the largest ever, attracting more than 23,000 attendees and 515 exhibitors from a record 156 countries, according to Clarion. Exhibition space covered more than 34,000 square meters.
Providence, based in the US state of Rhode Island and with offices in New York, Boston, London, New Delhi, Beijing and Hong Kong, claims more than $40 billion in assets under management and says it plans to invest strongly in its new acquisition.
