Bureau Veritas report improving performance in Q3

IIOA member Bureau Veritas report their Q3 2020 results. Revenue was 1,148 million EUR in Q3, -4.4% organically and down 9.6% year on year, including -4.9% currency impact.

With the Covid-19 pandemic continuing to have an impact, Bureau Veritas suggest a ‘Slow & gradual recovery’ scenario for the full year 2020. A key determinant of this is the assumption of the absence of lockdown measures in Bureau Veritas’ countries.

Within these numbers, Certification’s Q3 revenue grew 7% organically over Q3 2019, with actual 3.5% increase, impacted by 3.8% currency impact decline. Year-to-date, revenue is 14% down on 2019 at 230.5 million EUR.

The improved Q3 performance came from new initiatives related to restarting businesses at the end of the lockdown (‘Restart Your Business with BV‘) and from a catch-up of postponed audits, with the rescheduling of a significant number of audits that had been initially planned in Q1 and Q2.

Other comments on Certification are, ‘Most geographies experienced a rebound in organic growth with the exception of a few countries that were still affected by lockdown measures and restrictions on movement (Brazil, India) or decision of delaying certificates validity (in the food and automotive industry). The strongest recovering countries were France, Spain, Canada, Italy, all growing double-digit organically, and to a lesser extent, Japan, Australia and China (the latter having stabilized already in Q2).

Within the Group’s portfolio, the services and schemes that outperformed the most were those most impacted by H1 postponements by clients and where remote audits were less used or not authorized during the lockdowns: Food Certification (double-digit growth led notably by organic products), Transport schemes (growing high single-digit organically), and Supply chain & Sustainability services (growing high single-digit) led by Environmental Certification and Wood management systems certification. Conversely, training services remained impacted due to restrictions on movement (cancellation of face-to-face training sessions, replaced in some cases by digital training).

The Group’s portfolio diversification continued with new products development being up 4.3% in the third quarter of 2020 compared to the prior year. In risk management, Bureau Veritas continued to develop the portfolio of solutions dedicated to companies around Anti-bribery, Asset Management, and Business Continuity.

In Sustainability, Bureau Veritas provides companies with solutions to measure and verify the different aspects of their energy, climate change, social responsibility commitments and objectives. In the third quarter, the Group certified the first Climate Bonds emission worldwide for an Agriculture project in Brazil.

During the quarter the Group continued to deliver services remotely through digital solutions. 12% of man days were delivered remotely, at a similar level to in the first half.

In the medium to long term, the Group expects the Sustainability and ESG related topics to be amongst the key growth drivers for the Certification business.’

The full details from Bureau Veritas can be viewed here.

• Bureau Veritas