Forum Moderators: phranque
Jupitermedia Corp... Tuesday announced plans to sell its online news sites and a series of trade shows about search engine strategies for $43 million in cash. The buyer, London-based trade publisher Incisive Media plc, will be paying about one-time full 2004 revenues for the Jupitermedia assets. For calendar 2004, Jupitermedia reported $39.9 million in revenues for its online media and events divisions. The units generated $23.6 million in gross profits that year. The deal is the second major acquisition of an Internet-related conference and trade show business this year...The deal includes the Search Engine Strategies trade shows and the ClickZ.com Network of Web sites, including SearchEngineWatch.com.
:-)
brain dump:
Alan Meckler is one of the most savvy, experienced, and street wise internet CEO's in the business today. I would never under estimate or question his real "end game" solutions here. However, the above news is perplexing - not fully realized - nor digested yet. I can't help but think alan is holding another shoe in the air. Thoughts:
- why so cheap? 1x revenue!? That's not right - that's not right at all. Other trade shows are selling for 9-12x revenue [expoweb.com].
- $43 million? Pennies on the dollar.
I would put the true evaluation of SES at well over one hundred million. SEW.com with DS is itself worth $43million - let alone the whole ClickZ network.
If this stands without other "offerings", it will be the best internet deal since $83 a share for Google.
- Another London company aye?
Interesting...
- Does DS leave SearchEngineWatch? Or status quo under the new regime? What's his deal?
- What's it mean for SES?
New companies *always* meddle. argh - if it ain't broke - don't fix it.
- Who is the new company and what do they want with SES!?
- Does this include all the Jupiter conferences - or just ses?
- Then again, $43mil in cash would be hard to say no too.
If it is as you say, "New companies fix their purchases when they are not broke" - I'd be looking at this as a positive sign for WebmasterWorld conferences.
What does this change mean to WebmasterWorld? Good, bad? How do you see all this playing out in the short/long term for WebmasterWorld?
This will create some interesting buzz around the show next week.
- Does DS leave SearchEngineWatch? Or status quo under the new regime?
According to DS [forums.searchenginewatch.com], it's business as usual for SEW, perhaps with more development going into SEW in the future.
MG
[edited by: oddsod at 3:35 pm (utc) on Aug. 2, 2005]
Just a thought. Probably not well thought out.
$43 million still sounds too cheap. I wish I would have had an opportunity to put in a bid at those rates. But, these deals always seem weird and hard-too-understand to the outsiders. I think the most recent lesson [webmasterworld.com] in that was Noel. Everyone thought he sold too cheap and now it looks a whole lot different after the buyout [acxiom.com]. Don't get me wrong - I think it is great news and adds to the whole buzz about trade shows - which is good for everyone involved in conferences and trade shows. Lol
In publishing in the real world, it runs from 3x to as high as 7x (although that is rare).
When taking into account the profit from the business for purposes of calculating the business worth it's the net profit that matters. In fact, this price could really be 100x for all we know.
The units generated $23.6 million in gross profits that year.
Looks like about 2x of gross yearly profits.
The buyer, London-based trade publisher Incisive Media plc, will be paying about one-time full 2004 revenues for the Jupitermedia assets. For calendar 2004, Jupitermedia reported $39.9 million in revenues for its online media and events divisions. The units generated $23.6 million in gross profits that year.
That was last year - add 30%-40% for this year.
I think there is another shoe to drop in all this.
I dunno about that. I think oddsod is right. Many of us can post large revenue figures that may sound impressive, but know that what counts is the profit margin.
<edit out bad math>
[edited by: Kirby at 6:07 pm (utc) on Aug. 2, 2005]
as always, few free lunches around..
Expansion into international markets seems like it could lead to oversaturation of search conferences especially with a lot of the speakers (myself included) bopping all over the world to speak at these shows, it may be tough to find speakers that are a draw.
