Suez's European waste management business was among the operations "delivering a high level of growth in growing markets", CEO Jean-Louis Chaussade said at the presentation of the group's 2017 results on Thursday morning in Paris. These waste businesses, which make up the concern's Recycling & Recovery Europe division, achieved revenue of €6.164bn for the calendar year, an increase of just over 3 per cent at constant scope and rate of exchange, according to the annual earnings report.
On an organic basis, regional waste management revenue was up by 5.3 per cent in France, 2.5 per cent in Benelux and Germany and 1.6 per cent in Sweden. At the same time, an adverse construction effect had caused UK revenues to contract by 3 per cent in annual comparison at constant scope and exchange rates, but this had not been related to the volume trend, said Suez. Industrial waste management operations in Europe achieved organic revenue growth of nearly 5 per cent, which Suez attributed to good commercial momentum with large industrial customers.
In his remarks at the at the earnings conference, Mr Chaussade also announced the start of a new action plan intended to boost growth momentum and profitability. The plan, which would include additional cost cutting, would target Suez's home market of France, but also Spain, "a country where we would like to increase synergies between the water and the recycling and recovery businesses," said the CEO.
Suez booked a consolidated net result group share of €302m on revenues of €15.871bn. In 2016, it had achieved net earnings attributable to the group of €420m on revenue of €15.322bn.
