(BFM Bourse) – The Habitat furniture brand is on the verge of disappearing this Wednesday, crumbling under significant financial difficulties. Which will not be neutral on the activity of Vente-unique since its subsidiary has managed Habitat logistics since the end of 2022.
The future of Habitat is at stake this Wednesday. The Bobigny commercial court must rule today on the probable liquidation of the furniture chain founded in 1964.
At the end of November, the furniture brand, taken over three years earlier from the Cafom group by entrepreneur Thierry Le Guénic, requested its placement in receivership, before this procedure was officially recorded a week later by the same court. .
Habitat explains that it “was faced with profound financial difficulties, largely attributable to previous failing management and exacerbated by more recent factors: a significant drop in store traffic, an inflationary shock and the surge in energy prices, raw materials and transport, with a direct impact on the purchasing power of households, internal social movements having disrupted activity. The 25 stores operated in France are already closed.
A snowball effect on the Single Sale activity
Habitat should therefore definitely lower the curtain this Wednesday. The furniture brand, already in a perilous situation at the time of its takeover in 2020, was unable to resolve its financial difficulties. This new failure also symbolizes the current torments of the furniture sector, like the listed company Maisons du Monde. The furniture distribution specialist then revised its outlook for 2023 downward, paying the price for inflation which is weighing on household purchasing power.
Coming back to Habitat, the decision of the Bobigny commercial court, “would therefore mean the disappearance of the brand, which had then made 65 million euros in 2022”, recalls TP ICAP Midcap in its note entitled dedicated to Vente- unique, which has managed Habitat’s logistics since the acquisition of Distri Service at the end of 2022.
The end of Habitat will therefore have a snowball effect on Vente-unique activity. The logistics subsidiary Distri Service achieved 6.7 million euros in turnover for the 2022/23 financial year, mainly on behalf of Habitat”, recalls Florent Thy-thine, head of equity research at TP ICAP Midcap. ” The disappearance of the brand would therefore eliminate most of this turnover which would not be compensated in the short term,” continues the specialist.
However, the analyst recalls that Vente-unique is working on its offer of logistics services to the partners of its marketplace (marketplace, editor’s note), an initiative “which should ultimately make it possible to increase the level of activity of the logistics subsidiary”.
A limited effect on profitability
Another point which qualifies the situation, the very probable liquidation of Habitat should be limited in terms of Ebit (operating profit) thanks to the capacity of Vente-unique “to reduce the cost structure”, adds TP ICAP Midcap which, however, awaits the officialization of the news “before taking it into account in its estimates”. But according to the financial intermediary’s first calculations, the impact on its 2023/2024 earnings per share “would be around -3%”.
In the short term, this news could certainly “put pressure on the title” says TP ICAP Midcap, which judges that it constitutes an “opportunity to position itself on the file for which the next publications should be well oriented”. The analyst therefore confirms his purchase opinion on Vente-unique with a price target also maintained at 15.9 euros, which offers a potential increase of 30% at Tuesday evening prices (12.25 euros) .
Remember that the specialist in online furniture sales reported at the beginning of November a dynamic commercial performance at the end of its fourth quarter of its 2022/2023 financial year ended at the end of September. Between July and September, the group actually achieved a turnover growth of 20.4% to 43.34 million euros.
Vente-unique took advantage of this excellent publication to also raise its margin outlook for its 2022/2023 financial year. And the group also anticipates a good start to the year 2023-2024, namely double-digit growth (greater than 10%) at the end of its first quarter, i.e. the period covering October to December 2023.
Sabrina Sadgui – ©2023 BFM Bourse
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