Tessenderlo’s profit has halved, the stock market reacts sharply

The profit of the chemical and loom manufacturer Tessenderlo has been halved in 2023. And that came as a complete surprise. It resulted in a major explosion on the stock exchange on Wednesday morning.

The Tessenderlo industrial group has booked a profit of 114.4 million euros in 2023, compared to 227 million euros the year before. Expectations for this year are not high. The company expects “further high levels of economic uncertainty.”

The stock price reacted very strongly to this news. During the first trading hour, Tessenderlo’s stock price fell by almost eight percent.

Tessenderlo achieved a turnover of 2.93 billion euros last year, or 13 percent more than in 2022. But that increase is distorted by the integration of the loom manufacturer Picanol in the figures. On a comparable basis, turnover fell by 11.8 percent. Turnover fell in all departments, led by the agricultural division (-18.5 percent). There were lower volumes and lower sales prices.

Gross profit or EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation) amounted to 318.7 million euros, a decrease of almost a third on a comparable basis compared to 2022. Especially the biovalorization department, which focuses, among other things, on the production of fats and gelatin, and the loom branch Picanol suffered a very heavy drop in profits.

Tessenderlo keeps the dividend stable at 0.75 euros per share.

For 2024, Tessenderlo expects a normalized EBITDA in line with that of 2023. “The group wishes to emphasize that it is currently operating in a volatile environment in terms of geopolitical, economic and financial conditions,” it said. (belga, pse)