* Staffing, industrial, auto firms among those eyeing upturn
* U.S. companies also eye improvement
* Not all positive, some profit warnings hurt shares
By Victoria Bryan
FRANKFURT, Oct 27 (Reuters) – Down in the undergrowth of
Europe’s economy, something is stirring.
Whether they make paper to pack peaches, recruit temps for
secretarial work or work at the dirty end, handling the waste
that all businesses produce, managers are talking about signs
the gloom is lifting and hopes that growth is on its way back.
The euro zone came out of a long recession in the second
quarter and a survey last week of purchasing managers – a guide
to how firms see their business growing in the coming months –
seemed to confirm recovery, albeit tentatively, is taking root.
“There is certainly growing optimism that things are on the
mend in Europe,” said Vasant Prabhu, chief financial officer of
Starwood Hotel and Resorts Worldwide, one of a host of
executives to comment during the third-quarter earnings season.
The company, which runs Sheraton and other hotel brands,
said it did well from tourists in Italy and Spain and made more
revenue from each room thanks to a lack of new hotels opening.
Among multinationals whose job it is to fill the jobs that
companies start to create as they expand, there is a similar
sense of being at the leading edge of an upturn in fortunes:
“The positive signals that emerged during the previous
quarter persisted in the third quarter,” said Rob Zandbergen,
chief executive of USG People, echoing comments from
rival Manpower.
The staffing sector is seen as an economic barometer as
firms tend to hire temporary staff first, waiting for further
evidence of recovery before adding to their permanent payroll.
Zandbergen said companies dealing with logistics and making
semi-finished goods – typically involved in the early stages of
production before products reach their final buyers – were doing
well: “A number of early-cyclical sectors returned to revenue
growth in the third quarter,” he said.
Another business close to the inner workings of industry,
French waste and water company Suez Environnement,
said the upswing had yet to arrive – but that at least things
seemed to have flattened out after a period of decline.
“We are not seeing a recovery of industrial activity, but we
are entering a phase of stabilisation,” said Jean-Marc Boursier,
finance chief for Suez, which sees a close correlation between
industrial production and the volumes of waste it handles.
BUILDING
Companies that supply the construction sector, like France’s
Saint-Gobain and Britain’s Travis Perkins,
also appear to be early beneficiaries as housebuilding picks up.
Saint-Gobain, Europe’s biggest supplier of building
materials, which makes materials used in roofing and insulation
as well as glass for windows and vehicle windshields, said
market conditions were gradually stabilising in Europe and it
expected a continuing rally in Britain and Germany.
Car makers said they finally saw some cause for hope after
European car registrations steadied after seven quarters of
decline – though their market remains difficult.
Ford Chief Financial Officer Bob Shanks said overall
auto sales in Europe may see “very, very modest growth”.
“The environment in Europe as well as industry sales may
have turned a corner,” he said. “We are feeling much more
positive about that than where we have been the last year, year
and a half.”
Daimler Chief Financial Officer Bodo Uebber
echoed that but cautioned: “Western Europe remains at a very low
level and continues to be highly competitive.”
PACKAGING
Across the Atlantic, American companies are showing
increasingly nuanced views on Europe, a far cry from the near
panicked run for the exits of late 2011.
International Paper Co, for example, reported
better-than-expected earnings, helped in part by a surprising
improvement in European sales of industrial packaging. A better
than expected harvest resulted in greater demand for boxes for
avocados, peaches and other fruit and vegetables.
“The eurozone economy has hit the bottom,” IP CEO John
Faraci told Reuters in an interview. “As we look at our business
there, the volume declines have stopped.”
Dow Chemical, which has trimmed capacity in Europe
and reported a 6-percent drop in quarterly sales volume, was
nonetheless one of several companies offering guarded optimism
about the next few quarters.
Rival DuPont also spoke of improvement and
diversified manufacturer 3M reported its strongest
quarter in Europe since the first three months of 2011.
“Conditions in Europe remain soft,” said Dow Chief Executive
Andrew Liveris. “However, in our view the market has found
bottom and we expect to see more positive signals in the near
term than in the previous three years, especially in the
northern zone countries.”
Translating early signs of future growth into profits will
take time, however, not least for European companies who have
seen a strong euro crimp the value of their overseas earnings.
A string of profit warnings hit European shares last week
and an unexpected fall in the German Ifo business climate index
on Friday cast doubt on the strength of the recovery.
According to Thomson Reuters StarMine data, 27 percent of
the companies on the STOXX Europe 600 have announced
recent results, of which 43 percent did not meet expectations.
Among them was French electrical gear maker Schneider
Electric. CFO Emmanuel Babeau told Reuters: “Clearly
Europe has remained extremely tough.”
