Imerys: top of the SBF 120, first signs of recovery
May 02, 2024 at 01:56 pm IST
Share
On Thursday, Imerys reported 'solid' first-quarter results and said it was seeing the first signs of a recovery in demand.
The industrial minerals specialist said its adjusted Ebitda rose by 9% to €188 million, driven by cost-cutting measures and lower costs.
By way of comparison, analysts at Oddo BHF were expecting earnings of €166 million.
Sales amounted to 926 million euros, down 5.3% year-on-year on a like-for-like basis, but the Group nonetheless points to a "gradual" recovery in its markets.
Sales for the first quarter of 2024 are thus 1% higher than for the third quarter of 2023, and 4% higher than for the fourth quarter.
We believe we have turned a corner and expect a positive impact from lower interest rates in the second half of the year", said CEO Alessandro Dazza.
Imerys thus expects sales volumes to improve sequentially over the coming quarters, thanks to the stabilization of the European economy and the resilience of activity in the United States and Asia.
In their reaction note, analysts at Oddo BHF spoke of 'the start of a long-awaited revival', and felt that a 'low point' had now been reached.
With a gain of around 10%, the share was the biggest riser on the SBF 120 index on Thursday morning in the wake of this publication.
Copyright (c) 2024 CercleFinance.com. All rights reserved.
As a world leader in mineral specialties for the industry, Imerys offers high-added-value business solutions for a wide range of sectors, from process industries to consumer goods or construction products. The group actively mobilizes its knowledge of applications, technological expertise and materials science know how to provide high-end solutions that value its mineral resources, develop formulations or produce synthetic minerals. All these actions bring about essential properties to its customers' products and their performance such as refractoriness, toughness, conductivity, opacity, durability, purity, lightness, filtration, absorption, or hydrophobicity. Imerys is strongly committed to responsible developmentin particular, to contribute to the development of environmentally friendly products and processes. The activity is organized around 2 areas:
- Performance Minerals: the segment brings together three geographical business areas - Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), America and Asia/Pacific (APAC). This segment encompasses functional additives that give unique properties to the products they compose. It serves the plastics, rubber, paint and coatings, filtration, ceramic materials, renewable energy, paper and cardboard, food, health and cosmetic industries;
- Materials and High Temperature Solutions: the segment, managed globally, brings together two business areas - High Temperature Solutions and Refractories, Abrasives & Construction. This segment facilitates production processes involving high temperatures. It serves the refractory, foundry, metals, abrasives and building chemicals markets.