Fiera Milano grows beyond expectations and studies new business plan

At the beginning of December, stock market recognition also arrived, with the move from the Italian Stock Exchange's Small Cap index to the Mid Cap index. Fiera Milano's share price, moreover, rose 264% from November 2023 to November 2025, doubling its market value from EUR 250 million to EUR 575 million.

This is a good sign for the Milan trade fair group, which is reaping the benefits of the Development Plan presented in April 2024, with steadily growing results also confirmed by the last nine months, closed at 231.8 million euro in revenues, up 26% compared to the same period last year, and an Ebitda of 71.6 million (+15%). "These figures give us hope for a better year-end than the budget forecasts," explains CEO and General Manager Francesco Coni, "so we think we can reach the top end of the range of expected revenues, between 350 and 370.

The aspect that Conci says he is most satisfied with is that all business lines are contributing to this growth: from the core business of exhibition events to congresses, from services and set-ups to the new Entertainment division, which is preparing to receive a strong boost with the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics (of which it is an official partner). Two of the pavilions in Rho Pero, in fact, are preparing to host some competitions of the Olympic Games, while the MiCo Alliance convention centre will host the Media Centre of the event. "In addition to the value of visibility and accreditation that we derive from this partnership, the great legacy of the Olympics will be all that we are building on top of these infrastructures," says Conci. "Fiera Milano is, and will increasingly be, a place that not only hosts and organises B2B events, but also opens up to young people and the local area, to major sporting and musical events. Fondazione Fiera Milano (the group's main shareholder, ndr) has included new investments in the new industrial plan to adapt the facilities and further expand our offer in this market segment, also creating an alternative for the large events that are currently held in the centre of Milan and that sometimes create difficulties in coexisting with the urbanised fabric of the city'.

If 2025 therefore closes with growing numbers, Fiera Milano is already at work on the objectives for the two-year period 2026-2027, which will have to consolidate the group among the top five European exhibition operators, through investments on three lines: "innovation, internationalisation and sustainability", adds the CEO. "Achieving a coherence of all assets is fundamental to build the acceleration and growth that will be the subject of the new plan," explains Conci, who is already at work with his team to define its framework. "Fiera's role is to co-design, i.e. to make itself available to the industrial and association systems that make up the portfolio of most of our hosted events, to help them enhance these events from an international competitive perspective. Our market, our industrial segments are experiencing their own difficulties. We are convinced that part of the wealth generated by the fair can be reinvested together with them to create products that can look towards a future of growth'.

This translates into three lines of activity, which will take shape as early as the next few months, to become the skeleton of the new development plan: 'First of all, the request to Fondazione to invest in renovating the Rho site, designed and built twenty years ago, when the world of trade fairs was completely different. Today the system is evolving and we are ready, together with our customers and partners, to rethink the models to make them current and able to compete internationally'.