(News Bulletin 247) – The results season is slowly coming to an end, with almost all the groups in the Parisian index having published their annual accounts. News Bulletin 247 takes a quick look at their net profits.

The account is almost good. At the end of this new week of publications, 34 of the 38

CAC 40 groups publishing annual results have returned their copy. Still missing are Veolia, Thales, Eurofins, Vivendi. Which groups have so far made the biggest profits?

News Bulletin 247 has taken stock in the infographic below, using the group’s net income as an indicator. Cumulatively, the residents of the CAC 40 have so far generated 137.27 billion euros in net profits, according to our count based on company announcements, or an average of 4 billion euros. For the time being, out of these 34 companies, the CAC 40 is ahead of its time, with an increase of around 6% over one year.

TotalEnergies first, Stellantis superb second

However, it seems unlikely that the index will beat the level of 2021 (nearly 157 billion euros, according to our counts, out of 38 companies). The reason is due to Vivendi, which had generated a 2021 profit of … 24.7 billion euros. This figure was due to a (very) exceptional element. The group had distributed to its shareholders most of its stake in Universal Music Group (UMG), which had enabled it to record a deconsolidation book value of 24.84 billion euros after tax. Vivendi still owns around 10% of UMG. Barring an incredible last-minute surprise, the group will not publish such a colossal profit, its adjusted net income for 2021 (which excluded exceptional items) having reached 650 million euros.

In the end, TotalEnergies (19.1 billion euros) topped the rankings with a profit driven by rising hydrocarbon prices. The net income of the oil major could have been much more colossal if the company had not been forced to pass numerous exceptional charges, including nearly 15 billion dollars on its Russian activities and assets.

Behind TotalEnergies, Stellantis made a magnificent second, with a profit of 16.8 billion euros, higher than that of the oil group in 2021. The car manufacturer posted record margins and a gigantic turnover for a CAC 40 group (180 billion euros, again the second behind TotalEnergies). First market capitalization and European, LVMH climbs on the podium with a record profit of 14 billion euros, leaving a good distance from BNP Paribas, fourth, with again a record of 10.2 billion euros.

An imperfect indicator

Two groups published losses due to exceptional items. Weighed down by a charge of 2.3 billion euros linked to its exit from Russia, Renault posted a net loss of 338 million euros. The largest loss is to put in the liabilities of Safran, which lost nearly 2.5 billion euros due to a charge of 5 billion euros due to losses on foreign exchange hedging instruments. But this element reflects a pure accounting entry with no impact on the company’s cash flow.

This last point reminds us that the net result remains a very imperfect indicator of the performance of a company because it is often affected by exceptional elements which do not necessarily have an impact on its financial health. “The net result is not the best indicator, but it is not a bad indicator for all that. It must be cleaned up of exceptional elements”, recently explained Pascal Quiry, professor of Finance at HEC Paris and co-author of the review. in corporate finance Vernimmen, with News Bulletin 247.

We have excluded from our point Pernod Ricard and Alstom, which publish accounts straddling two calendar years. For information, Alstom had suffered a loss of 581 million euros for its financial year ended in March 2022, while Pernod Ricard, for its part, had generated a net profit of 2 billion euros for its financial year ended in June 2022. , which would place him in the middle of the table.