The Interview: Publisher and conference organiser who buys to build rather than burn

Peter Rigby Chief executive T&F Informa

Peter Rigby, the chief executive of the highly acquisitive publishing group T&F Informa, is keen to stress that he grows businesses and doesn't just knock companies together. Earlier this month, he announced the $1.4bn (£770m) acquisition of IIR, the world's leading conference business.

Peter Rigby, the chief executive of the highly acquisitive publishing group T&F Informa, is keen to stress that he grows businesses and doesn't just knock companies together. Earlier this month, he announced the $1.4bn (£770m) acquisition of IIR, the world's leading conference business.

While undoubtedly an aggressive businessman, Mr Rigby is not ruthless. When the subject of conversation turns to the City, Mr Rigby reveals that he was appalled by the recent attempt by Citigroup to poach about 20 brokers ­ a whole team ­ from its rival ABN Amro over the course of a weekend.

"What was wrong was that a whole group was approached. We at T&F Informa don't go hunting to take whole divisions from other businesses; conspire to take teams. The reason is that we wouldn't want it done to us," he said.

A colleague of Mr Rigby explains that this view shows that "he is a buy-and-build merchant, not a buy-and-burn guy".

Mr Rigby has certainly pulled off a lot of deals in his time and has now taken his company to the cusp of FTSE 100 status. Over the last year, there have been two "transforming" deals. Informa Group, the business-to-business publisher that Mr Rigby ran, merged with the science publisher Taylor & Francis. Both companies had a history of growth by acquisitions. Now he has the IIR deal under his belt and it is unlikely to stop there.

Mr Rigby stresses that he is not anticipating buying anything else now. But, should the right business come up, he will be ready.

"There is still more consolidation in our markets to come and we'd like to continue to grow," he says noting that the Springer science business, which is owned by private equity, "would make a very, very powerful combination" with T&F Informa.

Springer would cost a lot more than £1bn but its owners, Cinven and Candover, seem determined to float the business, probably next year, fearful that a sale to a trade buyer would lead to a protracted regulatory inquiry. But once Springer is listed, Mr Rigby could pounce.

"Springer is a great business, that's for sure. One that would fit with our group and everybody knows that. There will be an IPO next year and then it's a different ball game," he says.

Similarly, if Blackwell, the privately owned UK academic publisher, became available, Mr Rigby would be fighting to put a bid in.

For a man with great ambition and huge drive, Mr Rigby is disarmingly down to earth. With his Lancashire tones and straight-forward way of speaking, the sharpness is all there but the pomp, arrogance and pretension that seems to infest many bosses of large listed companies ­ especially in the media sector ­ is entirely absent. That may be why, according to colleagues, he is a great people person, who loves mixing at corporate events. He has been known to man the registration desk at his company's conferences, handing out promotional goodies.

T&F Informa was very nearly kept out of the auction of IIR, which was owned by the Scottish tycoon Lord Laidlaw. Though Mr Rigby had known the peer for years ­ he remembers flying out to Paris in 1990 to try to convince the then Irvine Laidlaw to sell up ­ IIR was worried about letting T&F, which has its own large conferencing business, see its books.

But Mr Rigby is used to stalking his prey over many years, as he did with the PJB medical publications business that Informa bought for £150m at the end of 2003.

"We tracked PJB for 10 years. But you only get one chance when eventually something triggers a sale ... when we did the Taylor & Francis deal, we knew it was a stepping stone but we didn't know to what. The next stage depended on availability," he says.

So Mr Rigby wasn't going to allow himself to be shut out of the IIR auction that took place this year. Right at the end of the IIR sale, when there was a queue of private equity buyers lined up for it, Mr Rigby says: "We begged our way back into the process at the last minute and walked off with the spoils. I always thought we were the natural buyer."

One asset that most business publishers would fall over themselves to buy is the Financial Times. There has been much speculation this year that Pearson will finally sell it but T&F will not be among the bidders for the FT, if it should be put on the block.

Mr Rigby explains that he is interested in niche, not broad, markets. Areas of activity that can be readily defined, such as the professions, are what excites him. T&F Informa does own a famous daily newspaper, Lloyd's List, the shipping title that traces its origins back to 1688, but Mr Rigby says it appeals only to a specialist audience with a daily circulation of just 10,000. And any business, such as the FT, which is dependent on advertising, a highly volatile income stream, does not attract him. Despite owning hundreds of publications, just 6 per cent of T&F Informa revenues come from advertising ­ the rest coming from subscriptions, conferencing and training.

The IIR deal will give Mr Rigby plenty to divest. For one thing, it doubles the database of names of potential delegates and subscribers for the sales teams to attack. "I am in the process of meeting IIR employees around the world. I can talk turkey with them because they understand conferences in a very similar way to us, how our remuneration works and so on."

IIR is made up of 120 operating units, with its own managing director, spread across the globe. The deal is actually the second time T&F Informa has acquired IIR. In 1980, IBC, one of the companies that was to become Informa, bought IIR from Irvine Laidlaw ­ who then sunned himself on the Continent for a few years "until the day the non-compete clause ended" and then he came back and started the same business again, so Informa has now had to acquire it for the second time.

Conferencing

The logic of the Taylor & Francis deal was all about conferencing too ­ while that company owned lots of highly respected science journals, it did not put on any associated events. So Informa, where Mr Rigby had been chairman, has put its conferencing skills to work on the Taylor & Francis business, which can also trace its roots way back, to 1798. The combined business provided the scale to do the IIR deal.

Mr Rigby will turn 50 next month, having first became chief executive of a company ­ IBC ­ in 1990. He must get on well with colleagues, as he shares an office with T&F Informa's managing director and its finance director, each having a desk in a corner ­ an arrangement he has had with various fellow directors over the years. He says it means more efficient communications with the other executives and shows the company works as one.

T&F has a very flat management structure, with power devolved to many dozens of operating units that each run their own show ­ remuneration dependent on that unit's performance. "But we don't cast the units adrift and neither David [Gilbertson, the MD] nor I can help getting involved."

Mr Rigby rises at 5am every day and visits the gym before driving from his Gloucestershire home to the T&F Informa offices in London. With the IIR deal yet to complete, with all the business opportunities that presents, he is keen to stay at the helm to reap the rewards.

"I enjoy the work very much but I don't want to over-stay my welcome. I don't want, at 60, to be pushed out of the door because I'm past my sell-by date," he says.

Rise of publishing chief

Age: 49

Pay: £597,000 (last year)

Career: After taking an economics degree at Manchester University in 1976, Peter Rigby qualified as an accountant and went to work for a packaging company and book mail order business. He moved to London in 1983 as finance director of a publishing company, Stonehart Publications, which was later acquired by IBC Group, another publisher. He became chief executive of IBC in 1990, and then chairman of Informa when it was created in 1999 through the merger of IBC with Lloyd's List publisher LLP. In May last year, when Informa merged with science publisher Taylor & Francis, he became group chief executive.

Personal: Enjoys playing golf, cricket and football. Has a son aged 24 from his first marriage and two daughters, aged six and four, by his second wife.