Prysmian Still Prudent on Full-year Forecast after Q1 Core Earnings Beat

Prysmian, the world's largest cablemaker, said on Thursday its core earnings jumped 48% in the first quarter, beating estimates, as it continued to profit from global trends in energy transition and electrification.

However, despite strong quarterly results, the company refrained from upgrading its forecasts for its full-year adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), and cash generation as it seeks harder evidence of current market strength.

"We're not yet confident to move up the higher part of our guidance, prudently we want to see second-quarter data and orders," CEO Valerio Battista told analysts.

"What I can tell you is that the lower end of our guidance is now out of scope," he added.

By 1500 GMT shares in the company were down 3.6%, among the worst performers on Italy's blue-chip index.

For the January-March period, Prysmian said its adjusted EBITDA totaled 427 million euros ($470 million), topping a company-provided analyst consensus of 358 million euros.

"All the businesses and geographical areas performed well, particularly the sectors that play a strategic role in the energy transition and electrification processes," Battista said. 

In particular he cited submarine cable systems for large interconnections and offshore wind farms, cables for protective grid hardening and applications for wind and solar renewable energy generation.

Prysmian said its project business, which supplies cabling for land and submarine power interconnections and offshore wind farms, had an order backlog - including the recent Biscay Gulf Interconnection deal - worth 9.1 billion euros at the end of March, an all-time high.

The company said it generated a free cash flow of 581 million euros in the 12 months to the end of March.

 ($1 = 0.9084 euros)

(Reuters - Reporting by Giulio Piovaccari, editing by Gavin Jones, Keith Weir and Susan Fenton)