Comdex Show Producer Key3Media Reborn With New Name, Financing

By Barbara Darrow, CRN
June 19, 2003 5:21 PM ET

Key3Media Group, the company behind Comdex and other high-tech trade shows, got a new lease on life with new backing and a new moniker.

On Thursday it changed its name to Medialive International and announced that it has received another cash infusion from Thomas Weisel Capital Partners, which had previously invested in the company. Weisel now owns 90 percent of Medialive. Debt has been cut by 87 percent and interest expenses have been slashed by 91 percent, the company said in a statement.

"We don't have anyone peering over our shoulders [anymore]," said Michael Millikin, group senior vice president.

Robert Priest-Heck, who had been COO of Key3Media, is succeeding Fredric Rosen as CEO. Rosen will continue to sit on the board of directors. The company is also moving from its current Los Angeles headquarters to San Francisco.

Like other tech concerns, Key3media deflated with the bursting Internet bubble. The New York Stock Exchange delisted it last July (see story), and the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last February.

Aside from Comdex, the annual techfest in Las Vegas every November, the company now called Medialive hosts the JavaOne, NetWorld Interop and Seybold shows.

HEATHER CLANCY contributed to this story.

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