According to the company´s report to the regulator (CNMV), Gestamp had net profits of 163 million euros up to September, which is a 7% increase on the same period in 2017. The company had an income of 6.15 billion euros between January and September, 2.5% more than in the first nine months of last year, and 8.9% at constant currency rate.
According to Bankinter, these are positive figures, “especially taking into account that the third quarter has been especially difficult for the car industry.”
On the one hand, the change in the emission certification system of the WLTP has caused a fall in production volumes throughout the quarter. On the other hand, a weaker evolution of the China market than expected, penalised about by the uncertainty about protectionism, has not helped.”
In fact, the company´s growth has resulted from a good performance in Eastern Europe and NAFTA, while its performance in China and Western Europe is clearly negative. For that reason, analysts at Bankinter evaluate as positive the improvement in EBITDA (up to 10.3% from 9.3%) and EBIT (up to 4.8% from 4.2%).
On the other hand, these results are also in line with experts at Link Securities whose expectations for the whole of 2108 will result in figures of income of 8.77 billion euros, EBITDA of 989,17 million euros, and EBIT of 660 million euros and a net profit of 286,87 million Euros, of course, “if the current tendency is maintained, given that, as we have signalled, the third quarter tends to be inferior to the other quarters in terms of production.
On the balance sheet, the increase in debt at first sight appears worrying. However, it appears more qualified if the payment of the annual dividend throughout the quarter and the increase in CAPEX are taken into account. The ratio of net financial debt to EBITDA remains in 2.65X (compared to 2.43X in Q317). Looking at the end of the year this ratio should moderate thanks to an expected increase in EBITDA (the third quarter is seasonally weaker) and a lesser investment effort.