Edenred

Presentation of the company

Edenred is the world leader in transactional solutions for businesses, employees and merchants, with a business volume of more than €26 billion in 2017, 78% of which in digital format. Whether by mobile, on online platforms, by card or via a paper voucher, its solutions provide additional purchasing power to employees, optimize corporate expenses and bring additional business volume to the Group’s merchant partners.

Edenred’s offer is divided into three business lines:

• Employee benefits (Ticket Restaurant®, Ticket Alimentación, Ticket Plus, Nutrisavings…),
• Professional mobility solutions (Ticket Log, Ticket Car, UTA, Empresarial…)
• Complementary solutions: Inter-company payment (Edenred Corporate Payment), Motivation and rewards (Ticket Compliments, Ticket Kadéos) and Public Social Programmes.

The Group thus connects a single network of 44 million employees, 770,000 companies or local authorities and 1.5 million merchants.

Listed on the Paris Stock Exchange as part of the CAC Next 20 index, Edenred is present in 45 countries with nearly 8,000 employees.

Follow Edenred on Twitter:

www.twitter.com/Edenred 

Project Description

The group wishes to borrow €100,000 over 24 months as part of the Brighter Futures operation.

Thanks to the Brighter Futures operation, 11 major groups will lead the way in diversifying sources of financing for SMEs by borrowing on a lending platform.

Large groups are used to borrowing outside the banking system and diversifying their sources of funding. They have simple and easy access to credit.

In October 2014, a new regulation opening a breach in the banking monopoly allowed SMEs to borrow directly from individuals and institutions, in addition to their banks. Small and medium-sized companies can now do as big as large ones.

AccorHotels, The Adecco Group, Allianz France, Arkéa, Edenred, ENGIE, Iliad, JC Decaux, SUEZ, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield and Webhelp are joining the transaction and showing their VSE/SME ecosystem that they can now finance themselves differently, thanks to lending platforms.

These 11 major sponsors, each borrowing €100,000 from October, give their VSE/SME partners the right to borrow up to €1,000,000 each, without any administrative costs.

This project, which is part of the Brighter Futures operation, is only available to individual investors on the platform. Unlike all the other projects presented on the platform, institutional investors and October’s management cannot lend on the projects of this campaign. 

Analyst’s Opinion

The borrower is a holding company whose revenues are derived from services invoiced to its subsidiaries. The financial analysis was carried out on consolidated financial statements, which reflect the Group’s performance.

With a turnover of €1,339,000,000,000 and an EBIT of €437,000,000 in 2017, around an experienced team, the group has a good track record combined with a double-digit operating margin.

Over the last 3 years, the increase in revenue has been driven by organic growth and a targeted acquisition policy (notably the major acquisitions of Embratec and UTA), in line with its Fast Forward strategy, and the margin has remained stable.

The group has negative equity on the history presented below. This particularity results from the recognition at their historical value of the assets contributed or sold by Accor as part of the transaction to separate the activities in 2010. Equity in the proforma is positive following the incorporation into equity of bond debt with a maturity after the October loan.

The forecasts are based on 2017 performance.

The group has an excellent repayment capacity with a Fixed Charge Cover Ratio (FCCR) of 2.23 and an excellent financial structure with a low net debt of €713,000,000 in 2017.

The analysis of the project leads to a credit rating of A+ and an annual interest rate of 2.5%.

*The multiple of FCCR at 2.23 means that the company has a margin of safety of 123% in relation to its ability to repay its credit maturities.

The expert opinion is given for information purposes on the basis of the information provided by the project leader and information from our databases (Scores & Decisions, Corporate Banking File). This opinion is only an element of reflection in the decision making of a lender to participate in the financing of a project.

Strong points:

• Good historical performance based on a diversified customer base.
• Excellent repayment capacity with a expected CCRF of 2.23.
• World leader in its sector.

Points of caution:

• Country risk due to a global presence