Informa agrees to buy UBM for £3.9bn as companies report positive trading

Informa agreed to buy UBM for £3.9bn to create a business-to-business (B2B) information giant as both companies reported positive trading for 2017.

Setting out details of a deal announced on 17 January, Informa said it expected at least £60m of cost savings as well as unquantified revenue gains.

Stephen Carter, Informa's chief executive, said the B2B market required greater operating scale and industry specialisation and that the deal would take advantage of these trends.

Carter said: "We will seek to operate with speed and purpose through an accelerated integration plan that unifies management, combines our businesses and adopts a focused approach to industry specialisation. This will ensure the enlarged group enters 2019 as a single business."

In a brief trading statement Informa, the events and specialist publishing group, said underlying revenue rose by more than 3% in 2017 and that all its business divisions grew. Fully diluted earnings per share will be more than 45.5p.

UBM, its events-focused rival, said fourth-quarter trading was better than it expected and that annual profit would beat market forecasts.

As previously announced, Informa will pay 163p cash and 1.083 new Informa share for each share of UBM. Based on Informa's closing share price on 15 January the deal values UBM at £3.9bn and represents a 29.9% premium to UBM's closing share price that day.