Edenred eyes some currency relief in second half

By Dominique Vidalon

PARIS (Reuters) - French voucher and prepaid card provider Edenred, posted a 6.7 percent fall in first-half operating profit on Thursday that it blamed on weaker exchange rates in some key countries, notably in Brazil and Venezuela.

The owner of the French Ticket Restaurant brand of luncheon vouchers, which does a big chunk of its business in Latin America, said currency effects should be less severe in the second half and predicted full-year earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) would be between 335 million and 350 million euros ($450-470 million) against 343 million euros in 2013.

The mid-point of that forecast sits below market expectations of 350 million euros for full-year EBIT, Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S data showed.

Chief Executive Jacques Stern told a conference call that vouchers issue volume trends for the second half would be "similar" to those of the first half, which saw double-digit growth in Latin America and a good performance in Europe, with a recovering British market and a resilient French market.

Edenred, which also offers other employee benefit management services and incentive schemes, competes with caterers Sodexo and Compass, as well as credit card networks MasterCard and Visa.

The negative currency effect should ease in the second half to 20 million euros from 35 million in the first half, the company said.

Latin America accounts for around 50 percent of Edenred's sales. Brazil alone accounts for 35 percent.

Edenred said EBIT reached 148 million euros in the first half. This was a like-for-like rise, excluding currency impacts, acquisitions and divestments, of 13.2 percent, driven by a robust performance in Latin America.

Like-for-like first-half revenue rose 7.9 percent to 486 million euros, while issue volume grew 12.3 percent to 8.32 billion euros, which was in line with Edenred's annual growth target for issue volume of between 8 and 14 percent.

Earlier this year Edenred bought a 50 percent stake in C3 CARD, a payroll card company in the United Arab Emirates, with 2013 revenue of nearly 5 million euros.

On Thursday it said it was teaming up with American Express to offer a joint fuel card in Mexico. The move is aimed at expanding in expense management services, which are targeted to account for over 20 percent of the group's issue volume by 2016.

Edenred shares have lost 9.19 percent so far this year giving it a market capitalisation of 5 billion euros.

(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; Editing by James Regan and Andrew Callus)