DJ o Harry schreef op 9 februari 2022 16:20:
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Over the past two weeks, 4 analysts have published their equity reports and revised downwards their estimates for 2022, ahead of our 4Q21 results and 2022 outlook announcement.
They all have lowered their Target Price and 3 of them have downgraded bpost from BUY to HOLD, which caused a de-rating of our stock price.
In their reports, analysts are now including in their models the following headwinds for 2022. Most of them apply to peers in the sector, and some are specific to bpost only.
- bpost will face negative impacts from rising and accelerating inflation, including higher payroll, energy and transportation costs.
As to payroll costs, it is publicly known that in Belgium we will have 3 automatic +2% salary indexations between Nov. 21 and April 22, and a fourth one is also possible before the end of the year.
In North America, where we operate Radial and Landmark Global, a double-digit % salary increase is also currently observed for the moment.
- After a strong hike supported by COVID restrictions in 2020/2021, e-commerce growth is now slowing down (inflationary pressure impacting the purchasing power, easing of COVID lockdowns and restrictions now benefiting to physical shops, pressure on supply chain causing stock issues). This is expected to have a negative impact on parcels volume growth and e-commerce logistics activities.
Furthermore, as commented in the press since May last year, Amazon (one of bpost' top customers) started in 4Q21 its own last mile delivery in Wallonia and Brussels, so we will handle lower parcels volumes for Amazon in 2022.
- New VAT regulation which came into force on July 1, 2021 and has a negative impact on inbound volumes coming from Asia (as saw already in 3Q21 and still ongoing).
- After a recovery in Mail volumes in 2021 (against low volumes of 2020 during the pandemic), volumes are now expected to reconverge towards the known structural mail volume decline. In addition, in 2021 did benefit from a high price increase (+6.0% average price increase as announced in late 2020) which will not be the case in 2022 (+4.7% on average as announced in November 21).
In parallel, analysts expect bpost to be able to mitigate these impacts thanks to costs savings initiatives announced in 3Q21 results presentation.
In their reports, analysts flag that 2022 will be a tough year due to the above impacts and 2022 is seen as a transition year.
Some analysts expect to see some EBIT recovery in 2023, with comps reversing, further expected e-commerce penetration and cost savings coming in more full effect.