Revenue of EUR 1.140 billion in Q1 2020, -3.0% year-on-year of which -1.9% at constant currency
Organic growth 1 of -1.6%
- 3 out of 6 businesses grew organically, Marine & Offshore by 8.7%, Industry by 2.9% and
- Agri-Food & Commodities by 0.2%
- Buildings & Infrastructure (B&I) was broadly stable at -0.2%, showing the benefit of the geographical diversification with solid growth in most geographies apart from China
- Consumer Products and Certification declined sharply due to the impact of the Covid-19 shutdowns, notably in China, down 18.3% and 7.9% respectively
External growth of -0.3%
- Reflects the small impact from prior year disposals and the absence of transactions year-to-date
Currency impact of -1.1%
- Depreciation of some emerging countries’ currencies against the euro partly offset by the appreciation of the USD and pegged currencies
Didier Michaud-Daniel, Chief Executive Officer, commented:
“In the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, Bureau Veritas’ commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility, for itself and for its clients, is paramount. We are taking every possible step to preserve the health and safety of our employees while continuing to provide critical services to our clients. We have developed and rolled out services to support business continuity around the world and across the Group’s activities. Protecting our businesses has also been vital so that we are well positioned to ramp-up when various countries come out of lockdown. Our aim is to be there for our clients as soon as their businesses start to pick up again and therefore we are anticipating proactively the return to business with adapted services.
We have put measures in place aimed at maintaining a tight rein on costs and cash. These include suspending all non-essential investments and putting in place an austerity plan for our worldwide operations, including proactive cost structure adjustment.
Bureau Veritas has built a solid financial position over the past 3 years, with significant liquidity and financial resources to enable us to weather this unprecedented crisis.
In the first quarter, despite the slight organic decline in our revenue, our operations demonstrated the resiliency of the Group’s worldwide portfolio and footprint. The Covid-19 crisis mostly impacted our Chinese operations. Elsewhere, the pandemic will have a very significant impact from Q2 onwards. For the year as a whole, it would be premature to have any firm view at this stage.”
Présentation slides in Financial results
1 Alternative performance indicators are presented, defined and reconciled with IFRS in appendix 1 of this press release.