MCH Group

MCH Group AG is an international live marketing company headquartered in Basel, Switzerland. It takes in several exhibition companies in Switzerland and organizes and hosts about 90 exhibitions, including the Art Basel shows in Basel, Miami Beach Hong Kong, and Paris as well as the watch and jewellery show Baselworld. It has several subsidiaries in the areas of marketing strategy and conception, marketing consulting, event management, exhibition and event construction. MCH Group ranked fifth amongst the world's leading exhibition companies in terms of sales in 2015. It has its roots in the Schweizer Mustermesse (Swiss Sample Fair) which was established in Basel in 1916.

Mergers and acquisitions

In 2001, Schweizer Mustermesse AG merged with Messe Zürich AG under the newly founded holding company Messe Schweiz AG. The holding company has been listed on SIX Swiss Exchange. In 2005, it acquired Winkler Livecom AG. In 2007, it acquired Expomobilia and Exhibit & More AG. In 2009, Messe Schweiz was renamed as MCH Group. In the same year the company acquired Rufener events with Oceansalt LLC. In 2010, it acquired Beaulieu Exploitation SA in Lausanne and renamed it as MCH Beaulieu Lausanne. In 2011, MCH acquired 60 percent of Asian Art Fairs Limited in Hong Kong; the remaining 40 percent were acquired in 2014. In 2015, MCH acquired Reflection Marketing AG and 20 percent of metron Vilshofen Gmbh. In 2016, MCH founded the new MCH Global AG company and acquired 60.3 percent of Seventh Plane Pvt. Ltd in New Delhi, the organiser of India Art Fair. In 2017, MCH acquired the event marketing service provider MC2, 24,1 percent of art.fair International GmbH, the organiser of Art Düsseldorf and 67,5 percent of Masterpiece London Ltd. In December 2018, MCH Group sold its subsidiary Winkler Livecom AG. In 2019, MCH Group sold its shares in art.fair International GmbH and in Seventh Plane Networks Private Limited, following the decision that the initiative of developing a portfolio of regional art fairs is not being pursued any further. In October 2019 a seasoned art industry investor Sergey Skaterschikov became the second largest private shareholder of MCH Group through his Swiss investment vehicle IndexAtlas AG. This investment became the catalyst of change at MCH Group AG, triggering the bidding war between strategic investors for MCH Group AG, and eventually resulted in effective privatization of MCH Group, with extraordinary shareholders meeting of the company held on August 3, 2020 approving the two capital increases for a total of up to CHF 104.5 million, with James Murdoch's investment vehicle as the lead underwriter, and immediate governance and leadership changes including appointment of James Murdoch to the board of directors of MCH Group AG.

Products and services

The so called Live Marketing Solutions companies offer experience marketing strategy, conception and production (MCH Global), marketing consulting (Reflection Marketing) and exhibition and event construction (MC2, Expomobilia).

MCH Group organizes 40 exhibitions such as Art Basel in Basel, Miami Beach and Hong Kong (modern and contemporary art), Swissbau (construction) or Swiss-Moto (motorbikes). MCH Group is a shareholder in Masterpiece London (majority), Design Miami and Design Miami Basel (minority).

MCH Group owns the exhibitions companies and exhibitions sites in Basel (Messe Basel) and Zurich (Messe Zürich), the exhibitions company in Lausanne (MCH Beaulieu Lausanne) and the Congress Center Basel.

References

External links

Official website

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Marketing companies