Before the bell: Verisure delivers growth and profit

Pukkelpop moves to Wall Street. Belgium and France could learn a thing or two from WDP.

The AI rally seems to have no end in sight, led once again by U.S. chipmakers AMD (+11.4%) and its big brother Nvidia (+2.2%). That pushed the Nasdaq (+1.2%) and S&P 500 (+0.6%) to new record highs. European markets also enjoyed another day of gains. Home-security specialist Verisure surged 9.6% on its first trading day in Stockholm — an interesting growth stock to watch. The Bel20 rose 0.6%, driven by Aperam (+6.2%) and Umicore (+5.5%). The stainless steel producer benefited from the EU’s newly erected tariff wall on imported steel, which also lifted ArcelorMittal (+6.6%). Umicore created its own luck: the materials group took advantage of the high gold price to monetize its gold inventory, generating around 410 million euro in net proceeds. That gold serves as working capital, but at these high prices, Umicore prefers to lease the metal rather than hold it.

After a week-long holiday, Chinese mainland markets reopened with gains of more than 1%. Tokyo also rallied strongly (+1.8%). Before Wall Street opens, PepsiCo will release quarterly results. Later today, we’ll hear from Jerome Powell. With parts of the U.S. government shut down, few economic statistics are being published.

Better WDP (and Montea, of course) than Belgium

Logistics real estate specialist WDP (-1%) easily raised 500 million euro through a green bond with a 5.25-year maturity and a 3.175% coupon. Investor demand was 3.5 times oversubscribed. WDP recently received a rating upgrade from Moody’s. For Belgian REITs (GVV’s), it’s crucial to refinance loans from the ultra-low interest era at only moderately higher rates — to safeguard long-term profit and dividend growth. Continuous debt management is therefore a core part of their business model. Governments like France and Belgium could learn a lesson from these REITs. France is up against a debt wall, and Belgium faces a potential credit rating downgrade on Friday. Judging by the political backlash to the idea of an index jump, most parties — including MR — still fail to grasp the seriousness of the situation. If Belgium were a stock, we wouldn’t buy it.

Pukkelpop goes public — on Wall Street

After Torhout-Werchter, Dour, and several other Belgian festivals, Pukkelpop is now part of the portfolio of U.S.-listed Live Nation Entertainment (-3.5%). Last year, Pukkelpop generated 38 million euro in revenue and 2.4 million euro in net profit. Live Nation’s Belgian division reports more than 140 million euro in annual revenue and around 10 million euro in net profit — negligible compared with the group’s expected 25.9 billion dollar turnover (+12%) and 1.4 billion dollar operating profit (+72%) this year. Visitors to Pinkpop should brace for higher ticket prices. CEO Michael Rapino believes concert tickets are too cheap compared to major U.S. sporting events. Investors seem to agree — they’re paying 50 times earnings for the stock.

Did you know…

In the first quarter of this year, European investors withdrew the equivalent of 7.3 billion dollar from sustainable funds. In the second quarter, they overcame their fear of Trump’s anti-ESG agenda and put 8.3 billion back in.