(Boursier.com) — No rebound for Orpea. In a market once again well oriented at the opening, the title of the specialist in retirement homes and dependency care lost 0.7% to 16.3 euros, the lowest since June 2005, after having dropped 21.5% yesterday. A new warning shot to be linked to the financial deterioration of the company which announced a drop in its profitability in the first half and warned of a probable decrease in the latter in the second half. If the group saw its turnover increase by 10.9% to 2.295 billion euros over the first six months of the year, its EBITDAR margin rate fell to 18.5% (24.9% one year earlier).
“Orpea has decided to bring forward the release of preliminary first-half results for transparency reasons, as 2022 results are likely to be significantly below market expectations,” Chief Financial Officer Laurent Lemaire said in a conference call with senior executives. journalists. Operating profitability is affected by the reduction in compensation mechanisms relating to Covid-19 and by the increase in food, energy and salary prices.
The share price is down “as Orpea expects significant one-off costs and a significant inflation-related impact, which could lead to results significantly below consensus”, says the analyst. Alphavalue Yi Zhong. “We are seeing significant pressure from reputational risks and depreciation in asset values…Our current margin estimate of 3.8% for the year does not appear to be sufficient to reflect the consequences of the scandal and should be downgraded”.
Momentum still remains negative, notes Oddo BHF (‘neutral’). In the short term, the title remains surrounded by too many uncertainties, or at least, many brakes (inflation, TO, shortage, possible regulatory changes, pricing) which limit visibility on the forecast sequence (there is a lot of inertia or brakes on the restoration of pre-crisis margins which in reality do not seem to be accessible in the short term). The conference call that was supposed to be an exercise in transparency turned into awareness raising and rebasing forecasts for consensus. The analyst prefers to avoid the title and cut his target from 26.7 to 16 euros.
In turmoil since the end of January against a backdrop of shortcomings in the care of residents of its retirement homes and allegations of financial mismanagement, the title has lost more than 80% of its value in 2022.
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