Sopra Steria's share price rose by nearly 4% at the end of the day, benefiting from two positive analyses.
Oddo maintains its outperform rating on Sopra Steria shares, with a price target raised from 214 to 236 euros.
The analyst is basing his opinion on the company's better-than-expected results for the 2022 financial year, including organic growth of 8% in Q4, compared with the consensus of 6% and Oddo's 6.4%, and ROA of 453 ME, 3% above expectations, reflecting a MOA of 8.9%, up 80 points.
Management is positive about demand, which remains strong at the start of 2023, reports Oddo. Sopra Steria is thus targeting organic growth of 3 to 5% in 2023 (Oddo is at 3.1%, consensus at 2.9% pre-publication) as well as MOA slightly above 9%.
Believing that this is 'a very good publication from Sopra Steria', the analyst points out that the only bad news comes from the difficulties encountered at SFT. The problem is not so much the short-term financial impact, which is fairly negligible, but rather the impact this will have on the Group's ambitions for SBS in Germany.
Following this publication, we are raising our forecasts for organic growth in 2023 and 2024 to 4.7% and 4.8% respectively (compared with 3.1% and 4.0%)", concludes the broker.
Considering the valuation to be "out of line with the fundamentals", Invest Securities also reiterates its "buy" opinion on Sopra Steria, with a price target raised from 198 to 228 euros, "convinced that the rerating that began in early 2023 should be extended, and even amplified".
The analyst points out that "2022 achievements are solid and, above all, 2023 guidance is reassuring, with even the possibility of the company doing better due to the very cautious scenario adopted for the second half of the year".
In addition, non-operating factors (IS, provisions, Axway) and the integration of the CS Group and Tobiana acquisitions have had a significant impact, which leads us to raise our expectations quite significantly", he continues.
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Sopra Steria Group is one of the leading French companies providing IT services. The activity is organized mainly around three areas:
- consulting services: strategic consulting, implementing of restructuring projects and development towards new technologies, etc.;
- systems integration and solutions: design and implementation of Internet technology solutions (portals, merchant sites, Intranet and Extranet networks, etc.), integration of ERP solutions, implementation of application solutions (customer relationship management, HR management, etc.). The group also offers subcontracting solutions for providing technical support to users and application maintenance;
- outsourcing services and operation of professional processes: supervision, administration and operation of IT infrastructures, operation of finance, administration, human resources functions, etc.
Net sales break down by market between industry (29.6%), services (24.6%), public sector (19.4%), finance (16%), telecommunications and media (7.2%) and retail (3.1%).
53.5% of net sales are generated abroad.
SOPRA STERIA GROUP 
