Saint-Gobain: the stock is still progressing, up 25% since January 1







Photo credit © Saint-Gobain


(Boursier.com) — Saint Gobain climbed another 1% to 58 euros on Friday, after having finalized the sale announced on December 12 of all its trading brands in the United Kingdom, including the distributor of building materials and wood Jewson, to the Stark group. Saint-Gobain therefore no longer has any distribution activity in the United Kingdom. The divested business is expected to generate revenue of around €2.7 billion in 2022 and an operating margin of around 2%. It has 600 points of sale and employs 8,900 people.
As a reminder, the operation is carried out on the basis of an enterprise value of 740 million pounds sterling, or approximately 850 million euros.

These disposals are part of Saint-Gobain’s strategy to continue optimizing its portfolio aimed at improving the Group’s growth and profitability profile, in line with its “Grow & Impact” plan.

Among the latest opinions from brokers, HSBC has raised its target price from 73 to 85 euros. JP Morgan had previously raised the target from 70 to 72 euros with an opinion to ‘overweight’, while BNP Paribas Exane adjusted the cursor from 65 to 67 euros (‘outperform’).
The French building materials giant generated an operating profit of 5.33 billion euros in 2022, up 18.4%, for a turnover of 51.19 billion euros, up 15.9%. The operating margin reached the historic level of 10.4% (+20bp). The group attributed this solid performance to the strong momentum of all segments worldwide, despite an “unstable geopolitical, energy and macroeconomic environment in 2022”.

A dividend of 2 euros per share

For 2023, Saint-Gobain expects the operating margin to remain in a range between 9% and 11%. The group is also proposing a dividend of 2 euros per share, up 23% compared to last year, adding that it will allocate at least 400 million euros for share buybacks in 2023 to further reduce the number of its outstanding shares.

Buying Jefferies explained that the change in revenue mix demonstrated that Saint-Gobain “is no longer the same company as it was”… The intensification of margin improvements and the reiteration of Margin forecasts reflect this in the near term, although investors will likely be looking for evidence that sales can remain resilient in the current environment…


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