(AOF) – A company specializing in automatic leather or textile cutting software and systems, Lectra announces that its sales (up 35% to 521.9 million euros) and its current EBITDA (up 51% to 98.4 million euros) of 2022 are within the range of the objectives published in February 2022, as specified in July and confirmed in October. Its current EBITDA margin was 18.8%. Current operating profit (68.5 million euros) was up 54%.
It includes a charge of 11.8 million euros for the amortization of intangible assets resulting from the acquisitions of Gerber, Neteven, Gemini and the activity of Glengo Teknoloji. After a non-recurring charge of €4.0 million recognized during 2022, operating income stands at €64.5 million.
Lectra’s net income amounted to 43.8 million euros, up 55%.
Current free cash flow (€43.7 million) was down slightly compared to 2021, due to a temporary increase in working capital requirements.
As of December 31, 2022, the Group has a particularly solid balance sheet, with shareholders’ equity of €452.2 million (€400.8 million as of December 31, 2021), and positive net cash of 11.4 million euros, less than two years after the acquisition of Gerber. The working capital requirement is negative at 6.3 million euros.
The Board of Directors will propose to the General Meeting of April 28, 2023 the payment of a dividend of €0.48 per share for the 2022 financial year.
Regarding its outlook, through its Lectra 4.0 strategy, the group aims to position itself as a key player in Industry 4.0 in its three strategic sector markets, fashion, automotive and furniture, by 2030.
In order to support these objectives, the Group has set itself six strategic priorities for the 2023-2025 period: strengthen the implementation of good ethical, social, societal and environmental practices internally and for its customers; take advantage of any synergies resulting from the acquisition of Gerber; accelerate the transition of software sales to SaaS mode; accelerate the transformation of the Group’s engagement and customer relationship model; continue, in line with the two previous roadmaps, external growth operations; and prepare Lectra for the 2026-2030 period.
AOF – LEARN MORE
Learn more about the Software publishers sector
European cloud players file complaint against Microsoft
These groups have benefited from a jump in their activity of 167% over the last five years. However, their share in the European cloud fell from 27% to 13% over the period. That of Amazon, Microsoft and Google has jumped from 46% to 72%, according to Synergy Research. The European leader, SAP, is only in seventh place with only 2% of the market.
European players accuse Microsoft, the world’s number one cloud provider, of taking advantage of its position as a software publisher and cloud service provider to force its software customers to switch to its services if they want to migrate to the cloud. Despite recent announcements from Microsoft to calm things down, European players are offering to test its compliance with the ten principles of fair software licensing established by Cigref, the French association of the main digital customers.