(Boursier.com) — Air France-KLM dropped 4.8% to 10.48 euros at the start of the day in Paris, at a historic low. The Franco-Dutch company nevertheless recorded a record operating profit in the third quarter, up 31% to 1.34 billion euros, for a turnover of €8.6 billion (+8.9%), materializing a historic margin of 15.5%. Net profit reached 0.9 billion euros, up 0.5 billion euros compared to last year and further supporting the restoration of the Group’s equity.
Despite these excellent results, the consensus, provided by the carrier, was counting on slightly higher accounts since, on average, an operating profit of 1.376 billion euros for revenues of 8.7 billion euros were expected. The net profit was anticipated at 991 ME. Capacity also reached 94% of the pre-pandemic level, below the company’s objective of 95%.
The Franco-Dutch company also announced yesterday evening that it had signed a definitive agreement with Apollo Global Management for quasi-equity financing of 1.3 billion euros, in the capital of a subsidiary holding contracts with commercial partners of the loyalty program called “Flying Blue”.
Barclays (‘overweight’) explains that while passenger revenues were good, cargo revenues fell by 39%. Morgan Stanley (‘line weighting’) believes there are unlikely to be “very significant” changes to the consensus level given the slight ‘hiccup’ and the fact that there is not much additional color on the orientations…
For Bernstein (‘outperform’), operating profit fell short of consensus on lower revenue, although this was partly offset by better costs. Citi (‘buy’) mentions results generally in line with expectations thanks to better prices, even if the cost of fuel was higher than expected. “We consider the delay in the reservations curve as a negative sentiment,” underlines the bank.