Robust trading and merger announcement Informa unexpectedly released two statements late last night. The first was a full year trading update, noting their expectation for revenue of £3165m+ and EBITA of £845m – both are broadly in-line with our estimates (£3158m / £839m) – and giving FY24 guidance of revenues of £3425-3475m and EBITA of £945-965m (at £/$ 1.25). These are also in line with our estimates (INVe £3433m / £962m) – the company expects high single digit growth in their B2B assets, and an acceleration to 4% in academic publishing. Management note they have completed £1.06bn of the £1.15bn buyback program. Techtarget merger The backdrop for this is the second statement – Informa has announced a merger of its digital businesses within its Informa Tech division with US-listed firm, Techtarget. Informa will also contribute $350m of cash and will end up with a 57% stake in the Nasdaq-listed entity, with the business run by the current Informa Tech CEO. We wrote about the similarities of Informa's growing Tech division to Techtarget in early 2022 (‘Build it and they will come’). Presentation at 11am. Informa's assets generate $50m of EBITDA, with Techtarget generating c$70m – the Techtarget current EV is $1160m, with Techtarget trading currently at c.16x FY24 consensus EBITDA. The companies are targeting $45m of synergies in 3 years ($20m revenue based) and expect the deal to be neutral to earnings in 2025, and accretive in 2026, with a ROIC above WACC in 3 years. The deal is expected to complete in H2, with further details at the presentation at 11am. Informa currently trades at 11x FY24E EBITDA.