The Bookseller.com

1st December 2008

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Reed exits arms business

30.05.08

Reed Elsevier has finally stopped organising arms trade fairs - five months later than it promised shareholders and staff, reports the Guardian. Reed said it had sold the DSEi, ITEC and LAAD defence exhibitions to Britain's largest independent exhibitions group, Clarion Events, for an undisclosed sum.

Clarion, which organises 80 exhibitions every year in the UK and abroad across the leisure-to-financial sector, said the deal marked its first move into defence shows. Reed's decision last June to stop organising defence shows followed a long campaign over its involvement in several defence shows, including one in London. A host of internationally renowned writers including JM Coetzee, Ian McEwan and Arabella Weir also joined the campaign, writing a public letter to coincide with the Reed-organised London Book Fair.

Guardian

reed elsevier London Book Fair