FOR ALL of life's Ascentials: it may not be a supermarket, but the FTSE 250 data and technology company certainly has plenty of people queuing for bargains at the moment.

The latest in line is a consortium of investors who want to buy its Cannes Lions advertising festival and Money 20/20 fintech event. For Hyve, the exhibitions group itself recently taken over by a pair of private equity firms, and Medialink, a strategic advisory firm focused on the media and marketing industries, the timing may be opportune.

As I reported on Sky News yesterday, the two strategic buyers also have backing from a blue-chip private equity firm, with Hyve acquiring Money 20/20 - an asset it has long-coveted - and Medialink taking ownership of the Lions.

While the structure of a transaction remains unclear, I understand at least one offer was submitted to Ascential's board in the last few weeks.

Yet for a company which professes to specialise in communications, it seems reluctant to practise what it preaches. Its external advisers' response yesterday to an enquiry about a price-sensitive deal was to not respond at all; while last week, it took an entire trading day to confirm that it was in exclusive discussions with Apax Partners about the sale of WGSN, its consumer trends data arm.

That reticence may not be wholly surprising.

Ascential's break-up plan, confirmed in January, referred to "a series of interdependent transactions" which would include the sale of WGSN, a US listing of its digital commerce assets, and a standalone listing for the events division.

It's hard to see that paying off for shareholders now, for a number of reasons.

Firstly, I suspect that Ascential investors underwhelmed by its share price performance would prefer the certainty of a cash offer for the Lions festival and Money 20/20 conference, even though it will presumably have been pitched at a discount to the board's expectations. Second, the prospects for a successful US listing, which always looked ambitious, seem much shakier in a turbulent IPO market. And third, the WGSN disposal talks are said to be at a meaningfully lower price than the £700m mooted at the start of the process.

For chairman Scott Forbes, this is high-stakes stuff. His biography on the Ascential website boasts of his "over 35 years' experience in... mergers and acquisitions". It looks like he'll need to call on every moment of it to deliver a decent outcome for his investors.

(c) 2023 City A.M., source Newspaper