Emerald Sees Higher Revenue, Acquired 2 Companies, Plans More Acquisitions
Emerald Holding reported a bump in revenue for 2024 from a year earlier, with a higher outlook for 2025. The events company also said it acquired two companies.
Revenue of nearly $399 million for 2024 rose $16 million, or 4.2%, over the previous year. Adjusted EBITDA of $101.7 million for 2024 compared to $97.8 million for 2023. Adjusted EBITDA excluding event cancellation insurance proceeds totaled $100.2 million compared to $95 million in 2023.
For 2025, the company expects to generate $450 million to $460 million of revenue and $120 million to $125 million of Adjusted EBITDA.
Net income of $2.2 million for 2024 compared to net loss of $8.2 million for 2023.
The company bought This is Beyond, a London-based luxury travel event business, and completed the acquisition of Insurtech Insights, an operator of large-scale insurance technology conferences across the U.S., Europe, and Asia, for a combined $160 million.
“We believe there is substantial incremental growth opportunity, long term, in both businesses,” David Doft, chief financial officer, said on the earnings call.
Emerald ended the year with $194.8 million in cash and full availability of its $110.0 million revolving credit facility.
“We believe our balance sheet strength and cash flow generation support our ability to opportunistically invest in and grow the business,” Doft said. “We expected to continue to balance capital allocation between acquisitions, investments in our own business, managing debt leverage and opportunistic share buybacks.”
Emerald has completed 11 acquisitions over the past four years as it focuses on buying leading B2B events or related assets in existing or new verticals and would consider B2C events in existing verticals.
“2024 was a transformative year for Emerald – one where we took decisive actions to strategically optimize our portfolio of live B2B events with precision and purpose,” Hervé Sedky, Emerald’s chief executive officer, said in a statement.
