What happened
Shares of Dutch aluminum manufacturer Constellium N.V. (CSTM -6.28%) jumped more than 17% in early trading Tuesday before falling back to book a still respectable 10.4% gain as of 11:35 a.m. EDT.
Constellium reported its Q2 earnings results this morning, easily topping analyst predictions of a $0.30-per-share profit with earnings of $0.47 per share on sales of $1.76 billion.
Constellium's aluminum business is rolling right along. Image source: Getty Images.
So what
Aluminum shipments grew only 4% by weight, on par with Q1 performance, but revenue increased 7% year over year, and earnings were up 267%, indicating that price increases were the major factor benefiting Constellium last quarter.
CEO Jean-Marc Germain said "end market demand" was "healthy" and "operational performance" was "solid," with Constellium making progress toward cutting costs that paid off in the form of earnings growing much faster than sales.
Now what
Management updated its guidance for the rest of this year, and says it now expects to record "adjusted EBITDA growth in a range of 11% to 13% in 2018." This should be followed by "high single digits" growth in 2019, "leading to over 500 million [euros] of Adjusted EBITDA in 2019."
Management apologized for being unable to give GAAP guidance on net income "because certain items that are excluded from Adjusted EBITDA cannot be reasonably predicted or are not in our control." For what it's worth, though, analysts who follow the stock predict Constellium will earn $0.69 per share this year, and $1.32 next year.
