Governance crisis at Elior, which falls on the stock market

Open crisis and uncertainty at Elior. The title of the specialist in collective catering has unscrewed by more than 20% in five days, to fall to 3.18 euros, its lowest level since October 2020. In question? The announcement of the departure of Philippe Guillemot. On Tuesday, the managing director informed the board of directors of his desire to resign from his mandate, asking not to be renewed in his functions as CEO, even though he had been confirmed a few hours earlier at more than 98 % as administrator. In its press release, Elior refers to ” personal reasons “. The new interim CEO, Bernard Gault, independent director for four years, ensures that the situation of the group did not justify his departure.

Lack of visibility

Due to a lack of visibility on the impact of the health protocols put in place to contain Omicron, Elior decided, at the end of January, to suspend its financial objectives for the 2021-2022 financial year. The news had been freshly received on the stock market, the title having unscrewed by 11.13% on January 27.

The absence of forecasts and the surprise departure of the general manager “leave investors very uncertain “Summarizes James Ainley, an analyst at Citi, who lowers his opinion of” buy “to” neutral “and slashes his target price from 9 to 4 euros. A ” new period of uncertainty » opens, abounds his colleague from Bryan, Garnier & Co. Since its return to the stock market in 2014, the collective catering group has had three general managers, Gilles Petit (2010-2015), Philippe Salle (2015-2017) and Philippe Guillemot (2017-2022).

” Recent trends in professional mobility support the idea that contract catering specialists will return to a full recovery in 2023 », Analyst the Citi expert. ” Elior’s business mix exposes it to regulations arising from the pandemic and it has less leeway to manage cost pressures. » Since 1^er January, the stock lost half its value.