Industry giant Hanley Wood has announced that it will sell its exhibition business to U.K.-based Informa, the world’s largest publicly-owned conference and training events company, for $375 million. This is big news for the home and building products industries.

Nearly all of our clients exhibit at Hanley Wood shows, from AdvanTech Flooring and Cooper Lighting by Eaton to Dal-Tile Corporation and VELUX®. Wray Ward works with many of our clients on their presence at industry shows and events, and our team frequently attends as well.

We’ll be watching closely as the sale goes into effect toward the end of 2014, but here are my quick takes:

• Informa is experienced in a broad range of industries, but doesn’t have deep roots in the United States or in the home and building products categories. The establishment and nurturing of relationships early on in the process will be vital to the company’s success.
• Bringing in a company whose sole focus is event management to handle that aspect could facilitate the creation of new ideas and energy there and elsewhere.
• This should give Hanley Wood a golden opportunity to focus on some of its other core areas including information services.
• Most of the shift should appear seamless. However, any time you make a big change, it takes a lot of hard work—much of it behind the scenes—to reap the benefits.

We look forward to working with Hanley Wood and Informa on behalf of our clients in the home and building products industries.

If you’d like to talk more about this news, please contact me at kpanther@wrayward.com or leave a comment below.