(Berlin) The railway manufacturer Alstom is “doing very well”, eighteen months after buying its competitor Bombardier Transport, even if inflation, the electricity bill and supplies are causing concern, its CEO Henri Poupart said on Tuesday. -Lafarge.
Posted at 2:27 p.m.
“From my point of view, we are doing very well,” Poupart-Lafarge told reporters at InnoTrans, the major Berlin rail show.
“We have completely changed in dimension” with the acquisition of Bombardier’s rail activities, explained the manager.
He was pleased with his strategic choices, in particular the installation of production sites close to his customers, the coverage of the whole world and of all product ranges, the choice of the digital shift or that of the hydrogen train, including Alstom became a champion.
“We have a market that is buoyant […]the limit is rather in the resources and the capacity to “deliver the materials ordered, he noted.
He believes that he is halfway through the integration of Bombardier, whose order book includes fifteen large contracts that are loss-making or difficult to execute. “We have reduced the defects, we still have to be more efficient,” noted Mr. Poupart-Lafarge.
Regarding the economic situation, “we are in the middle of a complicated situation”, just after COVID-19, he estimated, noting that inflation should cost the French group “a little more than a point of margin” operational, even though there are indexation clauses in many contracts. This was 5% over the last fiscal year.
But the objective of bringing the margin between 8 and 10% by 2025 is maintained, he assured.
The electricity bill should also cost the group “several tens of millions of euros” next year.
“We are implementing sobriety plans”, which could lead Alstom to “close factories during the cold weather”, explained its CEO. “The objective is to reduce electricity consumption by 15% this winter,” he said.
As for factory supplies, they are sometimes complicated.
“I have electronic components whose price has been multiplied by 20 or 30”, testified the president of Alstom for France Jean-Baptiste Eyméoud. “We have dozens of people who are constantly working to secure supplies. »