Hyve’s shares buzzing after insurance payout

CONFERENCE and trade show organiser Hyve Group has been forced to cancel the biggest event in its calendar amid the ongoing Covid-19 turmoil.

Shoptalk, a huge retail symposium held in Las Vegas, had been postponed from March to September – but has now been scrapped in 2020 and will instead next run in March 2021.

Hyve has also had to cancel a number of other events, though it did not disclose which ones.

The company has been pummelled by the pandemic, which brought global travel and the market for corporate events virtually to a standstill. It plans to run events in China from July onwards - but how long it will take until it can restart its schedule elsewhere is still an unknown.

However, shares in the FTSE 250listed group rose 6pc, or 7p, to 124p after Hyve reported it has received the first in a series of insurance claims for its cancellations. It has been given £7.35m, and there is a total cap on payouts of £62m for all insured events to the end of October.

Faring less well on the midcap index, oil services specialist Wood Group tipped into the red, losing 1.1pc, or 2.6p, to close at 224.3p, after warning it expects first-half profits to fall by 19pc. Energy work makes up around 85pc of its business.

A large chunk of that comes from oil and gas – though it has been trying to push into other industries and is pursuing work on green energy projects, evidenced by clinching two solar energy contracts in the US earlier this week.

Its order book was down by around 11pc at the end of May, compared with the end of December, in a sign that the slump in energy prices has taken a toll on its pipeline. For a company whose fortunes are tied in with crude prices, Wood will have been relieved to see oil futures trading 2.5pc higher, up $1, to $43 last night.

Hopes are growing that demand will pick up sooner than expected and have been bolstered by an agreement between members of the Opec+ – formed of the Opec cartel and other producing nations such as Russia – to cut output.

The London market had an upbeat end to the week, with the

FTSE 100 rising 1.1pc, or 68.53 points, to 6292.6, and the FTSE 250 adding 1pc, or 169 points, to 17687.26.

Domino’s Pizza shares were flat in the pan after Berenberg brokers downgraded it to ‘sell’, citing the mounting pressure from competitors like Deliveroo and Uber Eats that are focused on fast growth.

Analysts emphasised they don’t think it’s a bad business, saying it has a strong brand and is well rated by its customers, but they think the cut-throat delivery market will weigh on its earnings this year. Domino’s stock fell 1.3pc, or 4.4p, to 327p.

Elsewhere, investors cheered aviation services company Air Partner, which rose after it bagged a seven-year deal with the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).

The CAA awarded its subsidiary Redline the contract to be the sole certifier and quality assurer of free-running explosive detection dogs – the type of highly trained dogs that sniff around cargo for bombs before it is loaded on planes. Air Partner shares rose 5.3pc, or 4p, to 79p. On AIM, technology minnow

Catenae Innovation told the market that Newcastle Premier Health, with whom it has been working on a coronavirus ‘digital passport’, had completed a proofof-concept pilot trial of the ‘CovID’ app. The app would enable groups of people who could prove they have had the virus to go back to work or meet friends.

But Catenae stressed it might not be picked up and commercialised and shares fell 17.1pc, or 0.6p, to 2.9p.