France's Legrand H1 sales miss overshadows core profit beat, FY outlook raise

By Michal Aleksandrowicz

(Reuters) -French electrical equipment maker Legrand on Monday posted half-year sales below expectations, overshadowing its core profit beat and an upgrade to its full-year financial guidance, sending its shares lower.

Despite flagging a contracting building market, Legrand reported 4.9% organic growth in its half-year sales to 4.29 billion euros ($4.72 billion), which missed the consensus of 4.34 billion euros.

The group posted half-year adjusted operating profit of 954.7 million euros, beating the company-compiled consensus of 936 million euros.

"Underlying trends that include electrification, changing ways of living and working, digitisation of uses, or energy-consumption monitoring, are boosting our faster expanding segments," Chief Executive Officer Benoit Coquart said in a statement.

"We expected a beat and raise," J.P. Morgan analysts said in a research note, adding that the organic miss will likely be the investors' focus today.

Shares in Legrand were down 2% at 0723 GMT.

The company now sees full-year sales growth at constant exchange rates, excluding any impact from its announced withdrawal from Russia, of a gain of between 5% and 8% in comparison to its forecast for an increase of between 2% and 6% announced in February. It expects an adjusted operating margin of around 20.5% of sales, up from around 20% announced before.

Legrand said in January it planned to leave the Russian market, which accounted for 1.5% of sales in 2022.

($1 = 0.9081 euros)

(Reporting by Michal Aleksandrowicz in Gdansk; Editing by Kim Coghill, Stephen Coates and Sharon Singleton)