Investment type
- Management buyout
LDC’s backed Piers Latimer and his team in a management buyout in 2018. Our 15-month partnership supported the organic growth and diversification of the business. The team continued to focus on customer experience and engagement and increasing the scale their largest flagship events across the world. Our partnership culminated in a sale to one of the world’s most prominent media organisations, Thomson Reuters.
FCBI delivers high-end conferences and exhibitions globally to a diverse range of sectors including energy, insurance, pharmaceuticals, transportation, travel, strategy and technology. It helps senior business professionals stay at the forefront of change in their industry through insight sharing and networking with peers.
A turning point
In August 2018, LDC backed a management buyout to support a plan to drive organic growth and expand into new markets.
LDC backed FCBI’s existing management team, led by CEO Piers Latimer, in a deal that marked an exit for its original founders.
During our 15-month partnership, the business focused on improving its customer experience and engagement and continued to increase the scale of its largest flagship events. These include eyeforpharma Barcelona, Petrochemical Update Downstream, EFT 3PL & Supply Chain Summit and Insurance Nexus Connected Claims.
They supported our ambition from the outset and provided us with investment and expertise to help us meet our objectives sooner than expected, backing our decision to join Thomson Reuters.”
A key challenge was to optimise the pricing process being operated by the business – something that had grown organically with the company.
We helped the business complete some quick and simple steps addressing discounting, group pricing, price monitoring and value-based selling, helping to create a consistent approach to pricing which significantly increased overall revenue.
A new home for the business
In October 2019 LDC announced the sale of FCBI to Thomson Reuters. FCBI was rebranded as Reuters Events and now operates as part of the Reuters News division of Thomson Reuters.