Updated: UBM Sells Electronics Media Assets to Arrow Electronics
The company's media business continues to wind down as events take over, but a spokesperson tells Folio: that UBM remains committed to its existing media assets.
Updated Monday, June 6th at 12:05 pm.
UBM has sold off more of its media properties amid its push to focus on the events business, the company announced today.
Arrow Electronics, Inc. has acquired the company's electronics media portfolio, which includes the brands EE Times, EDN, ESM, Embedded, EBN, TechOnline and DataSheets.com, for $23.5 million.
The sale is the latest development in UBM's "events-first" business strategy, under which the company has divested several of its media brands in order to buy up more conference and trade show properties. In December, UBM sold PR Newswire for $841 million. Earlier this week, the company purchased the Content Marketing Institute, producers of the lucrative annual Content Marketing World event in Cleveland, for $17.6 million.
UBM reports that its electronics portfolio generated revenues of between $16 and $19 million online and around $3 million in print last year. The deal is still subject to regulatory approval in China.
It had been speculated that Arrow Electronics might emerge as a suitor for UBM's electronics media brands ever since Arrow purchased United Technical Publications from Hearst Business Media early last year.
Although UBM appears to have no further interest in the publishing business, a company spokesperson tells Folio: that's not the case, confirming that other media properties such as Information Week and Packaging Digest are not currently being considered for sale.
"Our Events First strategy does not mean we are an events-only company," the spokesperson tells Folio:. "We will continue to align our digital and print media offerings as well as other non-event products to our events, in line with our Events First strategy."
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