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VSS in $1.142bn secondaries deal for Advanstar29/03/2007. Source: AltAssets. 
 DLJ Merchant Banking Partners, the private equity investment affiliate of Credit Suisse, has sold Advanstar Holdings Corp. to Veronis Suhler Stevenson in a transaction valued at $1.142bn.
Advanstar Holdings Corp. is the holding company for Advanstar Communications Inc., a media company providing marketing solutions for the fashion & licensing, life sciences and powersports industries. DLJMB acquired Advanstar in 2000.
'Advanstar is truly one of the premier business media companies in the world. They possess a well-diversified portfolio of tradeshows, publications, directories and websites, which are focused market leaders in key B2B media end-markets. Their events business is particularly attractive, as it includes some of the largest and most effective trade shows in the industry,' noted Scott Troeller, Partner at VSS. 'We are very pleased to be partnering with Advanstar’s management team led by Joe Loggia to further develop the company’s product lines. Since taking the helm of the company in 2004, Loggia has restructured and refocused Advanstar around growing verticals to deliver market-leading organic growth and profitability.'
'We see numerous growth opportunities for Advanstar. The company’s market-leading positions in core vertical markets serve as a terrific platform for both organic growth and growth through add-on acquisitions,' added Eric Van Ert, a Managing Director at VSS.
Joe Loggia, Advanstar's CEO, commented, 'This transaction reflects the success of our strategy and the quality of our industry leading products that, combined with our strong growth record, have created a solid platform for the future.'
Scott Marden, chairman of DLJMB's team of media industry partners and director of Advanstar, added, 'DLJ was able to bring to bear its strong in-house media expertise and make a meaningful impact on the direction of the company and the conduct of its operations.'
Advanstar has roughly 1,000 employees and currently operates from multiple offices in North America and Europe.
Veronis Suhler Stevenson is a private equity and mezzanine capital investment firm focused on the media, communications and information industries in North America and Europe. The firm was founded in 1981 by John J Veronis and John S Suhler. Over the past 19 years, VSS has managed funds with commitments exceeding $2.8bn and has invested in 42 platform companies, which have completed 200 add-on acquisitions.
It closed its fourth private equity fund, VSS Communications Partners IV, on $1.3bn in 2006. Almeida Capital, AltAssets' parent company, acted as placement agent to the fund.
DLJMB, with offices in New York, London and Los Angeles, is part of Credit Suisse's Alternative Investments business, an alternative asset manager with $108bn of assets under management. The DLJMB track record in this sector includes the MGM film library, Thompson Publishing, Visant (formerly Jostens) and WRC Media.
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