INTERNATIONAL: Presenting the company’s results for the year to March 31 2024 on May 8, Chairman & CEO Henri Poupart-Lafarge said Alstom ‘recorded a strong rebound during the second half of the year’.
Poupart-Lafarge said the company had achieved a solid order intake, strong organic growth, improved profitability and €562m free cash-flow generation.’ He added that ‘we are confident in the strength of our backlog and our strategy of selectivity and mix evolution towards services. The group is capitalising on the solid operational progress made over the last three years and is launching new initiatives to improve its industrial performance and reduce overheads and indirect procurement costs. Altogether, Alstom is now set on stronger foundations to deliver sustainable profit and cash generation.’
Adjusted EBIT in 2023-24 was €997m, adjusted net profit was €44m, net income was -€309m and free cash flow was -€557m.
The order intake of €20·7bn was down 8% on the previous year, mostly as a result of last year’s ‘landmark’ €2·5bn order from Baden-Württemberg’s rolling stock agency SFBW.
Sales amounted to €17·6bn, a growth of 6·7% on a reported basis and 9·4% on an organic basis. Rolling stock sales reached €9·1bn, Services sales stood at €4bn, Signalling €2·6bn and Systems €1·6bn.
As of March 31 2024, the order backlog stood at €92bn, providing strong visibility over future sales.
In product development, Alstom has launched the Avelia Stream 300 high-speed single deck train concept with a first project planned in Italy, while an Adessia commuter train for the UK and North American markets will be offered in EMU, BMU, BEMU and HMU versions to also replace existing diesel trains.
The board proposed that no dividend be paid, and it remains committed to a ‘conservative’ financial policy announced in November 2023 and to protecting the group’s investment grade rating with a €2bn inorganic deleveraging plan. This includes €700m of divestments; the sale of Alstom’s 20% stake in Russia’s Transmashholding for €75m was completed in January 2024, and the sale of the North American conventional signalling business to Knorr-Bremse will generate €630m on closing this summer.
Alstom is to issue hybrid bonds with 50% equity content for Moody’s, and there will be a €1bn capital increase with preferential subscription rights no later than September; CDPQ and Bpifrance, which hold 17·4% and 7·5% of Alstom’s capital respectively, have declared their intention to subscribe for a pro-rata share.
Around €1·2bn of the proceeds of asset disposals and of the capital markets transactions will be used to repay financial debt by September. The remainder of the proceeds will be invested in highly liquid short-term investment and earmarked for gross debt reduction at maturity.
