Messe München International is one of the world’s leading trade show companies. In Munich alone it organises around 40 trade shows for capital and consumer goods each year, hosting more than 30,000 exhibitors and around two million visitors annually.
Elsewhere, the company also coordinates and hosts trade shows in Asia, Russia, the Middle East and South Africa. With an assortment of affiliates across the globe and over 60 foreign representatives actively serving more than 90 countries, Messe München International has successfully developed a worldwide business network. The group takes a pioneering role with regards to sustainability, and was the first trade fair company in the world to be awarded energy efficiency certification from the technical inspection authorities TÜV SÜD.
As part of its commitment to providing a world-class platform for all of its customers, Messe München is now planning to build two brand new exposition halls
215
Events were hosted by Messe München in 2014
1.7m
Attendees across all events
€105m
The estimated cost of the group’s two new exposition halls
Rapid growth
The company’s achievements are wide-ranging and look set to continue. For the fifth year in a row, Messe München International has enjoyed a level of financial success that has stopped it from requiring subsidies from either of its main shareholders. As a result of some unforeseen triumphs and board-led dynamism, the State of Bavaria and the City of Munich will now receive the company’s profits as interest on their shareholder loans.
“All of our events performed considerably better than planned. Trade fair business in Munich is growing faster than the overall German market”, explains Klaus Dittrich, Chairman and CEO of the company. “That shows the enormous potential that our company has to offer.”
The final sales figures for the past year were ultimately estimated to stand at €220.1m – €5.3m more than was predicted at the start of the year. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation amounted to €40.4m (€6.2m more than estimated), despite the fact that Messe München simultaneously pays some €50m every year in interest and principal repayments for the first phase of construction at the new trade fair centre.
Leading the pack
According to the Association of the German Trade Fair Industry (AUMA), the Munich-based company continually grew at a faster rate than other trade fair organisers in Germany: estimates showed that the number of exhibitors and visitors nationwide in 2014 increased by one percent, while the amount of exhibition space itself remained fairly constant. In Munich, however, the number of exhibitors increased by four percent, visitors were up by five percent, and exhibition space increased by three percent.
Messe München International and its three exemplary venues – Messe München itself, the Internationales Congress Center München (ICM), and the Veranstaltungscenter München (MOC) – are widely recognised as instigators in the development of this increasingly promising trend.
“Our trade fairs in Munich are running exceptionally well, and the Internationale Congresszentrum ICM and the MOC in Freimann were well booked”, says Dittrich. In total, Messe München hosted 215 events this year with more than 1.7 million visitors and nearly 32,800 exhibitors. In addition to these guest events in Munich, Messe München International also held 13 of its own trade fairs.
According to Dr. Reinhard Pfeiffer, Deputy CEO of Messe München, “Munich is one of the leading destinations for conventions worldwide and is ranked in the top five in Europe. In Germany, we are number two after Berlin.”
The ICM hosted 85 events with some 127,000 visitors in 2014, while the MOC held 97 events with 330,000 visitors. 20 guest events, accommodating over 600,000 visitors, were also held at the trade fair centre.
A year of success
2014 saw Messe München hosting some of the world’s most influential trade fairs, including ISPO Munich in January. In April, nearly 40,000 visitors attended Analytica; far surpassing the 2013 event’s visitor number of 29,650. In May, IFAT, the world’s leading trade fair for environmental technologies, broke all of its previous visitor records with the support of Messe München. The highlight of the company’s year then came in November, when it was given the honour of hosting the Electronica trade fair in its 50th anniversary year – the same age as Messe München itself.
However, the organisation comes into its own in a particular field. “We are especially popular among physicians”, says Dr. Pfeiffer. September 2014 saw 20,000 visitors arriving in Munich as part of the European Respiratory Society’s annual congress, and 2016 is set to welcome a further 20,000 for the meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes. Furthermore, the largest cardiology congress in the world will be taking place in the Bavarian capital two years later.
A growing body
Messe München originated with twelve halls when the trade fair centre first opened. Four additional halls followed during subsequent years. Now, as part of its commitment to providing a world-class platform for all of its customers, Messe München is planning to build two brand new exposition halls. These structures, which will include an additional conference centre, are estimated to cost around €105m. The new conference facility will offer extremely flexible seating configurations that can seat up to 2,000 people.
Construction will begin in the summer of 2016 and is expected to take two years. Together, the two new halls will provide 20,000sq m of space, giving Messe München an overall area of 200,000sq m across 18 halls. A further 425,000sq m is also available in the form of outdoor exhibition space.
The completion of halls C5 and C6 will mark the end of the final phase of construction for the trade fair centre, which first opened in 1998. “We will finance construction entirely on our own and without subsidies from our shareholders”, says Dittrich.
Bigger and better
Of course, the company inevitably sees its fair share of challenges. The end of 2014 saw Messe München’s Managing Director, Eugen Egetenmeir, retiring after nearly 30 years with the group. As a result, January 2015 presented the company with a fresh set of trials in the form of a major board reshuffle: newcomers to the company included Stefan Rummel, Falk Senger and Monika Dech. Dech, who is working as a Deputy Managing Director, is the first female member of the Messe München management board. Referring to these new appointments, Dittrich says: “We are starting off the new year in 2015 with fresh strength and full of optimism.”
The benefits of this positive attitude are already being reaped, both within Germany and worldwide. Last year Messe München organised 18 trade fairs on international soil, including Bauma China, which took place in Shanghai in November 2014. The organisation also assisted with ISPO Beijing, which welcomed a record-breaking 30,000 visitors and 627 exhibitors, and hosted the first ever Food and Drink Technology Africa conference in Johannesburg in March. “As you can see, the company’s performance around the world is outstanding”, Dittrich says.
The group’s ambition has led to an incredible selection of successes, and with its latest expansion already taking shape, the company will surely continue to celebrate further triumphs in the coming years.
