Orpea: goes back a little, the 2021 accounts certified

(Boursier.com) — Orpea raise your head a little. In a very volatile market this weekend, the title of the retirement home operator rose 5.7% to 22.5 euros the day after the publication of the company’s 2021 Universal Registration Document, upstream of the next general meeting scheduled for July 28. This document shows that the company’s 2021 financial accounts have been certified without reservation, removing some of the concerns surrounding the file. “Investor concerns about additional pressure on the 2021 accounts have been removed,” Yi Zhong, an analyst at Alphavalue, told ‘Bloomberg’.

Moreover, Philippe Charrier, CEO of Orpea is reassuring. The manager affirms in this document that “as violent as it is, the crisis concerns nursing homes in France, i.e. less than a quarter of our activity, without major repercussions on the group’s other businesses and geographies of activity. It does not affect question the underlyings of our activity, which remain solid, and explain its remarkable resilience since even in the nursing home segment in France, the time has come for recovery – after a slight drop in the first three months of the year – while that the progression is particularly marked for the clinics”.

For Société Générale (‘keep’), the certification of Orpea’s 2021 accounts without reservations and the company’s first drawdown of 250 million euros under an agreement reached with its lenders should “reduce part of the tension” on the title. The confirmation that the French nursing home activity “is not collapsing” is also positive.

Since the publication last January of the book “Les Fossoyeurs” by Victor Castanet, which denounces in particular the treatment of residents in certain Orpea establishments, the title of the number one French nursing home has experienced a real descent into hell: its value has melted 75% since the start of the year. Several investigations, including those carried out by the Group, have brought to light inadmissible dysfunctions at head office, as well as unacceptable behavior at the highest level of the company. The general manager, Yves Le Masne, did not resist the scandal and was sacked.