Strategy in TECH...
That an exposition company lost money in 2020 is not surprising. That an exposition company (Emerald) that has cancellation insurance to cover lost revenues on every show they own that was cancelled during the year – and still lost $633.6 million in fiscal 2020 – is surprising.
Emerald Holding, Inc. (NYSE:EEX), formerly Emerald Expositions, reported their fiscal 2020 third quarter results this week and despite their best efforts to shift their business to online virtual conferences, the company reported revenues of just $8.5 million and generated a net loss of $22.3 million. This loss was even deeper than their loss of $19.7 million in the same quarter in 2019 which was well before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the U.S.
Emerald Holding, Inc. (Formerly Emerald Expositions Events, Inc.) [NYSE: EEX], the company that owns the CEDIA Expo show and CE Pro, announced last week that its Board of Directors has authorized company managers to purchase up to $20 Million of Emerald’s stock in a share buyback program. As Strata-gee noted back in May in a report on the company’s large fiscal first quarter loss, this program had previously been suspended when cash had tightened up after the cancellation of their events due to COVID-19.
Now the company has been recapitalized, thanks to help from sugar daddy Onex who now owns more than 80% of the company, and – gosh – the stock is so darn cheap. Maybe now is the time to buy…
Emerald Expositions announced today that CEDIA Expo Virtual drew 7,600 trade professional registrations for their three day run from September 15-17, 2020. Although this figure is less than half the attendance at the live, in-person version, Emerald considers it a great success as an all-virtual event.
CEDIA Expo Virtual was almost exclusively an online media event…rather than a real, in-person trade show. I know…duh! Yes, I knew this logically, but it hadn’t really hit me viscerally until I actually attended the event. But what that means for Emerald Exposition is that their expertise in fielding large scale, B2B, in-person events really doesn’t apply here. And that fact forced them to rely exclusively on CE Pro for almost the entire event, including content strategy, seminar production, and show performance.
Emerald Holding Inc. (NYSE:EEX) – formerly Emerald Expositions Events, Inc. – released their fiscal 2020 second quarter results this week and it’s no surprise that they were brutal, as the company continues to find itself caught in a COVID catastrophe that is killing in-person events, like the very expositions they produce. With the second quarter covering the period of April – June, the previous peak of the pandemic’s infections and deaths (since exceeded), the company performance – as expected – was really challenged, with the bulk of their various trade shows and in-person events cancelled or postponed.
But the company did have one piece of good news…the insurance companies providing event cancellation insurance to the company have begun paying against their claims.
COVID-19, the massive pandemic that changed everything this year, probably infected your business and perhaps made it ill in a way that will take time to recover. But for Emerald Expositions, the national expositions company that owns the CEDIA Expo show and CE Pro – COVID-19 almost killed them.
Now Emerald’s sugar daddy, Onex Corporation, is ready to throw them a lifeline…a $400 million lifeline to be exact.
Emerald Holding Inc., formerly Emerald Expositions Events, Inc. (NYSE:EEX), has released their fiscal 2020 first quarter results and the organization makes no bones about it – it has been hit, and hit hard, by the COVID-19 pandemic. The company announced that in the first quarter of fiscal 2020 – the period ending March 31, 2020 – sales declined 27.4% to $99.7 million and the company had the biggest net loss in its history, losing $570.1 million.
Crestron Electronics announced today that it is returning to the CEDIA Expo show for the first time since Strata-gee broke the news of their surprising exit from the event four years ago in 2016. This announcement marks a triumphant return for a company that has seen its residential business soar over the last few years, particularly with the launch of their Crestron Home software solution.
Emerald Expositions announced this week that Sally Shankland, it most recent CEO who had been hired in June 2019 to replace resigning CEO David Loechner, has died following her month’s long battle with cancer. The company says Shankland passed away at home peacefully.
