(News Bulletin 247) – The railway equipment manufacturer saw its order intake drop by nearly 29% like-for-like in the first quarter of its fiscal year ending next March. But analysts were expecting a lower figure.

A slight anxiety had won the market before the publication of Alstom on Tuesday. Some analysts feared, in fact, that the railway equipment manufacturer will record orders of less than 3 billion euros for the first quarter of its 2023-2024 financial year which will end next March.

In the end, order intake has certainly melted, but it clearly exceeds 3 billion euros and is even close to 4 billion euros. Over the period from April to the end of June, they stood at 3.9 billion euros, above the consensus of 3 billion euros, quoted by Invest Securities.

Alstom was penalized by an unfavorable basis for comparison, as the group had recorded a very large contract in Germany in the first quarter of the 2022-2023 financial year worth nearly 2.5 billion euros.

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Significant growth in turnover

Order intake thus fell by 30.8% on a reported basis and by 28.9% on a like-for-like basis.

Turnover reached 4.18 billion euros, up 4.3% on a reported basis and 7.6% on a like-for-like basis. The company was driven by the railway signaling activity which posted growth of 13%, while rolling stock grew by 5.5% while services increased by 5.1%.

The order intake to revenue ratio was slightly below 1 (0.93).

At the end of this first quarter, Alstom confirmed all of its objectives for the 2023-2024 financial year, namely an order intake to sales ratio above 1, sales up by more than 5%, an adjusted operating margin of around 6%, and a “significantly” positive free cash flow generation.

A (slightly) reassured market

Note that the group announced Monday two new contracts. The first with Railpool, a rolling stock leasing company for a value of up to 260 million euros.

The second, even more important, relates to the delivery of Coradia Stream high-capacity trains for the state (region) of Schleswig-Holstein, in northern Germany. The amount reaches nearly 900 million euros on the basis of 40 trains and their maintenance for 30 years.

Trading successes that should make the market look beyond the first quarter trading activity.

For the time being the market is breathing a little, reassured by a publication that is less bad than feared. Alstom shares rose 0.9% around 10:20 a.m. in a directionless market, the CAC 40 falling 0.05% at the same time.