Hyve Shares Are Up 13% YTD, Can the Events Company Recoup Last Year’s Losses?

Shares of Hyve Group PLC (LON: HYVE) rose 7.48% despite the company’s lack of announcements bringing the stock’s gains this year to slightly above 13%.

The company that was formerly known as ITE Group organises trade exhibitions and conferences worldwide and its business suffered tremendously from the coronavirus restrictions imposed since last year.

The ban on large in-person gatherings due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the drop in global travel sunk the company.

Hyve shares fell from a high of over 600p in January 2020 to a low of 50p in November 2020 before rising to its current price around 128p. The company’s stock did not recover like many other stocks because the pandemic created a massive change in its business model.

However, the company is taking on the challenge of reinventing its business having acquired Retail Meetup in December 2020 to capitalise on the shift to online meeting and conferences in place of physical gatherings due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Hyve recently announced that Retail Meetup has encouraging forward booking in March and May 2021 and that it had secured insurance coverage of up to 50 million for event cancellations this year.

The company is now relying heavily on online meetups to generate revenues with events scheduled for March and May this year. The recent announcement regarding forward bookings relates to these two events.

Hyve shares are up over 12% this year and their cumulative gains over the past six months is over 61%, but they are still a long way off their 2020 highs.

However, a return to regular in-person trade exhibitions and conferences could trigger a massive rally in Hyve stock, but this will only happen once the world has overcome the coronavirus pandemic, which could take a while.

Hyve share price.

Hyve shares surged 7.48% to trade at 129.2p having risen from Monday’s closing price of 120.2p.