PARIS (Agefi-Dow Jones)–The industrial laundry group Elis on Monday lowered its gross operating surplus (EBITDA) margin target but raised its free cash flow forecast after achieving a figure of business of 3.05 billion euros, up 8.6% compared to 2020 and slightly above market expectations.
Analysts polled by FactSet on average expected sales of 3.03 billion euros. In organic terms, the increase in activity stood at 7.4% for the past financial year as a whole, in accordance with the forecast of organic growth “above” 6% given by the company at the end of last October. .
The group now expects its 2021 Ebitda margin to be 34.5%, and no longer above this level as it had previously indicated. “The strong inflation observed in December, particularly that of the price of gas, slightly penalizes the performance at the end of the year, our price adjustments not being made until January,” explained Elis in a press release.
In addition, “2021 free cash flow should be in the upper part of the range previously communicated, which was between 200 and 230 million euros,” Elis said.
The forecast of a debt leverage of 3.3 times as of December 31, 2021, then significantly lower than 3 times as of December 31, 2022, has been confirmed.
“We will give indications for the year 2022 when publishing our 2021 annual results on March 9,” said Xavier Martiré, chairman of the Elis management board, quoted in a press release.
-Francois Berthon, Agefi-Dow Jones; 01 41 27 47 93; [email protected] ed: ECH
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January 31, 2022 12:10 ET (17:10 GMT)