Europe Has Entered its Second Lockdown. A Look at Financial Implications

/ November 1, 2020

Europe has now entered its second lockdown. The lockdowns have different restrictions levels and different lengths. The UK and France are running for the full month of November. Officials in the two countries have, however, warned the lockdown might last longer, until Christmas at least.

AFRY Protected Well Its Bottom Line In Q3

/ October 30, 2020

AFRY, once again, protected its bottom line during the pandemic. The company limited its Q3 2020 EBITA margin decline to 40 bps to 6.7%. AFRY reduced its expenses by SEK 480m in Q3, a level similar to QA (SEK 490m).

Alten Accelerates its M&A Activity

/ September 30, 2020

Alten will accelerate its M&A activity in 2020. This is one of the tactical changes that the company announced during its H1 2020 results presentation. The company is also shifting its commercial effort to financial services, energy, and life science, and slightly accelerating its offshore deployment.

Ricardo Suffers from its Exposure to Automotive in FY20

/ September 14, 2020

Ricardo paid the price for its exposure to the automotive sector, which represents 55% of total revenues. After a stable H1 FY20 (the ending June 30, 2020), H2 collapsed with revenues down 23% at cc/cs (our estimate). Surprisingly, Ricardo performed worse than an automotive pure-play such as EDAG (-14.8% during the same period) and Akka (-20.3% at cc/cs).

Bertrand Does Better than Competitors in Q3

/ September 6, 2020

Bertrandt reported its Q3 FY20 results (calendar Q2 2020). Revenues were EUR 205m, down by a massive-20.9% yoy, and the EBIT margin was -0.9% (Q3 FY19: +2.7%). Yet, Bertrandt’s results were better than those of EDAG ( yoy revenues down by 32.6%) and Akka (-31.4% yoy at CC/CS).

EDAG Declined by 33% in Q2 2020

/ August 30, 2020

We were expecting EDAG would have a difficult Q2, as the company is very European and services mostly the automotive sector. However, we had not anticipated a decline of this scale: revenues were down by 32.6% in Q2. Unsurprisingly, the EBIT margin was significantly in negative territory (-14.4%).

Assystem Bounced Back in June

/ August 29, 2020

As expected, Assystem suffered in Q2 2020: revenues declined by 13.7% yoy CC/CS during the quarter. Staffing was down by 16.3%, while Energy & Infrastructure did somewhat better (-13.3%). The core nuclear engineering business was down by 10.1% (our estimate).

Sweco Demonstrates Its Resilience Despite COVID-19

/ July 17, 2020

Sweco had already demonstrated its resilience in Q1, with a +4% organic growth. In Q2, despite COVID-19, the company remained in positive territory (+2%). The performance is a surprise, as Sweco is very sensitive to the number of working days.

Earnings Preview: Revenues of Alten to Plunge in Q2

/ July 15, 2020

ER&D’s largest pure-play globally, Alten, will be announcing its Q2 2020 revenue by the end of July. The company had a very decent Q1, with a 4% CC/CS revenue growth. However, it warned that revenues would be down by ~22% in Q2.

AFRY Hit by Collapse in Automotive Engineering Demand in Q2

/ July 14, 2020

No surprise. AFRY had a terrible Q2 2020: revenues were down by 9.2% yoy at CC/CS. The Industry and Digital Solutions Division led the decline (with revenues down yoy at 16.3% at CC/CS). The Division suffered in the automotive sector, whose revenues collapsed by 40% during the quarter.

Dassault Sytems Lowers its Q1 2020 Guidance: Read-Throughs for the ER&D Service Industry

/ April 7, 2020

Dassault Systems lowered it Q1 2020: the company is now expecting revenue growth in the range of 14%-17%, down from a 20-23% guidance (that includes the acquisition of Medidata). The company has suffered from weaker than expected new license and services revenues. Meanwhile, revenues of Medidata were on a “momentum and license renewals were up too.