Emap’s Malaysian exhibition postponed

News this week: The EMAP-Brooks joint venture has announced the postponement of its inaugural Asia edition of education and technology exhibition, BETT Asia. Originally scheduled to run 8^th to 9^th November this year at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre (KLCC), the event has now been pushed back towards the end of 2012.

EMAP-Brooks International is a joint venture company between U.K.-based Emap and Mac Brooks. The company was set-up in June this year. The launch of BETT Asia was first announced in July. The original BETT exhibition has been a regular feature in London since 1987.

Managing director of Emap Paul Dunne attributed the postponement of BETT Asia to exhibitor issues with the short launch cycle.

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Living in 2 worlds

The UK Press Gazette reports on EMAPs failure to sell its B2B division for GBP1.3 bn. "Why was no one willing to pay EMAP's fair price?" they ask. The article goes on "One anonymous source told The Times that Emap’s asking price was “much higher” than it expected".

EMAP's B2B division, it says, "routinely generates 30 per cent operating margins [and] isn’t a visibly troubled business". The valuation basis? "Emap valued its B2B arm at 11 times its forecast earnings for the year to next March. That’s not so different from the valuations attached by investors to its rivals".

If that's considered high, what then are we to make of a market which currently values Alibaba at 207 times its 2007 forecast earnings? Yes, the China market is growing faster than EMAPs home market and Alibaba is not burdened with the legacy of advertising-dependent magazines. But surely, Global Sources' valuation which today sits at a p.e. of 37.95 (US$1.17bn) reflects that more reasonably?

I'm sure my friends at Alibaba feel that we're being unfair to them. Our posts have focused on this issue for a while. If the market's willing to value their shares at this price, so what? Fair point perhaps. But, unless a vast array of other B2C Internet businesses are injected into the Alibaba listed company or some suprising acquisitions are made elsewhere in the world (they can afford it), it's hard to see anything other than under-performance down the road for those investors who have bet big on the giant of China B2B.

Not much of EMAP in Asia

I see from the FT (and heard David Levin refer to it in United Business Media's analyst briefing) that EMAP has put itself in play. The B2B division is primarily a UK business with a healthy exhibitions division.

You have to look fairly hard to come across any Asian activity at all. There is a license in Singapore for Asian Plastics News, formerly an EMAP title. Nothing too exciting there for EMAP buyers. In fact, Crain just acquired the European end of this including the PRW.com news site. So, I suppose it's not even a vague EMAP connection any more.

More intriguing is the Worth Global Style Network (WGSN). This is actually a London-based business and describes itself as "the leading international online source of fashion and apparel intelligence in the retail sector, delivering high value information on trends from the latest catwalks, major trade shows, street fashion and retail storefronts". There are obviously strong Asian elements to this business and WGSN has offices in offices in Hong Kong, Seoul, Melbourne and Tokyo. It will be interesting to watch who gets their hands on this.

Update: My good friend Bob Grace over at Crain's Plastics News tells me that the PRW.com link I included above is a dud. Try this one for the news on their acquisition of the EMAP plastics products. Thanks Bob. It's good to know that somebody's clicking through the links we post here!