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Mary Barra, at the head of General Motors, will be able to ask the right questions. After having, after fifteen successive years in the red, sold in 2017 its European division to the French group PSA (Peugeot, Citroën and DS), this duck lame in the eyes of Americans has already ironed positive. And not a hair since the operating margin was 5% while that of the entire group has reached 8.5%.
So, at the end of the first half, PSA published Tuesday a record net profit, up 18% to 1.48 billion euros, thanks to the improved profitability of its automotive activities. What obviously ignite the rating. Shortly after the opening, the Peugeot action took off more than 9% (+ 9.45% to 22.36 euros to 9:09).
Even worse, the acquisition of Opel and, for its British branch, Vauxhall has made a leap turnover of 40.1%, to 38.6 billion euros in the first six months of 2018. However, not everything is rosy in the world of cars and dark clouds are accumulating in the skies of manufacturers now facing the most brutal globalization
"The first half of 2018 was marked by significant headwinds," said CEO Carlos Tavares during a videoconference. He cited "exchange rate volatility, commodity costs, geopolitical chaos and regulatory uncertainty."
"Despite all this, the PSA Group and its employees have demonstrated their ability to achieve a rate of return of 8.5%", at the highest level of the automotive industry, while she was close to zero in 2014, he said. "This is proof that our group is now able to cope with storms," Tavares said.
At the same time, PSA "shows significant results in the turnaround of Opel / Vauxhall", s he is pleased, thanking the employees of the German subsidiary for their efforts. The published figures are well above the consensus of the badysts surveyed by Factset.
Exceed the forecasts
"We are doing better than all expectations" of the market, welcomed the financial director of PSA, Jean -Baptist of Chatillon. Opel's return to profitability comes just six months after the launch of its turnaround plan.
"After many years of losses (…), Opel Vauxhall's recovery is now clearly under way and it is a proof of its potential, contrary to all forecasts, "greeted Mr. de Chatillon. And "it's just the beginning", he added, the subsidiary "must now continue to improve its performance" to reach the level of the group.
This turnaround has been achieved through cost reductions and improved vehicle pricing by focusing on the most profitable sales niches. In other words, Opel's ongoing balances ceased and fleet sales are now better controlled.
Current operating income for PSA as a whole reached € 3 billion, up 48, 1%. The group's operating margin peaked at 7.8%, compared to 7.4% last year over the same period, before the acquisition of Opel. These figures are well ahead of the targets set by management, which was aiming for a margin of 6% in 2021 and had already announced at the beginning of the year a revision of its outlook in early 2019.
Peugeot, the product recovery [19659022] The performance was favored by the record level of volumes, with nearly 2.2 million vehicles delivered worldwide from January to June.
Carlos Tavares underlined the particular performance of the Peugeot brand, which became in Europe "The number one SUV", the 4×4 segment of leisure, thanks to the exceptional success of the 3008 model (read our essay).
"Peugeot registers the stronger growth among top 10 brands in Europe, "he said. "Peugeot is a real driver for the profitability of the company.
But the group's performance can also be explained by "the improvement in the operational performance of all our divisions", including Faurecia and the group's financial activities, said de Chatillon.
said the accounts presented on Tuesday included write-downs on activities in Iran, following the announcement of PSA's withdrawal from that country scheduled for August to comply with Donald Trump's US sanctions.
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