There’s a reason why the company is called Diversified Business Communications. The family owned, privately-held operation which traces its history back to 1949 has created a global reach that has its fingers in a variety b-to-b markets: Seafood, work boats, healthcare, oil and gas, food and hospitality, and many others. Divisions are located in the U.S.—with corporate headquarters based in Portland, Maine—Australia, Canada, India, Hong Kong and the UK.

And before all you “synergy” junkies bristle at what might look like a collection of unrelated markets, consider that the company, with projected revenues for 2011 of $128 million, has carefully selected each vertical with a concentrated effort to put each one on a growth trajectory. In a wide-ranging phone interview with EXPO, Hasselback describes Diversified’s operational structure and the strategic drivers behind the company’s aggressive business development efforts.

EXPO: Can you provide a quick snapshot of Diversified Business Communications?

Hasselback: Diversified is a family-owned business, privately held. Our headquarters is in Portland, Maine. But we’re a multinational corporation, we have divisions in the U.S., Canada, the UK, Australia, India and Hong Kong. Most of our business is in exhibitions and many of those have conferences. We also do standalone conferences and we publish six magazines and we have a range of emedia sites for industries where we have a strong foothold.

The number of exhibitions is 90 to 100, and that’s counting every city that every brand is held in.

EXPO: You’re an event-centric operation. Can you provide some insight into how your product platforms break down in terms of revenue and markets served?

Hasselback: The emedia products are in industries where we have an event, and for the most part where we also have a publication. Those include the seafood business, the work boat business, integrated healthcare, 3D imaging, business analysts, project managers, primary care and administrative professionals. But yes, 85 percent of our business is exhibitions from a revenue perspective. We have invested more in conferences and certified education in recent years, but if you go back to the mid-90s when we really started to focus on growth, we purposely sought to grow the exhibition side of our business rather than publications because the margins are healthier. 

EXPO: With the domestic and international mix of your events, can you give me a sense of how that division is organizationally structured?

Hasselback: It’s not so much that we have an events division, we have divisions in different countries or geographic areas. About 40 percent of our revenue is generated from the Portland office; however that includes the European Seafood Exhibition in Brussels, which is one-third of that 40 percent. Put another way, about 70 percent of our revenue is outside of the U.S. dollar.

We also have an office in Burbank—our Createasphere division—and they focus on entertainment technology and digital asset management. Australia, which represents 35 percent of our revenue, has events in hospitality, food, design and construction, oil and gas, security, fitness, franchising and the audio visual market.

Canada is the next largest division with 15 percent of total revenue. They are very big in the medical business, but they also serve business analysts and project managers and disaster management. India, Hong Kong and Burbank are all relatively small right now, those are our growth opportunities. 

EXPO: What are your largest markets?

Hasselback: Seafood is our largest market, but we’re also in the general food business and other food niches, so the food category is the largest piece. We’re also very prominent in the commercial marine market in the United States, design and construction in Australia, and the medical business in Canada. 

EXPO: Are you sticking with the regional grouping that you’ve described, or do you see potential in other areas around the world? What key criteria make a region attractive for expansion?

Hasselback: We are opportunistic and we are looking at other areas. 

We found opportunity in the UK because we were interested in the natural and organic food sector and we made an acquisition there. From there we’ve broadened the scope of industries served. We acquired in Australia because we saw a really solid business for sale and it served many key market segments. Australia was attractive because of its stability and its natural resources. Again, we were being opportunistic.

We did make the decision two to three years ago to establish a foothold in Asia and we specifically targeted India and China/Hong Kong as potential areas for expansion. So very purposefully we looked at businesses that were synergistic or companies that would be a nice fit with who we are. We made acquisitions both in India and Hong Kong to establish that foothold.

EXPO: Going forward would you still describe your approach as opportunistic or are you being more strategic?

Hasselback: We’re tailoring growth more than we have been because we now are very diversified in terms of the industries that we serve and the scope of our geographic base. Now it’s a matter of where the next logical market for a seafood event is, for example.

EXPO: You’ve created significant growth in the first half of 2011 through acquisitions and brand expansions. Was that part of an ongoing growth spurt, or is this a new strategy moving forward?

Hasselback: Even through the downturn we remained aggressive from a business development perspective, looking at opportunities for acquisitions and launches. I think that what’s happened in the last six months is a culmination of many things that have come to fruition. I anticipate that will continue. It’s the result of the fact that growth through diversification is our strategic driver. And all of our leadership understands that their responsibility is to find ways to grow their businesses—through launches, acquisitions and partnerships.

Now that we’ve gotten as big as we are, growth has become somewhat exponential, which is great. We have many more concepts, many more brands and new geographic areas. Growth has escalated because of really smart product leaders who know where the opportunities are.

EXPO: How is the growth being funded? Is it coming out of existing capital or is there any outside investment coming in?

Hasselback: It’s a combination of our bankers being confident in what we are doing and extending a line of credit that is quite healthy for us, and cash flow. But there are no outside investors. The company is totally family held.

EXPO: How do you decide whether to buy or launch an event? What goes into that consideration?

Hasselback: We pursue both. But typically we’re launching because we have either a direct event that can be adapted to a new geographic market or we serve an aspect of the industry which we can launch another concept off of. For instance, we organize a seafood show in Hong Kong and now we’re launching a frozen food event that will be collocated with seafood. Those two events go alongside our restaurant and bar event, which was part of our Hong Kong acquisition.

EXPO: Do you have a plan on how large you see the events operation getting? Do you have a goal in mind?

Hasselback: I think we’ll just continue to do what’s been working, which is growing incrementally. Most of the acquisitions we make are not big, they’re small. And many of them fly under the radar of the larger organizations. I would say the goal is to continue to grow and diversify the industries and geographic regions we serve—and the medium through which we serve those industries. Not just exhibitions, but conferences, accredited education, publications, webinars—other ways to serve content. That’s part of our focus as well. However, I would not rule out a large acquisition in our future.

EXPO: When you’re looking at acquisition targets, are you primarily looking outside of the U.S. or do you weigh domestic opportunities equally?

Hasselback: We would love to find more opportunities in the U.S. that can be integrated with our office in Portland. We’ve got a full scope of talent here in terms of what we can provide to a smaller business that has the ability to grow. But we’re finding many opportunities elsewhere and sometimes it’s been tough to compete with the private equity money in the marketplace.

EXPO: Focusing on launching for a minute, is there any difference in the process now than it was a few years ago? Do you approach a launch any differently now?

Hasselback: I’m not sure if it’s any different now. Our biggest show is our European Seafood Exhibition in Brussels which was a launch in 1993 and it worked out very well. I think setting realistic expectations for your customer base is important, especially if you’re taking a large national event and putting it in a more focused region. Typically your exhibiting customers will think ‘Oh, we’re going to see another event the size of the Brussels show.’ It just doesn’t happen that way.

EXPO : What are Diversified’s overall revenues? And how big do you see the company getting?

Hasselback: We’ll be about $128 million this year, including our broadcast division. Our goal is to maximize value for our shareholders on a long-term basis. If we were simply driven to reach $150 million, we might make the wrong decision on whether to keep a product or not based on achieving the revenue goal.
We’ll tolerate losses initially. We take a multi-year view. That’s the advantage of being a privately-held company. It’s also the case, as we take on acquisitions that we’re not going to put a lot of pressure on the seller to maximize profits in the short term. We’re very selective. One media broker called us ‘picky.’ I kind of liked that. We are selective in terms of whether or not there’s growth in the industry or opportunity to expand globally.