GEFCO’s somewhat opaque results don’t answer every question about the company’s performance over the past year. Yet, judging by the modest amount of information just released by the French based logistics service provider, business is reasonably good. In what appears to be an unaudited statement GEFCO announced both revenue and profits increasing moderately over the past twelve months. Turnover was up 1.5% year-on-year at €4bn whilst operating profit was up 10.5% at €105m. Admittedly margins are not brilliant at 2.6%, but they did edge higher by 0.2% over the previous financial year.
However compared to the half-yearly numbers, the performance appears to have deteriorated. The results released in September 2014 saw turnover increasing by 6.9% year-on-year and operational profits up 34%.
It is tempting to think that the problems of the Russian economy, including a halving of car sales, are behind the poorer performance in the second half of the year, but judging by what GEFCO has made public about the changing nature of its business this seems unlikely. The company points to an increasingly diversified customer base in sectors such as electronics, aerospace and even consumer goods. It seems that GEFCO is also benefitting from General Motors’ business in Europe, especially as the amount of business that the company does in Russia seems modest. The company has also maintained its strong ties with PSA Peugeot-Citroen.
GEFCO did state that its non PSA Peugeot-Citroen and GM business increased by 10%, however this would still suggest that automotive business is still dominant. In the short-term this may prove a good thing as Peugeot-Citroen, which still owns 30% of GEFCO, is planning to increase production by 10%.
It can only be extrapolated that the diversification out of the automotive sector has counter-balanced the difficulties of both its two main customers in 2014 as well as proving to be more profitable. This would suggest that GEFCO’s performance will accelerate in the near future, but with such a poor flow of data it’s hard to be sure.
