Bouygues: recovery is confirmed, 2021 objectives maintained – archyde

PARIS (Reuters) – Bouygues confirmed its targets for 2021 on Tuesday after again recording a clear improvement in its turnover and results after suffering the impact of the pandemic last year.

Over the first nine months of 2021, the construction, media and telecoms group saw its turnover increase by 10%, to 27.517 billion euros, not far from its level of 2019 over the same period.

Current operating income, for its part, stood at 1.141 billion euros against 681 million a year earlier and above the level of the first nine months of 2019 (at 1.118 billion).

The current operating margin thus rose to 4.1%, as in the same period in 2019, after falling to 2.7% a year earlier.

The recovery can be observed both in construction activities, whose revenues increased by 9%, and in the subsidiaries TF1 (+ 21%) and Bouygues Telecom (+ 13%).

Bouygues, which announced earlier this month that it had signed a promise to purchase to acquire Equans from Engie for an enterprise value of 6.7 billion euros, still expects its sales and operating profit current will be “very close” in 2021 to the level of 2019.

The current operating margin is still expected to be at its pre-crisis level this year.

(Report Blandine Hénault, edited by Nicolas Delame)