Nth Degree, a private equity-backed event management and experiential marketing company is in active conversations with multiple targets and intends to continue making acquisitions under its new sponsor, CEO John Hense told Mergermarket.

Nth Degree would like to acquire quality competitors, Hense said, declining to disclose specific names.

The CEO said he believed the Atlanta-headquartered company would have its first deal completed with its new majority owner Shamrock Capital, a Los Angeles-based PE firm specializing in media, entertainment, communications, and related sectors, by year’s end, with more likely to follow.

Shamrock made a strategic investment on 11 September in Nth Degree, which saw its previous owner MSouth Equity Partners exit along with minority partner Gladstone Investment Corporation [NASDAQ:GAIN].

Willkie Farr & Gallagher served as legal advisor and Stephens served as financial advisor to Shamrock. DLA Piper served as legal advisor and J.P. Morgan was the exclusive financial advisor to Nth Degree.

Potential targets with at least USD 10m in annual revenue are preferred, and the CEO said that in its past deals, it had acquired “much larger organizations,” declining to disclose specifics.

“We can really handle a broad range of potential targets,” he said.

Shamrock capitalized the 45-year-old business “appropriately” to make acquisitions and grow organically, explained Andy Howard, partner at Shamrock. Nth Degree will have “tremendous flexibility” to do deals with cash, equity, debt or combinations of funding, Howard said.

Nth Degree’s business focuses on the live event sector and the infrastructure surrounding it, the CEO said. The company targets big brands, primarily concentrating on the US market, followed by Canada and Europe.

While trade shows are back to 2019 levels, private and corporate event volume since then has “skyrocketed,” Hense said. The reason is mainly that many employees are still working remotely or in some sort of hybrid environment after the pandemic, he explained.

“People don't have the opportunity to spend time together like they used to,” he said.

There are a lot of potential targets for sale in the experiential design space, and the company regularly receives broker and investment banker pitches for those types of businesses, Hense said. Nth Degree will consider those targets opportunistically, he added.

The company has three divisions and will look to add capabilities in each instead of trying to greenfield them, Hense explained. It could build divisions out further with a “foundational acquisition,” he added.

One division helps organizers design events and put the show together, start to finish, the CEO explained. The second division works with the show organizer on common area structures like hanging materials, organizing video clips and printing out graphics. The last division handles the experience on the show floor. It works with the exhibitors to ensure that their brand experience and booth are set up how they want.

Nth Degree completed five acquisitions since 2018, Hense said. Those were Zenith LaborNet, Renaissance Management, Absolute I&D, Upland Management Services, and Fern Exposition Services, a Cincinnati, Ohio-based trade show service provider and general contractor that was acquired by MSouth Equity Partners and merged with Nth Degree in June 2023.

The executives declined to discuss specifics about the Shamrock investment or any financial information about Nth Degree.

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