PARIS (Agefi-Dow Jones) – The group catering and prepaid service vouchers Sodexo on Thursday confirmed its financial objectives for the financial year which will end at the end of August 2022, after its sales have reached 95% of their level before the health crisis in the first quarter, which ended at the end of November.
For the 2021-2022 fiscal year, Sodexo continues to forecast organic growth, an equivalent of organic growth of between 15% and 18% over one year, and an operating margin close to 5% at constant exchange rates, in 1.7 percentage point improvement compared to 2020-2021.
“It is still too early to assess whether recent health measures taken by governments will have a significant impact or not on activity,” the group said in a statement.
Strong recovery and good control of inflation
Sodexo confirmed its outlook as its first quarter revenues reached 95% of their pre-health crisis level, benefiting from a “strong” recovery, according to Sophie Bellon, Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer by interim Sodexo, cited in the press release.
During the quarter from September to November, Sodexo achieved sales of 5.26 billion euros, compared to 4.43 billion euros in the first quarter of fiscal year 2020-2021, an improvement of 18 , 8% in published data. Internally, revenues jumped 17.5%, thanks in particular to good control of inflation. “Our business model allows us to gradually transfer inflation to our customers,” said Sophie Bellon.
In detail, Sodexo recorded, at constant exchange rates and perimeter, organic revenue growth of 17.9% for its on-site services activity, which includes collective catering, and an increase of 7% for the activity. Benefits and Rewards, which manages the issuance of prepaid service vouchers. Last October, Sodexo announced that it had decided to explore “a number of strategic options” to strengthen its Benefits and Rewards Services activities and accelerate its growth, specifying that it wanted to keep control of this activity.
Nothing new in terms of governance
On the governance side, Sodexo is still unable to announce the identity of its future CEO. The group founded by Pierre Bellon started looking for a new managing director after deciding to separate from Denis Machuel, who left the group at the end of September.
Pending the appointment of this new leader, the president of the board of directors, Sophie Bellon, has taken on interim general management. “We aim to have a name by the end of the year” 2021, said the manager at the end of last October, on the occasion of the presentation of the results for the 2020-2021 fiscal year of Sodexo.
Faced with the impact of the pandemic on its business and its prospects, Sodexo launched at the end of 2020 a restructuring plan called GET (“Group Effectiveness and Transformation”) which provides for 350 million euros in cumulative savings by the end of 2020. 2021-2022 fiscal year. In France, the group also announced at the end of 2020 an employment safeguard plan covering 2,083 jobs, which has since been reduced to 500 jobs.
-Dimitri Delmond, Agefi-Dow Jones; +33 (0) 1 41 27 47 31; [email protected] ed: VLV
SODEXO FINANCIAL RELEASES:
https://www.sodexo.com/home/finance/presentations-and-publications/financial-results.html
Agefi-Dow Jones The financial newswire
Dow Jones Newswires
January 06, 2022 01:02 ET (06:02 GMT)