Emerald Expositions Events Inc. (NYSE: EEX) continues its buying spree with action sports news outlet Shop Eat Surf, amid changes coming next year to the Emerald C-suite.
The San Juan Capistrano-based owner and operator of trade shows and other business-to-business events said last week it would conduct a search for a new chief executive officer after revealing current CEO and President Sally Shankland plans to step down from the top spot at the end of the year. The company cited health reasons for her departure.
Shankland joined the firm in June. She’ll stay on as executive director and senior adviser, assisting Chief Operating Officer Brian Field once he takes on the president and CEO duties on an interim basis beginning Jan. 1.
Media Buys
Shop Eat Surf is the latest media entity to be added to the Emerald portfolio, which counts more than 55 trade shows and other events spanning the gift, sports, jewelry and design sectors among others. The company last month bought the digital business-to-business media agency G3 Communications.
It’s spent more than $200 million on acquisitions over the past four years, according to regulatory filings for the company, which went public in 2017 and operates the Swim Collective and Active Collective trade shows, which are held at the Anaheim Convention Center.
Emerald is among the largest operators of business-to-business trade shows held in the U.S.
Roy Turner, Emerald senior vice president and show director of the company’s Surf Expo trade show, said in the Shop Eat Surf post on the acquisition the media company is “the perfect complement to the face-to-face opportunities found at our events.”
Terms of the deal were undisclosed.
Shop Eat Surf founder Tiffany Montgomery, reached by email last week, declined to comment. She said in an announcement on her site “business will continue as usual,” although acknowledged now being part of a larger company offered “additional infrastructure and expertise” with the “plan to deliver even more of what [readers] have been asking for.”
The reporter and editor previously worked at the Orange County Register before starting Shop Eat Surf 12 years ago as an industry trade publication for action sports executives. It has since grown to include regularly updated website, podcasts and e-newsletters, known often for breaking industry news or gaining exclusive access to executives.
“We are proud of what we have accomplished as a stand-alone, bootstrapped startup in a rapidly evolving media environment,” Montgomery said in her announcement on the deal. “What started as an experiment 12 years ago has turned into a new service that is read by industry leaders around the world.”
The Shop Eat Surf deal is the latest in what continues to be a fast evolving media landscape in Orange County. Last month saw the abrupt shuttering of the OC Weekly by Fountain Valley publisher Duncan McIntosh Co., which bought the Weekly in 2016.
