Chargeurs published FY2014 sales up 2.5% at €478.3m (+4.6% excluding currency and perimeter impacts).
The Protective Film business is up 8.2% yoy, with Q4 growth slowing down to 5.4%.
Interlining is down 3.6% yoy with roughly flat sales by Q4.
The Wool unit is up 2.3% yoy in spite of a sharp drop by Q4 (-16%).
Total sales for 2014 reflect the continuing strength of the Protective Film business while the two other activities (Interlining and Wool) have been negatively impacted by exchange factors (mainly LatAm currencies).
The positive is to have managed to, by and large, stabilise the activity (except for Wool over Q4) in such an adverse context of no growth and pricing volatility.
By contrast, the Protective Film’s 8% gain over the year is an excellent result in a slow Europe.
The 2014 sales stood above the (cautious) management’s indications of €470m and obviously were bound to be complemented by an upgrade in EBIT guidance, from €19m to ”above €19m”. This presumably remains cautious but is in the right direction. Chargeurs will release its earnings on 18/03/2015.
As AlphaValue’s EBIT expectations at €20.5m stand somewhat above management’s initial guidance, we choose to stick to that figure for the time being and thus do not change our forecasts for 2014 and 2015. The analytical guidance (recurring operating earnings) already allows for a big jump from €14.4m in 2013 to “more than” €19m in 2014 so that we may even be a bit optimistic.
