October 21, 2020
12:41
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The European stock markets are in the red on Wednesday. Barco gets a huge blow after horror figures. Galapagos receives its first sales advice.
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We’re heading towards Halloween, that one night when the wreckage of humans from the past year returns to earth to terrify us. One more time on this Celtic New Year’s Day we see everything that stopped living this year and then a day later start with a clean slate on the new year (for the Celts).
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This year is a dark year and not only for public health. The corona crisis has an unprecedented effect on daily life. Where people used to go to the cinema with a loved one or with friends or celebrate life at a large festival like Tomorrowland, we now have to spend whole days in our house, like small separate islands. Survivors as we are, we celebrated Tomorrowland still from home via the internetbut it was not the same.
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Due to these drastic changes, the imaging group Barco
come Wednesday with Halloween figures, making the share plunge 15 percent.
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The European stock markets are also gloomy
, because they are on average 0.7 percent lower. Also the Bel20
yields 1 percent.
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Ship
A real horror film at Barco, because the company saw the pandemic in the past quarter turnover 37 percent descend. Even compared to the second quarter, sales fell by 2 percent. While the Entertainment (screen technology for cinemas and events) and Enterprise (technology for control rooms and the Clickshare meeting tool) divisions showed improvement, the Healthcare division failed completely, while it was considered crisis-proof. But hospitals delayed deliveries because of their changed spending habits.
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At the moment it is clear that 2020 will be a leap year for Barco.
Jan De Witte
CEO of Barco
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“It is clear that 2020 will be a terrible year for Barco,” says Barco CEO Jan De Witte. An ‘off-year’, it says English-language press release. The company is counting on “continued pressure on sales due to the uncertainties of the second wave of covid”. The image maker warns of a significantly lower profit margin for the whole of 2020.
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Analyst Guy Sips lowers the advice for Barco from ‘buy’ to ‘build’ and cuts the price target from 22 to 20 euros. The quarterly figures are in stark contrast to Barco’s earlier forecast. The group promised growth for both the third and the fourth quarter compared to the previous quarter. The new prospect is the continued pressure on sales. ‘ Sales of 167.4 million were much lower than the 209.4 million figure the analyst had predicted.
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“The figures were clearly below our expectations and those of the consensus,” says analyst Kris Kippers of Degroof Petercam. ‘The outlook sketches a terrible second half of the year. Although the company has a balance sheet of reinforced concrete, the share will still hang in the ropes because most of the activities do not have to count on a quick recovery. For the Entertainment branch, investors don’t even have to expect a recovery for the third quarter of 2021 given the situation in the cinema industry. ‘
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Kippers sticks to his ‘hold’ advice and price target of 21.50, but says he will adjust his valuation after Wednesday’s analyst meeting.
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Galapagos
Another Bel-2o’er who has an off day on Wednesday is Galapagos
with a loss of almost 7 percent. The biotech group has its first sales advice.
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Goldman Sachs has lowered its advice from ‘hold’ to ‘sell’ and cut its price target from 108 to 87 euros. This will further increase the number of cracks in the stock. Those cracks started when the American medicine watchdog FDA raised concerns about filgotinib, the goldcrest of Galapagos.
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On Tuesday, the investment bank Morgan Stanley said in an update that CEO Onno van de Stolpe said around Halloween – at the end of October, beginning of November – is heading for a crucial meeting. ‘We thought we would get the data in a study in the first quarter of 2021 and a possible new application to the FDA. But partner Gilead schedules a meeting with the FDA and says if an approval is unlikely he will reconsider the commercial arrangements surrounding the marketing of filgotinib, ”said Morgan Stanley.
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WDP
WDP
will have a nice day. The specialist in logistics real estate lives up to its reputation as a rock during the pandemic year. For the second time in a row he boosts the forecast for 2020. The bar is now set at a profit per share of 1 euro. In August predicted CEO Joost Uwents made a profit ‘at the top’ of the previously proposed range of 0.95 to 1 euro per share.
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As the ‘landlord’ of many e-commerce companies, WDP capitalizes on the turbo that the pandemic has put on online trade. Over the first nine months, the current earnings per share, the profit that excludes accounting gains or losses on the portfolio or the interest hedging, rose at the same rate as the first half of the year: 8 percent.
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As a result, Uwents can confirm that the shareholders will also see the dividend increase by 8 percent for the 2020 financial year, to EUR 0.80 gross per share.
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