Inflexion, a leading European mid-market private equity firm, is pleased to announce it has agreed a minority Partnership Capital investment into Easyfairs, an international events company, together with Cobepa, a Brussels-based privately held investment firm, and Eric Everard, Founder. All three parties will be equally represented in the partnership.
Easyfairs organises 110 exhibitions in 12 countries in 12 industry verticals including packaging & logistics, manufacturing, industrial processing, hospitality and construction. It also manages eight event venues in Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden.
The investment will enable Easyfairs to drive faster organic growth through new event launches and geo-cloning of existing events, extend its geographic and sector footprint, enhance its position as a sector frontrunner in big data and artificial intelligence technologies, and unlock further strategic M&A opportunities. Inflexion brings strong industry experience through its previous successful investment in CloserStill Media which successfully completed eight acquisitions and increased international revenues 6x during Inflexion’s stewardship.
More than 25 years of own investment has grown Easyfairs from a small Belgian start-up to a place in the global top ten in our sector. Now is the time to write the next chapter in our history and push for a top five position with this exciting three-way partnership. I am thrilled to welcome Cobepa and Inflexion to be part of our success story, not least because they share our culture, values and vision, as well as bringing vast experience and expertise to the table.
Eric Everard, Founder and Group Chairman, Easyfairs
We have tracked the growth of Easyfairs for a number of years and have been impressed by its unique tech-enabled business model together with the excellent renewal rates and high levels of customer satisfaction. We look forward to working with the Founder and management team and using our strong industry experience to support Easyfairs execute its ambitious growth strategy.
