Ryanair annonce aujourd'hui (Les Echos) qu'il relève sa prévision de bénéfice. Il y a 6 mois, c'était exactement l'inverse, ce qui a fait lourdement chuté son cours, ainsi que l'ensemble du marché low-cost en Europe.
Je suis tombé sur cet article qui explique les raisons de ces annonces ; très intéressant...
Ryanair relève sa prévision de bénéfice annuel
La compagnie aérienne irlandaise à bas coûts a dégagé des résultats trimestriels en hausse de 26% et un chiffre d'affaires en progression de 25%
La compagnie aérienne irlandaise à bas coûts Ryanair a annonce lundi une hausse de 25,9% de son bénéfice net part du groupe sur son deuxième trimestre achevé fin septembre, à 268,7 millions d'euros, pour un chiffre d'affaires en progression de 24,9% à 861,3 millions d'euros.
Le groupe a ajouté qu'il relevait sa prévision de bénéfice net pour l'ensemble de l'exercice, tablant désormais sur "une hausse de 17,5% à environ 470 millions d'euros, au lieu des 440 millions d'euros précédemment anticipés".
Air Bulletin : http://www.airlinebulletin.com/2007/10/ryanairs-profit.html
Ryanair’s Profit Projection Motivations
Many analysts were concerned on June 5 when Ryanair, citing higher fuel costs and airport charges, projected sharply lower coming-year profit growth. Although Ryanair projected profit growth of a mere 5%, its recent results have far exceeded that figure, which poses the question: Why were Ryanair’s projections so far off, and were they deliberately off to give Ryanair a strategic advantage in the marketplace? While we will never know for sure, Ryanair has exploited its projection to further its lobbying, public relations, price-cutting, expansion, and value creation efforts. This has particularly hurt medium-size LCC competitors, including Jet2, Vueling, and SkyEurope, in the process.
Ryanair’s lowered projections created a more positive environment for the company’s lobbying efforts. Ryanair has traditionally engaged in fights against regulatory and airport authorities and the company has been known to take drastic measures to prove a point because it feels that if it loses any battles against these authorities, it will have a weaker negotiating position when it fights against future restrictions and rate increases. A lowering of projections generated media sympathy, providing Ryanair with more negotiating power.
But the lower predictions were also followed by some dramatic actions by Ryanair, perhaps partially intended to influence press coverage, which furthered the company’s lobbying and public relations efforts. Ryanair has been engaged in battles with BAA, Aer Rianta, the EU, as well as the UK Government. Ryanair’s most recent highly publicized fight was against BAA for doubling Stansted airport charges, resulting in Ryanair grounding seven Stansted-based aircraft. Instead of continuing to fly aircraft with a slightly higher cost base (keep in mind that Ryanair still has by far the lowest costs of any European carrier) the airline simply grounded the planes, enabling the media to publicize the story and the apparent victimization, generating public sympathy for Ryanair and animosity towards BAA. But Ryanair may have exploited this situation to cleverly to turn media attention away from service issues. No media outlet wants to spend too much time and effort covering one company, and the battle with BAA provides the media a Ryanair story that is positive for the company and a good story for the media since it’s new, different, and engaging—unlike many of the Ryanair traveler “horror stories” that are often covered instead. However, while the company’s public relations may have been boosted by this move, the company still isn’t winning the lobbying battles it wants to, and the company’s unilateral negotiation approach seems to be proving rather ineffective, so good press, while helpful, hasn’t done everything.
The lower projections provided a logical explanation for Ryanair subsequently drastically cutting prices on most of its routes, including offers of 10 Euros each way including taxes and fees, as a way of stimulating lower load factors. This became a Ryanair-led price war. EasyJet was unable to match many of these fares, but trimmed fares where they could to maintain competitiveness. Air Berlin, with a higher cost structure than either Ryanair or easyJet, could not match Ryanair’s deals. (However, Air Berlin’s ongoing acquisitions will enable that airline to offer fares much closer to Ryanair’s in the future.) The carriers who really suffered were those who were unable to cut fares without hemorrhaging cash. Vueling is a prime victim of Ryanair and easyJet’s expansion into Spain. Because the company has higher costs than either carrier, it lost money when it was forced to cut fares to compete with Ryanair and easyJet. Ryanair’s price cut strategy worked brilliantly to further destabilize Vueling, and as a result, that carrier is now reconsidering its business strategy.
The lower projections also provided Ryanair with an understandable excuse to cut unprofitable routes and launch routes that compete more directly with easyJet, especially for the future. Ryanair will soon need to become more active and aggressive in higher-density city-pair markets if it hopes to meet passenger growth targets. As a result, Ryanair will continue to pressure carriers such as easyJet, Vueling, SkyEurope, and others who have high-density strategies. When Ryanair reshuffled routes this summer, the company positioned itself to compete more directly with easyJet, especially on routes to or from Spain and Italy. As Ryanair expands further there, it will compete more intensely with easyJet, which could alter easyJet’s strategy of targeting large, high-density markets as its primary growth strategy.
As the industry leader, Ryanair sets the trend, so its poor projection hurt LCC stocks across the board. That provided Ryanair several opportunities. With its own share price lower, the company could buy back stock and likely increase the share price. Ryanair’s competitors, with their shares down, had to be more careful about their expansion plans. But most importantly, it made some of Ryanair’s smaller competitors more susceptible to takeover, which might cause them to exit markets where they compete with Ryanair. Takeover rumors have been swirling concerning Vueling and SkyEurope, in part because of the immense pressure that Ryanair has put these carriers under, and a lower share price makes them more attractive to potential suitors.
On June 5 Ryanair announced its annual results and a share buyback. Ryanair stock closed at 5,36 EUR the day before earnings were announced, while the stock headed lower in successive days and on June 26, Ryanair commenced the buyback, purchasing shares at a price of approximately 4,95 EUR. Ryanair was able to purchase its stock at a very attractive price, triggering a temporary increase in the share price. This in turn benefited Ryanair shareholders, including senior level executives. But this strategy hasn’t been too successful at creating lasting value for shareholders thus far, as Ryanair’s stock has since fallen to approximately post-earnings levels.
Ryanair’s move affected the share prices of other companies in the industry, causing pain for investors and concern for executives about future competitiveness. While easyJet’s stock took a steep dive this summer, declining from 563 pence on June 4 to as low as 453 pence on July 30, it has since regained some of its lost value. EasyJet, Vueling, Jet2, and many other Ryanair competitors have all seen declines in share performance since the June 5 announcement, raising questions about whether these companies will be able to maintain competitiveness with Ryanair in the future as they lose market value.
On most fronts, Ryanair’s strategy has been effective. The company exacerbated problems that its medium-size competitors have been facing, while enabling the company to better compete with its larger rivals. Unfortunately, this strategy hasn’t yielded all the potential benefits it could, as the company still is fighting BAA’s Stansted Airport charges, and Ryanair’s stock has had lackluster performance since the earnings announcement. But regardless of whether Ryanair’s earnings announcement was an intentional deception or a happy accident, the company has used it successfully to gain ground in a very competitive marketplace by driving down competitors’ yields and increasing competition on lucrative routes.
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