Altran Plunges 28%, GAM Declines on Profit Warning

Sarla Buch
13 Jul, 2018
New York City

Altran tumbled 28% after it identified a fraud at its recently acquired U.S. unit. Gjensidige blamed weaker profit on winter conditions. European Union approved Ryanair to increase its stake to 75% in Austrian rival Laudamotion. GAM Holding plummeted on profit warnings.

[R]4:00 PM Frankfurt – Altran tumbled 28% after it identified a fraud at its recently acquired U.S. unit. Gjensidige blamed weaker profit on winter conditions. European Union approved Ryanair to increase its stake to 75% in Austrian rival Laudamotion. GAM Holding plummeted on profit warnings.[/R]

In London trading, FTSE 100 index increased 15.86 or 0.2% to 7,667.19 and in Frankfurt the DAX index advanced 54.73 or 0.4% to 12,547.70.

In Paris, CAC 40 index gained 21.28 or 0.4% to 5,427.17.

Altran Technologies tumbled 27.9% to €8.66 after France-based engineering consulting services provider identified forged purchase orders of about $10 million from recently acquired the U.S.-based privately held design and engineering services provider Aricent.

The forged orders linked to individual employee who had made it between the third-quarter of 2017 and the first-quarter of 2018.

Altran said that strategic reasons to acquire Aricent will not be affected by this incident.

Altran acquired Aricent in fiscal 2017 for €1.7 billion or $1.9 billion from a consortium led by private equity fund KKR.

Gjensidige Forsikring ASA plunged 8.5% to €13.30 after Norway-based insurance services provider reported revenues in the first-half ending in June jumped 6.6% from a year ago to 13.9 billion kronor.

Net income in the period plummeted 30% to 1.5 billion kronor from 2.2 billion kronor in the same period a year ago and diluted earnings per share slumped to 3.08 kronor from 4.41 kronor.

The insurer forecasted fiscal 2018 combined ratio to be at the lower end of previous estimate, the cost ratio of about 15% and up to fiscal 2022 average annual profit of about 1 billion kronor.

On July 2, the insurer divested its online banking business to Nordic bank Nordea for about 5.5 billion kronor.

Ryanair Holdings Plc gained 0.5% to €15.66 after the Ireland-based airline services provider received approval from the EU Commission to increase to 75% interest in Austrian airline Laudamotion from the current stake of 24.9%.

GAM Holding Ltd plummeted 15.1% to 11.36 Swiss francs after Switzerland-based asset manager forecasted first-half of 2018 profits will be hurts by non-cash impairment charge of about 59 million franc.

The asset manager estimated net profit in the first-half of about 25 million francs from the reported 67.7 million francs in the same period a year ago.