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AENA: 3Q’19 RESULTS (ANÁLISIS BANCO SABADELL)

3Q'19 vs. 3Q'18 Results
Sales: € 1.348 Bn (+4.9% vs. +4.8% BS(e) and +4.4% consensus);
EBITDA: € 947.39 M (+4.6% vs. +3.3% BS(e) and +3.0% consensus);
Net Profit: € 555.12 M (+10.0% vs. +6.7% BS(e) and +5.7% consensus);
9M'19 vs. 9M'18 Results
Sales: € 3.449 Bn (+6.1% vs. +6.1% BS(e) and +5.9% consensus);
EBITDA: € 2.137 Bn (+5.1% vs. +4.6% BS(e) and +4.4% consensus);
Net Profit: € 1.114 Bn (+9.3% vs. +7.7% BS(e) and +7.2% consensus);

The 3Q’19 results came in above expectations in EBITDA (+4.6% vs. +3.3% BS(e) and +3.0% consensus) thanks to margins coming in slightly above expectations (70.3% vs. 69.6% consensus and 70.5% in 3Q’18), where accelerating revenues in the International business (5.6% of sales) was key and allowed the rise in personnel costs (already known) to be offset.
Despite this solid current operating performance, we do not expect air traffic figures to rise sharply from its current level. Thus, we expect the growth rates to continue to fall, which would be in line with AENA’s forecasts: for these results the company has announced that it expects +1.1% growth in air traffic for 2020 (vs. +4.8% in 9M’19), a number that would be below our current forecast (+2.8% BS(e)). With all this in mind, we think this would be a base-case scenario (the guidance given by the company tends to be conservative), and there is still room for improvement if Spain’s macro data remains stable (domestic air traffic is currently growing at 1.8x the pace of international traffic).
In short, the results came in above expectations, and the lead story was the announcement of the traffic guidance for 2020, which once again evidences the slowdown in traffic growth and, given the lack of potential we see in the stock, leads us to maintain our SELL recommendation. SELL. T.P. € 151.00/sh. (-10.12% potential).