(AOF) – Distributor of special steels, Jacquet Metals announces that its net income group share is 180 million euros in 2022 against 121 million euros in 2021. Its current Ebitda jumped 55% to 312 million euros, representing 11.6% of revenue versus 10.2% in 2021. Gross margin amounted to 681 million euros and represents 25.4% of revenue versus 526 million euros in 2021 (26.7% of revenue).
Jacquet Metals’ turnover increased by 36% to 2.68 billion euros.
The operational working capital requirement increased, representing 28% of sales at the end of 2022 against 26% a year earlier.
During this period, the special steels distributor generated 43 million euros in operating cash flow and consolidated its financial structure with shareholders’ equity of 675 million euros. The net debt to equity ratio (gearing) is 35% at the end of 2022.
Its cash amounted to 254 million euros and credit lines to 807 million euros (of which 319 million euros were unused).
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Concerns remain
According to the Federation of Specialized Trade, Procos, in October 2022, activity fell by 1.5% over one year. Nevertheless, the beauty and health (+ 5.2%) and specialized food (+ 3.5%) activity is dynamic compared to October 2021. The frequentation of the points of sale was very impacted by the problems of fuel and bad weather. Compared to October 2019, the pre-covid year, the drop in attendance is very sharp (-20.9% in October). Shopping centers and the outskirts are more impacted than city centers with a difference of four to five points.
Several reasons for concern exist for the future. The players are experiencing a very significant scissor effect given the increase in their operating costs while the evolution of demand is very uncertain. Very few brands can pass on the increase in their costs to their selling prices. The federation therefore asks, among other things, to limit the indexation of the Commercial Rent Index to + 3.5% for the rents of all companies in 2023. It also invokes an absolute urgency: to cap the price of energy for 2023 and retroact on the contracts already signed to prevent the rate of failures from accelerating.