No quarter

18 June 2003

Bad weather is of limited interest to Bouygues shareholders. Its value really depends on quoted subsidiaries and the volatile mobile sector. The constructiontomobile conglomerate has been Paris’s largest faller thanks to bad news it has tried to explain as seasonal.

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Bouygues saw its shares fall nearly 6% in the wake of its firstever quarterly results announcement. In underlying terms, after allowing for the sale of its Offshore business, revenue in the three months to March was up 0.8% on the same period in 2002. Sales rose 14% at Bouygues telecom, but were down 5% at Bouygues Construction and down 3% at Saur, its water utility unit. Operating profit was down 6%, with the fall attributable to Construction, Saur, and Colas, Bouygues' 96%owned roadbuilding subsidiary.

Bouygues said that it was moving to quarterly reporting in order to anticipate new regulation that will make it the European standard in two years' time. It warned that investors should not lay too much importance on the bad performance of its roadbuilding and water businesses because they were affected by the weather in the winter period, and grew faster at other times of the year.

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