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Chairman
Roger Gilbert
Managing Director
Mike Cooke
Worldwide
The
company maintains its worldwide presence through more than 30
offices around the world in England, France, Dubai, Canada, the
United States, Argentina, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand. |
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dmg world media is one of the
world's leading international exhibition companies. We aim to be
our customers' first choice, helping them to do business together
and make informed choices through our range of exhibitions and related
print and new media products. We organise more than 300 market leading
trade exhibitions, consumer shows and fairs around the world, supported
by 85 related magazines, newspapers, directories, market reports
and industry databases.
dmg world media, the Group's exhibition division, had an excellent
year and improved its adjusted operating profit by 44% on turnover
up 5%. 2002 was a year of consolidation, rationalisation and tight
cost control, but not at the expense of developing the underlying
business, which continued to show strong revenue and profit growth.
All in all, 2002 was an important year for dmg world media. One
of its major priorities was to integrate the twelve acquisitions
that had been made in the previous year and to concentrate on managing
three new investments, with which it formed business partnerships.
These were George Little Management, Western Exhibitors and Whereoware.
2002 also marked a change in dmg world media's growth strategy away
from being highly acquisitive and towards rationalising and investing
in its existing business to encourage organic growth. dmg world
media successfully launched a number of new events this year, of
which all but one will be held again next year.
These included a new home show in Palm Beach, Florida, an office
equipment show in Dubai, an antiques fair in Cagnes sur Mer (France),
a fine art fair in New York and a Mind, Body and Spirit Show in
Adelaide, Australia. The events of 11th September, 2001 had an immediate
adverse impact at the beginning of the 2002 financial year. However,
dmg world media's strategy has been to concentrate on developing
customer value and focusing the business on building market-leading
products in exhibition-led market places where customers rely on
exhibitions as a place to trade. This has meant that despite September
11th and a sluggish economy in the company's main market, North
America, demand for exhibitor space has remained strong. This is
also due to the strength of exhibitions as a medium. Exhibitions
have much longer cycles than most other media, which allow them
to weather short term economic downturns. Almost a half of dmg world
media's revenue is now generated in North America, with the balance
coming from the UK, France, Australia, New Zealand, UAE and Brazil.
This strong mix of revenues from different regions combined with
a mix of different revenue streams, from exhibition stand sales,
advertising, on-line revenue, and growing visitor and reader revenues
has been behind the company's resilience in the face of difficult
market conditions. dmg world media operates predominantly in the
B2B and B2C products sector. The fact that consumer spending has
remained strong in most markets over the last year has enabled the
company to produce some of its largest shows ever. These include
the Index and Big 5 shows in Dubai, Surfexpo in Orlando, the California
Gift Show in Los Angeles and the Daily Mail Ideal Home Show in London.
The collapse of the Argentine economy early in 2002 decimated the
country's exhibition industry. A decision to exit our operations
in Argentina before the collapse and an exit from one of two Brazilian
businesses was made at the same time. As a result of exiting loss-making
businesses, the Latin American operations produced strong year-on-year
growth in 2002.
dmg world media's on-line strategy has been to develop and provide
additional value and services to its existing customers, only scaling
up as demand requires. Whereoware is a good example of this strategy,
serving customers in the gift and home accessories markets where
we already have considerable customer contact. dmg world media is
forecasting continued strong underlying growth in 2003, but underlying
profits are projected to be lower next year as many large non-annual
shows, such as the Global Petroleum Show and Metals Engineering,
do not take place in 2003. dmg world media now has a world-class
platform of market leading trade shows and complementary media from
which to continue growing the business organically. Its focus in
the coming year will be on stepping up its launch programme and
continuing to invest in its products and service quality to produce
long-term sustainable growth. |
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