Pure London and Scoop owner Hyve mulls private equity approach

By

Nigel TAYLOR

Published
Feb 22, 2023

Tradeshows giant Hyve Group has been approached by American firm Providence Equity with an offer to take the business private that value sit at over £300 million.

London Stock Exchange-listed Hyve, which hosts exhibitions around the world, including UK fashion trade shows Pure London, Scoop and Moda, said it had received an offer of 105p per share, up from a previous 101p per share bid. At 105p per share, Hyve would be valued at around £306 million.

“The board of Hyve is considering its position with respect to the proposal and a further announcement will be made in due course,” it said Wednesday.

Under the City Code on Takeovers, Providence Equity must submit a firm offer, or withdraw, by 21 March. Hyve shares jumped on the news from 85p to 103.8p. However, this is still significantly down from a pre-pandemic peak of 610.2p.

The business has successfully bounced back since the pandemic devastated the global events industry. In preliminary 2022 results, published in December, Hyve said it has remodelled its business into a “streamlined and de-risked portfolio of global, market-leading events and almost 95% of revenue now in advanced economies”.

This seasons tradeshows seem to have gone down well with the recent Scoop and Pure shows, for instance, feeling very much like pre-pandemic business-as-usual.

Its achievements included running a full schedule of FY22 events (outside of China) delivering revenue of £122.5 million, way ahead of the £21.8 million recorded in 2021, with a number events even outperforming pre-Covid-19 levels. Headline profit before tax came in at a respectable £11.5 million, down from £13.9 million a year ago.

At the time it said: “We continue to see customers choosing market leading events even in times of economic downturn, as evidenced by double-digit growth in like-for-like customer spend for the third consecutive year going into 2023.”