Investors who piled into Alcatel-Lucent on the back of turnround plans, making this notorious dog one of Europe’s best-performing stocks in 2013, saw their reward yesterday. On the financial front, progress was evident in the telecoms equipment maker’s 2013 numbers. Gross margins improved significantly – from 30 per cent in 2012 to 32.2 per cent last year and over 34 per cent in the final quarter. Lying behind this advance was a fall of more than 5 per cent in 2013 operating expenses; although revenues grew modestly, the company lowered its fixed costs by €360m. Annual free cash flow was still negative but, at €114m before the restructuring costs, only a third of 2012’s outflow figure.
受阿尔卡特-朗讯(Alcatel-Lucent)的扭亏计划吸引，投资者纷纷大举买入该公司股票，使得这支出了名的绩差股成为2013年欧洲市场上表现最好的股票之一。昨天，这些投资者看到了回报。从财务基本面看，2这家通信设备生产商2013年的财务数据有了明显改善，毛利率显著提升——从2012年的30%提高到去年的32.2%，并在去年最后一个季度达到逾34%。财务数据改善的原因在于，2013年该公司运营费用下降超过5%；虽然营收增幅不大，但该公司将固定成本削减了3.6亿欧元。年度自由现金流仍然为负，但不计入企业业务结构调整成本的自由现金流为1.14亿欧元，仅相当于该公司2012年资金流失规模的三分之一。