(Finance) – The Group Italian State Railways (FS) closes 2022 with a Net income for the year, amounting to 202 million euros, a clear recovery compared to the economic-financial impacts of the health emergency generated in the previous two years and “despite the heavy and negative evolution of the conflict in Ukraine, which continues to represent a strong factor socio-political and economic-financial instability not only at a European level, with the consequent significant problems in terms of the costs of materials and commodities”.
This was announced by FS after the BoD, chaired by Nicoletta Giadrossi, today examined and approved the Company’s draft Annual Financial Report, which also includes the Group’s consolidated financial statements as at 31 December 2022.
Luigi Ferraris, Chief Executive Officer of the FS Groupcommented as follows: “The positive results achieved in 2022 confirm the key role of the FS Group in providing the country with an efficient and integrated infrastructure, mobility and freight logistics system, as well as in contributing to making our cities more sustainable. The 12% growth in revenues in one year is the result of the Group’s operational capacity which made it possible to take advantage of the substantial increase in the demand for mobility of people which saw the number of Frecce travelers double compared to 2021. All economic indicators are up, driven by ordinary management, with EBITDA improving by over 1.1 billion euros, taking into account the drastic reduction in 2022 compared to 2021 for around 800 million euros in Covid refreshments. The Group closes with a +5% net profit. The results achieved and the activities undertaken constitute a solid basis for completing further objectives related to the PNRRthe other strategic works for the country and encourage the development of a new integrated mobility”.
All margins for the year show positive and growing balances. Operating revenues of the Group rise to 13.7 billion euros, with an overall increase of 1.4 billion euros (+12%), compared to 2021, essentially due to the significant recovery in demand volumes for rail and road transport services . The increase in Revenues is accompanied by the growth of Gross Operating Margin (EBITDA) of 324 million euros, which reaches 2.2 billion euros against the 1.9 billion euros of the previous year (+17%); in fact, the Group has demonstrated a great ability to react on the front of the recovery of operating performance in the various businesses, also considering that the contribution of the Covid-19 refreshments on EBITDA was only 172 million euros in 2022 compared to 958 million euros in 2021;
L’EBIT stands at a positive value of 262 million euros (with the EBIT Margin going from 1.6% to 1.9%), up by +36% (equal to +69 million euros) vs 2021, or +112% vs 2021 (equal to +855 million euros) net of the Covid refreshments.
On the front of investments“although the international economy has shown a widespread deceleration as a result of high and persistent inflation and the worsening of financial conditions, which gradually led to a contraction in consumption and investments, in 2022 the FS Italiane Group managed to give continuity of investment development actions while maintaining a central role in supporting the national industrial system.In 2022, in fact, an overall level of expenditure for technical investments was managed equal to 11.3 billion euro, with particular reference to the development and renewal of the infrastructure, transport and logistics sectors.The growth compared to 2021, excluding the financial advances component from the comparison, is equal to over 9%, thus contributing to the strengthening of the country (98% of investments are in the national territory and over 9 billion euros in railway and road infrastructure, among which we highlight, in particular, the works on the railway network of the Third Giovi Pass and the New Brenner Pass and the Brescia-Verona-Vicenza, Naples-Bari and Turin-Lyon lines) .
The FS Italiane Group maintains a high level of equity and financial solidity, with Own Means which at the end of 2022 amounted to approximately 41.9 billion euros. There Net Financial Position (NFP), with a net debt of 7.9 billion euros, recorded a decrease of 1 billion euros compared to 31 December 2021, with a NFP/Equity ratio of approximately 0.2 substantially unchanged compared to the previous year . Even the opinions of the rating agencies give full recognition of the capital and financial reliability of the Group, with “BBB” from Standard & Poor’s which confirmed its opinion with a “stable” outlook at the beginning of August 2022 and with Fitch which confirmed in the month of November, its rating in “BBB”, with a “stable” outlook. In particular, Fitch raised one of the scores assigned to FS from “moderate” to “strong”, based on the “government-related entity rating criteria” methodology, thanks to the improvement in the Group’s assessment in relation to the “Socio-Political Implications of Default”, by virtue of the central role that FS plays for the infrastructural growth and for the green transition of the country.