Arena Group has purchased Karl’s Event Services, a US-based business which has clients including the National Football League (NFL) Super Bowl, Mercedes Benz and the PGA.
The transaction has been closed so that Arena Group, which also provides event services, can extend its global network beyond its current bases in the UK, mainland Europe, UAE and Far East.
Arena Group built the Olympic Beach Volleyball stadium on Horse Guards Parade for last year’s Olympics in London, as well as eight other venues for the sporting event.
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The new acquisition has been supported by MML Capital Partners and Sports Investment Partners (SIP) which both led a £16.5 million investment into Arena Group back in February 2012.
As part of that deal, Arena Group added the expertise of new chairman Matthew Wheeler, a former professional cricketer with Northants CCC, ex-Liverpool FC chairman Martin Broughton and John Connolly, former global chairman of Deloitte.
New purchase Karl’s Event Services was set up in 1966 and supplies temporary demountable structures, staging, lighting and furniture to major sporting events in the US. It has a reported turnover of $40 million and has operations in Wisconsin, New Jersey, Florida and California.
Greg Lawless, CEO of Arena Group, comments, ‘This acquisition enables the Arena Group to broaden its ability to deliver truly international event overlay and temporary infrastructure.
‘On an international level we can now offer consistency of products and services for global sports companies and corporate events along with their commercial partners, whilst it also becomes viable to introduce creative and technical innovations to local events in any region we have a base.’
