16 February 2023
If you are covering Airbus’ latest financial results, please find below a comment from Jarek Pominkiewicz, equity research analyst at Quilter Cheviot:
“Airbus delivered a strong performance in 4Q22 despite the delivery miss, with revenues 1% ahead of consensus and adj. EBIT 10% ahead of consensus, as Commercial beat by 17%. Free cash flow was also strong, at full-year coming in 4% of management's guidance.
“The 2023 guidance was below headline consensus expectations , but only the free cash flow before M&A and customer financing (€3.0bn vs consensus at €4.5bn) stands out as disappointing, we think driven by working capital headwinds.
“The aircraft production targets communicated by management in May '22 were too ambitious given the supply chain issues, resulting in a series of estimate reductions by the Sell-side analysts over the following months.
“We think that the much more conservative guidance set out this morning should not only reset the sell-side consensus (which we think has already revised its outlook for 2023, given the slow start to the year and only 20 planes delivered by Airbus in January), but also removes the risk of further multiple forecast reductions in 2023. The announced A320neo production delay was also largely as expected.
“We continue to view Airbus as the winner in the commercial aircraft industry given its strong management, superior narrowbody product and lack of leverage vs Boeing.”
