Events-related businesses make up almost two-thirds of Informa’s (INF) revenues, so the spread of the coronavirus was always likely to have a detrimental impact on near-term trading – and perhaps beyond. It is in the process of rescheduling 45 large events to dates later in 2020, representing budgeted revenues of £350m, while 70 smaller events have also been rescheduled, representing revenues of £50m. Another 13 events have been cancelled outright in 2020 – with budgeted revenues of £25m. For events that have been rescheduled, localised or ‘virtualised’ this year, the group said that it would expect to incur some incremental investment in venue capacity, customer marketing and other duplicative cost. At this stage, it is not giving any market guidance for the current year.
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