Clear skies for Engie. The French energy giant had a successful 2023 thanks to renewable energies and its commercial activity, with more than €5 billion in recurring net profit, and raised its forecasts for 2024 on Thursday.
The producer and supplier of electricity and gas, of which the French State owns almost 24%, generated 82.6 billion euros of turnover in 2023, 12% less than the previous year, due to the calm in gas sales prices and electricity.
This is less than expected by analysts surveyed by Bloomberg and Factset, who are betting on a turnover of 95.4 billion euros. But investors did not blame him: around 2:30 p.m., Engie shares gained +2.3% to 14.86 euros on the Paris Stock Exchange.
gas maintenance
The recurring net result, which does not take into account some 5,000 million euros of expenses related to the withdrawal of Belgian nuclear energy and 1,300 million of losses related to the exit of coal in Chile, stands at 5,400 million euros (+2 .8%), in accordance with the consensus of the analysts surveyed and the group’s forecasts, raised twice in 2023.
The net result, weighed down by Belgian and Chilean cargoes but benefited by other exceptional income, multiplied by more than ten, jumping to 2.2 billion euros in 2023, after in 2022 the result was reduced to 200 million euros due to the heavy loads. Catherine MacGregor, group CEO, praised journalists for the “very good results for 2023”, “which illustrate the strength of our operational and financial performance”.
In the long term, Engie wants to disengage from certain activities such as nuclear energy and invest in renewable energies, while advocating, like TotalEnergies, for the maintenance of gas as a transition energy. Its profitability without nuclear is “very solid”, with an 18% growth in its operating income without nuclear, up to 9.5 billion euros, Pierre-François Riolacci, Deputy Director General of Finance, stressed to journalists.
“Law of the market”
It increased to more than a third due to commercial activities, but also due to renewable energies, whose progression is based on “the contribution of recently implemented capacities” and “the increase in prices that we have captured,” he indicated. In detail, Engie increased its renewable energy capacities by 3.9 gigawatts (GW) in 2023, with startups in North America, Europe and Latin America, bringing its total capacity to 41.4 GW.
In the commercial field, its GEMS (Global Energy Management & Sales) division, dedicated to markets, companies and large energy consumers, “recorded strong organic growth of more than 900 million euros throughout the year”, specified the Deputy Director General of Finance. , until reaching 3,600 million euros of Ebit (operating result).
Updated forecast
The growth in commercial activities allows the former GDF-Suez to raise its financial objectives for this year. The group now aims for a recurring net profit of between 4.2 and 4.8 billion euros, compared to the 3.8 to 4.4 billion euros announced previously: “This is lower than in 2023, as “The market conditions are different, but it is much higher than 2021, the best year.” to compare in terms of market conditions,” Ms. MacGregor stressed.
The group offers its investors a dividend of 1.43 euros per share, slightly higher than in 2022, “which represents a profitability of 9.5%, one of the best on the Paris stock market,” highlighted Antoine Fraysse-Soulier, eToro analyst.
With this “record dividend distribution”, Engie “pays more to shareholders than its corresponding result, impoverishing the group and making it increasingly indebted,” denounced the group’s CGT. The NGO Reclaim Finance regrets that Engie “prefers to dedicate” this sum “to its shareholders rather than to its exit from the fossil gas sector, which the company continues to develop despite the climate ambitions it shows.”
Source: BFM TV
