(AOF) – In an economic context marked by inflationary tensions on supplies and on production costs, the Oeneo Group achieved a good half-year performance with dynamic business growth, a resilient current operating margin and a significant increase in its net profit. The group also maintains solid financial balances with high shareholders’ equity and low net financial debt. Its net income group share amounted to 21.9 million euros, up 21.2%, representing a net margin of 12.6%.
The 2022-2023 current operating income of the group specializing in cooperage and wine closures increased by 4% to €29.1 million, demonstrating the Group’s ability to withstand the economic rise in the price of raw materials and production costs. production (including energy) and logistics.
“The increases in sales prices and the permanent optimization of operating expenses have made it possible to partially mitigate the impact of these inflationary factors and to maintain a high operating margin at 16.8% of sales”, explains the company specializing in cooperage and wine corking.
Its operating income came to 28.7 million euros, up 14.9%, growing faster than sales, following non-current net charges of -0.4 million euros over this half-year.
In addition, over this half-year, its cash generated by activity amounted to 2.1 million euros, largely attenuated, as every year, by the seasonal peak in the working capital requirement at September 30 (+32.0 million euros compared to March 31, 2022).
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The French beauty and hygiene market continues to decline
In recent years, the French have simplified their beauty routines, which has resulted in lower spending. According to Kantar, the weight of personal care and beauty in spending on consumer products has steadily decreased over the past five years, dropping below 10%. Thus in 2021, health and beauty expenditure accounted for 8.5%. For the NielsenIQ panelist, the development of telework penalizes the sector because teleworkers reduce their health and beauty purchases twice as quickly as the average French person. This trend is likely to continue in 2022. To this is added another negative factor: with inflation and the loss of purchasing power, the French will certainly carry out arbitrations in their spending, which might be at the expense of the hygiene-beauty.
Find out more regarding the specialized distribution sector
Concerns remain
According to the Federation of Specialized Trade, Procos, in October 2022, activity fell by 1.5% over one year. Nevertheless, the beauty and health (+ 5.2%) and specialized food (+ 3.5%) activity is dynamic compared to October 2021. The frequentation of the points of sale was very impacted by the problems of fuel and bad weather. Compared to October 2019, the pre-covid year, the drop in attendance is very sharp (-20.9% in October). Shopping centers and the outskirts are more impacted than city centers with a difference of four to five points.
Several reasons for concern exist for the future. The players are experiencing a very significant scissor effect given the increase in their operating costs while the evolution of demand is very uncertain. Very few brands can pass on the increase in their costs to their selling prices. The federation therefore asks, among other things, to limit the indexation of the Commercial Rent Index to + 3.5% for the rents of all companies in 2023. It also invokes an absolute urgency: to cap the price of energy for 2023 and retroact on the contracts already signed to prevent the rate of failures from accelerating.
