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Investing.com -- French industrial group Legrand (EPA:LEGD) forecast full-year 2025 organic sales growth of 6% to 10%, sending its shares sharply higher after reporting better-than-expected full-year sales for 2024.
Legrand’s shares surged as high as €106.7 in Paris trading, before trimming some gains. The stock was up 6.3% by 09:22 GMT at €103.70.
RBC Capital Markets analysts described the results as “positive,” highlighting the company’s “supportive guidance” for 2025.
“This performance is mainly due to the strong success of our data center offerings, as well as the sustained pace of acquisitions during the year,” CEO Benoît Coquart said during a call with journalists.
Legrand, which supplies electrical junctions, EV chargers, and other products to commercial, industrial, and residential clients, reported Q4 2024 sales of €2.4 billion, beating company-compiled consensus by 5%.
Organic growth of 6.2% year-on-year also exceeded the expected 2.6%. North America led the performance with 12.9% growth, while Europe posted a 1.5% increase.
"We view this as an encouraging set of results for Legrand given the acceleration in organic growth to 6.2% driven by very strong North America growth of 13% in 4Q24 which is likely underpinned by a strong finish to the year in Datacenter," Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) analysts commented in a note.
Analysts added they "expect the shares to outperform the market by a mid-single digit percentage."
For the full year 2024, Legrand posted sales of 8.65 billion euros ($8.99 billion), surpassing the company-compiled consensus of 8.54 billion euros. Sales in the data center segment reached 1.6 billion euros for the year.
In the US, which contributes 37% of the group’s revenue, sales rose 5.7% year-on-year. However, European sales, accounting for 40% of revenue, declined 2.3%, impacted by a sluggish construction sector.
Legrand’s full-year adjusted operating profit came in at 1.78 billion euros, beating the consensus estimate of 1.73 billion euros.