(BFM Stock Exchange) – The French engineering group specializing in nuclear has unveiled 2024 less degraded than dreaded results. But the 2025 perspectives presented by Assystem are deemed timid by the market which does not fail to sanction this timid roadmap.

In February, Assystem had unveiled a turnover very slightly higher than the expectations of the market.

Tuesday, March 18, Assystem unveiled after the closure of the market all of its financial performance for the year 2024, a publication which has not reserved a “big surprise”, according to Invest Securities.

Under the past year, the Consolidated Assystem Operating Operating Result (EBITA) is 40.3 million euros, and increased by 7.8% over a year. Thanks to a “better occupation of resources in France”, the corresponding margin of Assystem increased over a year to set up at 6.6% against 6.5% in the year 2023, thus exceeding its own target of margin housed at 6.5% for the past year.

A reading of the net profit blurred by the exceptional

Assystem is slightly better than expected. The consensus quoted by Invest Securites tapped on an operating profit of 39.8 million euros for a margin of 6.5%.

“While the margin of Ebita increased by 0.6 percentage points in the first half of 2024, Assystem managed to limit the erosion of the margin to 0.3 percentage points in the second half of 2024 despite the slowdown in activity”, appreciates the financial intermediary.

A little lower in the accounts, the net profit share of the group fell strongly to be 8.3 million euros against 102 million euros in 2023. The consensus hoped for a much less pronounced degradation and awaited for its part a net result of the group of 18.2 million euros in 2024.

Reading this indicator is somewhat disturbed by exceptional elements. The benefit of Assystem was indeed tainted, among other things, by a charge of 17.7 million euros linked to the free action plan and a negative contribution up to 9.6 million euros in Expleo, a division which brings together the peripheral technology advice activities of Assystem.

At the end of 2024, the net debt was reduced to 49.3 million euros, and the release below the consensus housed at 53.8 million euros. “Thanks to a clear improvement in working -ending need in the second half of 2024 (31 million euros, or 4 million euros over the whole year), the group managed to generate a free cash flow (FCF) according to a standard applied by the company of 30 million euros (+47%)”, details Invest Securites.

The financial intermediary adds that this generation of cash combined with the product of 194 million euros resulting from the sale of framatoma made it possible to finance the dividend up to 186 million euros, the share buybacks (21 million euros) and the acquisitions (12 million euros).

The group will propose the payment of an ordinary dividend stable at 1 euro per share, subject to the approval of the general meeting of shareholders which will be held next May.

Caution for 2025

For the current year, Assystem opts for caution, citing the “trends observed at the start of the exercise”, and an “uncertain environment”. The group therefore tables for 2025 on a slight organic growth of its turnover and stability of the operating margin of activity.

The company specifies that these prospects exclude the acquisition carried out in January 2025 of Mactech Energy Group, a British company specializing in construction services for the nuclear industry, having generated a turnover of around 16 million pounds Sterling in 2024.

This prudence is strongly sanctioned on the Paris Stock Exchange. Assystem wipes one of the strongest drops on the Paris market, plunging from 11.2% to 37 euros this Wednesday, March 19.

In mid-January, Oddo BHF had already expressed prudence on the file. The design office had degraded its opinion to neutral on the French engineering group specializing in nuclear power, justifying this lowering by an absence of powerful catalysts for the short -term title.

The design office had then described the orientation of the core business of Assystem as “more mixed” in the short term, based on the declarations of the group’s management. Oddo BHF had also pointed out uncertainties on Expleo, whose accounts could continue to “degrade and weigh (strongly) on the Bottom-Line (result) of the short-term assystem”.