ITE have announced the acquisition of a 50.1% stake in a worldwide conference portfolio including Africa Oil Week/Africa Upstream and a series of related events, from GPP Energy Advisors Limited. The deal includes an option to acquire the remaining 49.9% of the business in the future.
 
Africa Oil Week/Africa Upstream is an annual conference held in the Cape Town International Convention Centre. It is the continent’s longest-running and most prominent event serving Africa’s fast-growing oil, gas and energy industry. Related events include the Africa Independents Forum, which takes place annually in London and Cape Town and a long-standing conference portfolio held in Asia and Latin America.
 
The acquisition further strengthens the ITE Oil&Gas portfolio and helps the Group towards fulfilling its strategy of geographic diversification. It also provides ITE with a permanent base from which it can expand its services into other parts of Africa.
 
ITE’s CEO, Russell Taylor said. “ITE is continuing to build businesses in strategically important industry sectors and the acquisition of Africa Oil Week increases our presence in the global energy sector. It represents progress in achieving our ambition to expand in markets and geographies with further potential for growth as well as continuing to diversify the geo-political risk in our portfolio.
 
“I am particularly excited about the opportunity to develop a wider business in Africa and other regions where economic growth rates are high and the exhibition industry is less developed. I am also looking forward to working with our partners, GPP Energy Advisors, to further develop this fantastic portfolio of events together.”
 
GPP Energy Advisors Limited and Global Pacific & Partners Chairman, Dr Duncan Clarke said that. “Our Chief Executive, Babette van Gessel and I, as Senior Partners, are delighted to conclude this sale of majority interest in our conference portfolio to ITE. ITE has significant capacity and an excellent reputation in global oil and gas to carry forward the growth achieved over the last two decades for our portfolio in Africa, Asia and Latin America. We look forward to operating in close partnership with ITE’s management for the future development of these legacy assets.”
 
The 22^nd Africa Oil Week takes place in Cape Town, South Africa, on 26^th to 30^th October 2015.
 
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