PSA Group sees its shares in French car brands rise to 10-year high

Peugeot manufacturer, PSA Group, has seen its shares rise to a 10-year high following success with its recently owned Opel-Vauxhall business, Reuters reports.

The group attained its best ever first-half profitability with its French car brands following excellent sales of its Peugeot 3008 and 5008 SUVs.

Chief Financial Officer, Jean-Baptiste de Chatillon, said: “The turnaround of Opel-Vauxhall is now clearly under way.”

After Chief Executive, Carlos Tavares, helped save the group from near-bankruptcy in 2014, the PSA group are using the same method as at Opel, which was purchased from General Motors (GM) around a year ago.

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“The improvement PSA has achieved over the last six months is remarkable given that (Opel) lost 179 million euros in the second half of 2017,” said Arndt Ellinghorst, a London-based analyst with Evercore ISI.

The PSA group has seen a meteoric rise in its profit margins, confirming that it had risen “by almost half to €3.02bn.”

With an original 6% profitability goal by 2021, French brands Peugeot, Citroen and DS surpassed that figure with 8.5%.

Based on Reuters’ Inquiry Financial poll on the median estimates, the results comfortably beat the analyst expectations of a projected net income of €1.35bn, an operating profit of €2.33bn and a total revenue of €38.49bn.