Messe Frankfurt Achieve €250 Million In Sales In Spite Of The Coronavirus Crisis

Image Courtesy of Messe Frankfurt GMBH

Mayor Peter Feldmann, Chairman of the Messe Frankfurt Supervisory Board, was full of praise for the company’s Executive Board: “In these extremely difficult times, combining business interests with responsibility for customers shows a high degree of responsibility and solidarity towards sectors, industry and trade.”

He sees Messe Frankfurt as an important part of the fabric of the city, setting an example for the many other companies in which the City of Frankfurt holds a stake:

“Over the past decades, the Group has performed very well, has distributed a respectable share of profits to our shareholders, and has established itself as a diverse employer and a global player in the international trade fair sector.”

After ten years of continual growth and an all-time high in financial year 2019, Messe Frankfurt has been forced to hit the emergency brakes owing to the coronavirus pandemic.

On presenting the Group’s preliminary figures for 2020, Wolfgang Marzin, President and Chief Executive Officer of Messe Frankfurt, said: “Ongoing travel restrictions with constant modifications by the individual governments have brought the trade fair business – which has proved its worth for decades on end – to a virtual standstill.”

This meant that, in the reporting year, it was only possible to hold around a third of all events around the globe compared with financial years before the outbreak of the coronavirus.

Nonetheless, the company succeeded in generating Group sales of approximately €250 million.

Marzin: “We have a stable equity base and, thanks to our financial strength in recent years, have been able to secure additional funds on the capital markets, thus allowing us to safeguard liquidity. Our shareholders have pledged their full support. With a rigorous cost-saving plan, we aim to overcome this crisis using our own resources as far as possible.”

Messe Frankfurt has a medium-term bridging strategy that can be adapted to each individual situation. As before, the company is eager to avoid redundancies.

A new works agreement has been signed with employee representatives, based on a socially responsible reduction of personnel costs with a view to safeguarding jobs.

As Wolfgang Marzin emphasised: “For their part, our employees are foregoing variable remuneration components until 2022.” The company will no longer advertise positions externally and will continue to make use of the government’s short-time work programme.

Even in the current situation, Messe Frankfurt is benefiting from its strong brands and its diversification.

Events can be held in Germany, throughout Europe and throughout the world. Here, having a strong network of 30 subsidiaries and over 50 sales partners is a key competitive advantage.

A total of 153 events took place under the Messe Frankfurt umbrella in spite of very difficult conditions – these included 52 trade fairs and exhibitions with more than 33,100 exhibiting companies and around 1.3 million visitors.

International business in China recovered impressively, with enormous exhibitor and visitor counts at Messe Frankfurt events there, in many cases on a par with pre-coronavirus years.

As Detlef Braun, Member of the Executive Board of Messe Frankfurt, explained: “People need face-to-face interaction and want to meet up in person – that is hardwired in our DNA.”