by Pádraic Gilligan, Co-founder, SoolNua Consulting

The purchase of 360 Destination Group and CSI DMC by HIG Capital and their subsequent collective re-branding as Cohera continues to play on my mind, not least for the comments triggered by my Linkedin post last week.

I am reminded of our own situation that started a long time ago, around 2005, and led, eventually, to the acquisition of our company Ovation Group by MCI and the subsequent launch of Ovation Global DMC.

Two decades ago, selling a DMC was a shot in the dark. You could have twenty years of books, a loyal client base, several SITE Crystals and another dozen framed awards on the wall and still, no one could tell you what your business was worth.

I remember sitting with our accountant one October, trying to explain the shape of our pipeline. He wanted to know what contracts we had for the next three years. We had a handful of signed deals, a few letters of intent, and a raft of hopeful emails from clients saying things like, “We’ll confirm once the budget’s approved.” In other words: smoke and promise. He shrugged. From his perspective, there was no asset to measure, no tangible future income. Just a decent track record and a good revenue history that was now, firmly, in the past!

That’s the trouble with valuing a DMC: it’s a people business that looks like a project business. The worth sits in reputation and relationships, in trust, in your ability to deliver on impossible timelines and batshit budgets, none of which sit neatly in a balance sheet. You can count the desks, the licenses, the laptops, but those aren’t what buyers pay for. They’re paying for a book of clients that might or might not call again next year.

Things have changed, of course. The industry’s matured. DMCs today are far better at structuring contracts, securing deposits, and tying down multi-year deals. Some have even built subscription-style models or annual service agreements with their biggest clients. Technology helps too with CRMs, data capture, and more predictable revenue streams. But even so, most DMC owners still reach October, stare into the next year, and see fog, if not the abyss itself!

And therein the paradox. You can have just finished your best year ever with every program flawless, every margin solid, morale sky-high and yet the value of the business remains as uncertain as the next RFP. The glow of achievement doesn’t translate into guaranteed income.

And yet for the first time since Core Capital tried to get its bewildered head around AlliedPRA (now simply PRA), smart money has started to flow into the DMC sector. Venture capital firms and private equity players, people not known for sentimentality, appear to be buying in. They’re solving the puzzle our accountant never could.

How?

By looking beyond the short-term project cycle and seeing structural value in the network itself. A good DMC doesn’t just deliver programs; it mediates access to local experiences, venues, suppliers, talent, and trust. That network is the ecosystem. The richer and more interdependent it is, the more resilient and the more valuable the business becomes.

They’re also betting on consolidation, as evidenced by the 360 / CSI scenario. A single DMC is volatile. A platform covering multiple destinations with shared systems, data, and client cross-referrals is a scalable business. Predictability comes not from the next confirmed program, but from the combined resilience of the portfolio.

So while the old question — “What’s my DMC worth?” — still doesn’t have a simple answer, the calculus is evolving. Value clearly sits in:

• Contracted business, yes, but also in repeat client ratios and retention.
• Data and systems, the kind that prove who your clients are and how often they come back.
• Brand equity like awards, reputation, and thought leadership, which drive pricing power.
• Network strength ie, the power of your relationships, your ability to open doors no one else can.
• People because in the end, your product is your team.

The irony is that what makes a DMC so hard to value on paper, its fluid, human nature, is also what makes it so essential to the events ecosystem. The accountants may still struggle to measure it, but investors have begun to sense it: that intangible blend of local expertise, bullet proof relationships, and trust.

Two decades on, the abyss hasn’t disappeared.

But for the first time, someone’s figured out how to build a bridge across it and looks like they’re willing to pay for the right to walk it.