Douglas Emslie: Tarsus is an integrated media group, meaning that it has a portfolio of trade shows, publications, conferences and related Web sites. We offer our clients a menu of media opportunities in the markets that we service and have been established since June of 1998. The management of Tarsus has a long history in trade shows, most of the senior management used to run a public company called Blenheim, which was the biggest trade show organizer in the world. In America, we ran some very large trade shows like PC Expo in New York. Tarsus itself is a publicly traded company on the London Stock Exchange, with a market capitalization of under $100 million. TWST: Who are your competitors in this market? Douglas Emslie: There are numerous large media companies, such as Reed Elsevier, who have competing exhibitions or trade magazines, also United News and Media who own CMP and also a lot of small companies. It is a very entrepreneurial industry, so there is a lot of mom and pop type operations who have specialist exhibitions or trade associations who organize their own shows.
TWST: You mentioned both large and small companies. What would you say are your competitive advantages over either or both of these sized companies?
Douglas Emslie: Because we are small, focused and management has a long experience in the industry, we are able to move very quickly. Where big organizations I think have problems is that because it is a very entrepreneurial, aggressive industry, there are lots of changes and attacks and you have to move very quickly. Big organizations tend not to move quickly. So, having that entrepreneurial look, feel and speed of response is very important. Also, an advantage we have over typical entrepreneurial mom and pop operations is that we have, as a public company, the access to the financial resources whereas those smaller companies tend not to.
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