Hyve, the UK listed trade show business, is acquiring the 121 Group, a meetings programme organiser in the mining sector across EMEA, North America and APAC, for initial consideration of $28m (£21m) and an earnout which is expected to result in a total consideration of £42-50m, and is subject to a cap of £60m.
Hyve also announced share placings to raise a total of £29m.
121 Group was founded by Toby Duckworth, Pablo Martin, Charlie Hastings and Leo Stemp in 2014. It organises invitation-only bi-annual investor meetings around the world. In addition, it operates an investor relations service for mining companies and The Assay – an online information and marketing site for the sector.
121 Group is a provider of marketing services for small-mid cap mining companies seeking to raise capital. In the year to 31 March 2021, 121 Group held 12,156 online meetings across nine meeting programmes with over 3,000 investors and 550 corporates. In the year to 31 March 2019 (the last financial year before the pandemic) 121 reported revenue of $9.6m and EBIT of $3.6m. In the year ended 31 March 2021, 121 had revenue of $5.7m and EBIT of $2.5m which in itself is an encouraging profit margin from the online events.
The Hyve Group’s portfolio includes: Shoptalk, Spring Fair, MosBuild, Bett, Mining Indaba and the recently acquired Retail Meetup digital platform. Mining Indaba will combine with 121’s Investment Cape Town in May 2022.
