(News Bulletin 247) – Pluxee, the new company bringing together the meal voucher activities now separated from Sodexo, is making progress for its first trading session. This is the largest IPO of a company since FDJ in November 2019.

This Thursday marks the start of a new month but also the arrival of a new company on the Paris Stock Exchange. This is Pluxee, the company bringing together the so-called “employee benefits and rewards” services of the collective catering group Sodexo.

Pluxee’s independence was validated on Tuesday following a general meeting of Sodexo shareholders. The company’s shareholders approved 99.96% of this split into two companies (Sodexo and Pluxee) announced in spring 2023. Management estimated that the synergies between its “employee benefits and rewards” activities and its branch traditional collective catering were now limited.

In detail, each holder of a Sodexo share was allocated one Pluxee share. The Bellon family remains a long-term shareholder of Pluxee and holds 42.8% of the outstanding common shares and approximately 60% of the voting rights following this transaction.

Pluxee securities have been trading since Thursday in the form of promises, that is to say shares which have not yet been created or delivered to investors, before their settlement-delivery which will be effective on Monday February 5.

Successful inaugural exchanges

On the Paris Stock Exchange, investors are indeed welcoming this first operation of the year with a certain enthusiasm. The Pluxee share jumped 6.4%, compared to the technical reference price of 26 euros, retained for this split-introduction operation.

This price is equivalent to 25% of Sodexo’s closing price on Wednesday evening, i.e. 104.6 euros, underlines Alphavalue which considers that it is in line with its previous forecasts. “With approximately 147 million shares in circulation, the Pluxee spin-off-IPO represents a value of 4 billion euros,” adds Yi Zhong of Alphavalue. This is the largest IPO of a company in Paris since that of Française des Jeux in November 2019, which entered the stock market with a valuation of 4.3 billion euros.

Next door, Sodexo lost 3.2% to 76.10 euros around 12:00 p.m. after this split-IPO operation of Pluxee.

A very profitable and growing business

For Sodexo, this split was the preferred way to give more resources and autonomy to this subsidiary, so as to replicate the success of its competitor Edenred, the former Accor subsidiary which entered the CAC 40 in June 2023, in “employee benefits and rewards”.

The meaning of the name Pluxee was constructed to illustrate these ambitions: “Plux” evokes the positive and embodies the company’s ambition which is “to open a world of possibilities and maximize opportunities”.

“The ‘X’ symbolizes how we transform this world of possibilities into personalized and sustainable experiences for our customers, our merchants, our consumers and our colleagues and the double ‘EE’ at the end represents the heart of our business: ‘Commitment Employee’, sodexo.be/fr/sodexo-brs-devient-pluxee/”>specifies Pluxee.

“Our ambitious strategy will allow us to continue to deliver strong financial performance and create value for all of our shareholders, relying on experienced teams, technological investments and a targeted approach in terms of mergers and acquisitions. “, explains Aurélien Sonet, general manager of Pluxee.

The market had already become aware of the objectives of restaurant voucher pro Pluxee, a few weeks before its IPO. On the occasion of a “Capital Market Day”, a day dedicated to investors, the company presented its ambitions for the current year and the medium term.

Thus, Pluxee has announced that it is targeting “double-digit” like-for-like growth (more than 10%) and a recurring gross operating margin (Ebitda) that is at least stable for the 2023-2024 financial year, which will end next August. For comparison, for the 2022-2023 financial year, the recurring Ebitda margin stood at 34.5% for a turnover of 1.052 billion euros. In the medium term, that is to say over the 2025-2026 financial year, Sodexo expects double-digit growth, as well as a recurring Ebitda margin of around 37%.

“Overall, Pluxee’s (financial) forecasts seem reasonable in the context of Edenred – both revenue expectations and overall market growth,” say UBS analysts cited by AFP in a note Thursday.

Sodexo therefore scrupulously respected the timetable it had communicated for this operation, where Renault decided to throw in the towel at the start of the week. The diamond brand indicated Monday evening that it would not introduce Ampere, its subsidiary dedicated to electric vehicles and software, considering that “current market conditions” are not met.

Apart from Pluxee, two other CAC 40 companies plan to spin off one or more activities this year. Sanofi, which published its quarterly results this Thursday, intends to introduce its “consumer health” branch (Doliprane, Allegra, etc.) in the fourth quarter of 2024 at the earliest. The group is therefore refining the timetable for this operation announced last October, the group having said it is aiming for an IPO for this division from the fourth quarter of 2024.

Vivendi also indicated on Tuesday that it was studying a proposed split into four entities structured around Canal+, Havas, a company bringing together publishing and distribution and finally an investment company bringing together financial holdings.