Investing.com -- Airbus Group SE (EPA:AIR) shares fell more than 2% in European trading Thursday after the planemaker missed profit expectations for the fourth quarter.
The company also flagged short-term production challenges and confirmed a delay to its A350 freighter while forecasting a 7% increase in aircraft deliveries to about 820 jets this year.
Europe’s largest aerospace group took a 300 million-euro ($312.84 million) charge related to its Space business and noted potential long-term risks for its slow-selling A400M military transport aircraft.
For the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024, Airbus reported adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of €2.34, short of the consensus of €2.42.
Adjusted EBIT came in at €2,556 million, also missing the consensus forecast of €2,601 million.
Free cash flow (FCF) before customer financing stood at €5,308 million, above the projected €4,494 million.
For 2024, Airbus reported an adjusted operating profit of 5.35 billion euros, an 8% decline that aligned with expectations.
Annual revenue rose 6% to 69.23 billion euros, with 24.72 billion euros generated in the final quarter.
Airbus confirmed that the launch of its A350 freighter will be delayed by about a year to the second half of 2027, confirming a previous report from Reuters.
For 2025, the company projects adjusted operating profit to rise to around 7 billion euros, excluding any potential impact from trade tariffs but including the integration of Spirit AeroSystems (NYSE:SPR).
Airbus said the deal would have a "broadly neutral" effect on operating income but would weigh on free cash flow by "mid triple digit" millions of euros.
In 2024, the company generated 4.46 billion euros in FCF and expects about 4.5 billion euros in 2025.
“The most significant pieces of new information Airbus’ Q4 was the FCF €4.5bn guidance for 2025 based on 820 commercial aerospace delivery in 2025, which includes ~€500mn negative impact from Spirit’s work packages on A220 & A350.” Barclays (LON:BARC) analysts commented.
Separately, RBC Capital Markets analysts said they believe Airbus’s guidance “reflects conservatism and the Spirit work package impact.”
Airbus also announced a 2-euro per share annual dividend, an 11% increase from the prior year, and plans to distribute a 1-euro per share special dividend in 2025, in line with last year’s payout.