Alstom published its accounts at the end of March this morning. The introductory meeting started at 8:30 a.m. At 9:04 a.m., shares of the train builder gained 9%, then it was the fall.
| Photo credits: Alstom
Alstom gained 9% in the first exchanges, before falling to 11%. Such volatility was almost unheard of, until today, for the manufacturer of trains and metros, which published this morning, before the opening, its accounts for the fourth quarter 2021-2022, closed at the end of March.
The Stock Exchange initially gave a very warm welcome to the “a real good surprise on the free cash flow » of the second half, came out better than expected (469 million euros against 215 million expected by the consensus), as noted by analysts Delphine Brault and Quentin Borie, for the private bank Oddo BHF. But, during the phone meeting to present the accounts, there was a drastic mood change, as indicated by the financial news agency Bloomberg, which quickly sought to find out more.
Analyst James Moore of Redburn reports that management confined itself to comparing free cash flow in the second half to that of the same period last year, refusing to answer questions from the financial community on the factors that allowed the increase from one semester to the next. He explained that the management’s proposal to bring offline clarification “did not promote investor confidence. »
In the same vein, William Mackie, at Kepler Cheuvreux, explains that, during the conference call, analysts and investors remained focused on the question of the ” how the free cash flow has he improved » and, in the absence of a response, concluded that the increase was due to factors of ” poor qualityé”, which were not called upon to repeat themselves. Moreover, the management teams of Alstom did not provide clear forecasts with regard to forecasts of free cash flow for the new exercise.
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