Veolia reported a 20% increase in revenue to €12 billion in the first quarter, a strong growth in line with its record performance in 2022. The growth of the French environmental services giant was again driven by sustained energy prices, which Veolia passes on to its clients. Excluding this price effect, sales rose by 6.3%.
All business lines benefited from the “good commercial momentum”: water (+9.9%), waste (+3.2%) but especially energy (+54%), boosted by “increases in the price of heat and electricity sold”, the group said in its press release. Energy accounts for 23% of the activity of the group, which acquired assets from Suez, behind recycling (35%) and its flagship activity (42%), water management. Gross operating profit (Ebitda) rose by 8% to 1.574 billion euros, with synergies and an 87 million euro savings program contributing to this.
“We are starting the 2023 fiscal year at full speed and full throttle” with results that allow the group to approach the rest of the year with “confidence”, CEO Estelle Brachlianoff boasted to journalists. Veolia has “confirmed” its forecast of a net income of 1.3 billion euros in 2023, after having exceeded 1 billion for the first time in 2022 (1.162 billion). “These results demonstrate once again (…) our ability to deliver results, regardless of the level of inflation or economic growth,” added the executive whose group, had repercuted the price increase on its customers from spring 2021. However, Veolia’s share price was down 3.35% to 27.66 euros shortly before 2 p.m., in a Paris stock market that was down 1.03%.
“Commercial successes”
After its resounding takeover bid for Suez, of which it bought about half of the assets at the beginning of 2022, Veolia has increased its international presence, where it now does 77% of its business in 44 countries. This is particularly true in Spain, South America, the United States and Australia, where it has doubled its activities (2 billion euros in revenues). The group expects to quickly pass the billion euro mark in sales in the Middle East. Depollution, decarbonation and resource regeneration are the “priorities” of the group, which presents itself as “the market leader in ecological transition, worldwide”.
Among its “commercial successes”, last month it won a contract in Turkey to operate the largest plant to manufacture energy from non-recyclable waste in Istanbul, saving 1.5 million tons of CO2 by avoiding coal and gas. In Australia, it won a contract in March for integrated waste management in Gold Coast, the country’s sixth largest city, which will enable it to increase its recovery rate. In France, Veolia has just renewed the water contract for the Lille metropolitan area, “the first significant contract on water efficiency,” said Estelle Brachlianoff. After energy conservation, the big theme of the winter, “we are now talking more and more about saving and recycling water,” she added. According to her, “there was certainly a before and after the summer of 2022 on the awareness that water is a precious commodity, even in France.
Veolia “has a whole range of solutions in line with the Water Plan announced by the government,” according to the executive, who cites in bulk the digital detection of leaks, the installation of “simple things” (meters, faucet aerators) and the recycling of wastewater to water green spaces or clean cities. With its wastewater reuse technologies developed in Spain and California, the group says it is “ready” to support the government’s plan. The group observed that less than 0.1% of wastewater is recycled in France, compared to 15% in Spain and 35% in Israel, but “there is a call for air” in this direction.
