The appointment will be on November 8. This is the date on which the executive president of Telefónica, José María Álvarez-Pallete, has summoned all the financial analysts to present them with the company's new strategic plan which, as he pointed out during the conference with analysts to present results, will have as growth, profitability and sustainability as priority objectives. "We will provide a brilliant free cash flow perspective for the coming years", he assured during his speech.
The lines pointed out by Álvarez-Pallete for this new roadmap between 2023 and 2026 will define a "company focused even more on improving customer service, the creation of value for the shareholder and with the most disruptive technology to take advantage of all future growth opportunities", explained the manager.
The announcement of the celebration of an investor's day surprised the market, because the Spanish telecommunications company had not organized an event of this kind since 2011, but it was not the only surprise that Telefónica offer yesterday The results it presented before the market opened also beat the forecasts of the consensus of analysts, especially with reference to the profits of the last quarter. A surprise that was confirmed with an increase in its value on the stock market of 3.57%, up to 3.95 euros per share, during yesterday's session.
In the calculation of the first six months of the year, Telefónica's profit stood at 760 million euros. This is 25.9% less than in the same period of the previous year, because it is compared to a first semester in which the accounts of 2022 included the profits from the sale of the business in Colombia.
But what has broken the estimates has been the good behavior of the company during the second quarter of 2023, when profits soared by 44.5%, up to 462 million euros. That was almost double some of the market estimates, while revenue rose 0.9% to €10.133 billion and second-quarter free cash flow came in at €842 million euros, a figure that doubles what had been obtained during the first quarter.
In the first six months as a whole, the gross operating result reached 6,266 million euros, 1.2% below the previous year, while revenues grew by 3.7%, up to 20,178 million.
Liquidity stood at 20,218 million euros at the end of June, "enough to cover the maturities of the next three years and have an average life of the debt of 12.4 years", according to the published information. This leaves the company relatively healthy and spared from the impact of the current wave of interest rate hikes.
Another figure with which he convinced the markets yesterday is that of the evolution of financial debt, which on June 30, 2023 stood at 27,479 million euros, 3.9% below that of last year.
With this good evolution of the business, Telefónica has confirmed the shareholder remuneration set at 0.30 euros per share which will be paid in two installments: December 2023 and June 2024. In addition, the company's management will propose to the next general meeting of shareholders the amortization of the existing equity portfolio on June 30, 2023, a total of 1.4% of the company's share capital.
Beyond that, Telefónica has revised upwards the financial targets set for the whole of 2023. The revenue target is doubled to anticipate an organic growth of 4%, while the new target for the result operative before amortization points to an organic increase of 3%, in the highest range of the forecasts announced at the beginning of the year. The goal of placing the investment ratio around 14% remains unchanged.
