American investment bank Citi has voiced its concern that the takeover offer by private equity firm, Providence Equity, undervalues the UK conferences company, Hyve Group PLC (LSE:HYVE).
Providence made an unsolicited offer of 105p per share, totalling £306 million.
According to Citi, the confirmation of the cash offer reaffirms its hypothesis that Hyve was anomalously cheap at its undisturbed price.
Its target price is 160p per share, and the 105p level only brings Hyve's valuation in line with quoted peers such as Informa PLC (LSE:INF).
The investment bank finds the interest in an undervalued UK small/mid-cap (SMID) asset from private equity 'interesting and encouraging'. It considers this a positive not only for Hyve but also for B2B events and UK SMID media names more broadly.