PARIS (Reuters) – The lowest performance of the American indices and the decline in the dollar promote the return to European actions and in particular small and medium capitalizations exposed to the concepts of sovereignty and to rekindling plans in Europe, notes Portzamparc on Tuesday.
The French segment benefits in particular from this dynamic thanks to solid fundamentals and the conjuncture, according to Maxence Dhoury, co-responsible for the financial analysis office at Portzamparc which evokes “a real rebound which does not seem to be a false departure”.
In France, CAC 40 has taken 4.1% since the start of the year against 5.84% for CAC MID 60 and 19.3% for CAC Small.
Small and medium capitalizations have suffered from a lesser ‘Pricing Power’ which has greeted their margin since 2021 with inflationary tensions linked to the cost of energy, raw materials and wage pressures, details Maxence Dhoury.
According to him, the under-representation of luxury values ​​among these segments, carrying for several years in France, has also weighed on these companies long shunned.
But the weakness of the growth of the American indices since the start of the year and the fall in the dollar has prompted investors to turn to Europe and the small and medium capitalizations, where good deals are still to be done in France.
The average values ​​remain approximately 30% cheaper than large in France according to short -term valuing ratios (2025 and 2026), calculates Portzamparc from the Business value ratio on operating profit (EV/EBIT).
The EV/Médian EBIT ratio comes out at 14.8x for CAC 40 against 10.7x for the mid 60 and 12.0x for the Small. It is expected at 13.7x in 2026 for the CAC 40 against 9.2x and 9.8x for the Mid 60 and the Small.
“Defense recovery and financing plans will support Small values ​​which are very exposed to sovereignty and construction,” said Maxence Dhoury.
The analyst points to two other factors of performance in the sector: the number of public offers stable over the years with average premiums of 35% in 2024 and taking into account the public authorities with a policy of support for SMEs and ETIs listed.
(Written by Bertrand de Meyer, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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