MCI Year-End Review

Year end review of MCI's financial results, growth, new product offerings, awards and corporate social responsibility

Geneva, Switzerland – November 30th, 2011. MCI reports 13% growth in revenues and is optimistic for 20% increase for 2012. MCI’s gross margin forecast for 2011 year end is €100 million. Revenue growth of 13% this year can be attributed to an organic growth of 7% and 6% through acquisitions of EMC Event & Meeting Company GmbH in Munich and Advance Group in Vancouver. MCI’s projected EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) is €11 million, in line with the objectives for the year 2011. With an expected 20% organic and acquisitiondriven growth, as well as the integration of Perfectus Group in Asia on the 1st January, 2012 looks set to be promising for MCI.

Continued growth of MCI follows the opening of two new offices in North America, MCI Toronto and MCI Vancouver, and the acquisition of Perfectus AV in Asia-Pacific. The opening of MCI Vancouver and MCI Toronto in October 2011 helped create a strong permanent presence for MCI in the North American market, building on the establishment of an affiliate office in Toronto in December 2010, now fully rebranded as MCI Toronto. MCI Vancouver brings together leading congress management company Advance Group with event planning and destination management company Destination Planners. Destination management services will operate as Ovation Canada. In January 2012 Perfectus AV will become fully integrated as MCI, operating together with Dorier and enhancing MCI’s creative, staging and technical production offering to Asia-Pacific clients. With Perfectus offices in Singapore, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing and Ho Chi Minh, the acquisition will help extend MCI’s global reach and strengthen its value proposition to clients in this region.

Fresh MCI product offerings include the spin-off of new meetings management technology platform, B-Com and partnership with Blue Sky Broadcast, provider of technology for education and content management solutions. In June 2011, in conjunction with its outsourced IT partner, PSideo, MCI launched B-Com - a meeting management technology platform. Available to customers as standalone software, it is a fully integrated meeting management platform, enabling the efficient management of all aspects of an event from planning to post-event analysis. In November, MCI announced a partnership with Blue Sky Broadcast, leading provider of technology solutions for online content management, education portals and event streaming, to offer the worldwide association community a fully integrated digital education service.

Sébastien Tondeur elected Chairman of the Board of MPI and named Ernst & Young’s “Entrepreneur of the Year 2011”. On the 1st of July 2011, Sébastien Tondeur, Chief Executive Officer of MCI, became the Chairman of the Board of Meeting Professionals International (MPI). MPI is the leading association in the meetings and events sector comprising over 23,000 members worldwide. MCI also signed an international marketing and partnership agreement with MPI to support their vision to build a rich, global meetings industry community. In October 2011 Sébastien Tondeur, CEO of MCI, was named Ernst & Young’s “Entrepreneur of the Year 2011” in the category of Services/Trade in Switzerland. The globally renowned award is given to outstanding Swiss entrepreneurs who, through personal commitment and business acumen, make a contribution towards strengthening the Swiss economy.

A demonstrable CSR commitment from MCI in 2011 with the release of GRI compliant sustainability report and continuing efforts to support organizations and initiatives promoting global change. With the release of its 2010 sustainability report “Taking Action” in June 2011, MCI became the first international events agency to use the GRI framework to report its economic, environmental and social strategies in order to benchmark performance. MCI currently provides logistical and strategic advisory services to the UN Global Compact Business Forum at the RIO+20 Conference, the GRI Global Conference on Sustainability and Transparency and the Asian Business Summit on Climate Leadership, among others. Following their work on the COP15 project in 2009, MCI has been mandated to guide the development and certification of a sustainable event system to manage over 200 meetings as part of the Danish Presidency of the European Union. MCI also leads sustainable destination improvement projects in Gothenburg, Sweden and Costa Del Sol, Spain and is working with ICCA Scandinavia to create the world’s first Sustainable Meetings Region.