Picture the following: you are one of a duopoly in a sector that is seeing skyrocketing demand, and your competitor is grounded by operational and financial difficulties. In most industries, that would be a recipe for profit lift-off.
Not so, it would appear, for aircraft maker Airbus, whose stock plummeted more than 10 per cent on Tuesday as it warned about the pace of aircraft deliveries and continuing troubles in its Space division. The combination will lop €1.2bn — or about 18 per cent — off consensus expectations for earnings before interest and tax for this year, thinks Philip Buller at Berenberg.
The problem is not that Airbus lacks a growth runway. Far from it. It has steadily pulled ahead of struggling rival Boeing in new orders. Before the shock warning, analysts had been expecting profits to roughly double to €7.5bn between 2023 and 2026, according to S&P Capital IQ estimates.