Advanstar Announces Completion of Company's Acquisition by VSS
New York, NY – May 31, 2007 - Advanstar Holdings Corp., the holding company for AdvanstarCommunications Inc., a leading worldwide media company providing integrated marketing solutions for the Fashion & Licensing, Life Sciences, and Powersports industries, today announced that it has completed the Company’s acquisition by an investor group led by Veronis Suhler Stevenson (VSS) for $1.142 billion in cash. VSS is joined in this investment by several co-investors.
Joe Loggia, Advanstar’s CEO commented, “We are extremely pleased to have successfully completed this transaction. Advanstar’s acquisition by VSS reflects the success of our strategy and the quality of our industry leading products. We thank Credit Suisse and Avista Capital for their past support as we developed Advanstar into a leader in the business media industry. The resources and expertise provided by VSS and their investment co-sponsors will be valuable assets as we continue to execute our strategy and capitalize on future growth opportunities.”
“Advanstar is one of the premier business media companies in the world with a well-diversified portfolio of tradeshows, publications, directories and websites,” said Scott Troeller, Partner at VSS. “We at VSS, along with our investment partners, look forward to working closely with the Advanstar management team led by Joe Loggia to build upon the scaleable and attractive platform they’ve developed over the last several years.”
Credit Suisse advised Advanstar and Davis Polk & Wardwell acted as legal counsel to Advanstar in connection with this transaction.
About Advanstar
Advanstar Communications Inc. (www.advanstar.com) is a leading worldwide media company providing integrated marketing solutions for the Fashion & Licensing, Life Sciences and Powersports industries. Advanstar serves business professionals and consumers in these industries with its portfolio of 91 events, 66 publications and directories, 150 electronic publications and Web sites, as well as educational and direct marketing products and services. Market leading brands and a commitment to delivering innovative, quality products and services enables Advanstar to “Connect Our Customers With Theirs.” Advanstar has roughly 1,000 employees and currently operates from multiple offices in North America and Europe.
About Veronis Suhler Stevenson
Veronis Suhler Stevenson (www.vss.com) is a private equity firm that invests buyout and structured capital funds in the media, communications, information and education industries in North America and Europe. VSS provides capital for buyouts, recapitalizations, growth financings and strategic acquisitions to companies and management teams with a goal to build companies both organically and through a focused add-on acquisition program. To date, VSS equity and structured capital funds have invested in over 50 platform companies, which have in turn completed over 220 add-on acquisitions resulting in a portfolio with realized and unrealized enterprise values totaling approximately $11 billion.
Business Risks
The statements contained in this press release and our other oral and written statements that are not historical in nature are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Management of Advanstar believes that its expectations are based upon reasonable assumptions within the bounds of its knowledge of Advanstar’s business. However, there can be no assurance that they in fact will be realized. Numerous factors may affect Advanstar’s actual results and may cause results to differ materially from those expressed in forward-looking statements made by or on behalf of Advanstar including such factors listed from time to time in Advanstar’s reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission including the factors described in Advanstar’s Form 10-K (333-57201) filed March 30, 2006 under the heading “Risk Factors.” Advanstar does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
For more information, please contact:
Advanstar Communications
Leigh Parrish
Financial Dynamics
212-850-5651
leigh.parrish@fd.com
Veronis Suhler Stevenson
Alex Stanton
Stanton Crenshaw Communications
212-780-1900
alex@stantoncrenshaw.com
