By Gabriel Araujo
SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Brazilian planemaker Embraer SA (NYSE:ERJ) reaffirmed its full-year forecast after reporting a narrowed first-quarter net loss as improved margins helped to offset a seasonal sales dip, sending its shares higher on Thursday.
The company stuck to all aspects of its 2022 financial and deliveries guidance, noting it still expects revenue to reach between $4.5 billion and $5 billion.
Full-year deliveries are projected at 100 to 110 executive jets and 60 to 70 commercial jets.
Embraer reported a first-quarter adjusted net loss of $78.5 million, narrowing from $95.9 million a year earlier.
Shares in the firm were up 4.15% at 14.04 reais in afternoon trading, making it the top performer on Brazil's Bovespa stock index, which was down 0.2%.
Analysts at BTG Pactual welcomed the bottomline as a positive surprise despite overall soft results.
"We remain buyers of Embraer as the long-term catalysts remain solid and the monetization of its eVTOL initiative ... represents an upside risk to the investment thesis," they said, in a reference to Embraer's electric aircraft subsidiary Eve.
Eve is set to merge with Zanite Acquisition Corp and be listed on the New York Stock Exchange in the first half of the year. It already has an order pipeline of more than $5 billion.
POST-BOEING WORLD
Embraer's first-quarter net revenue fell 26% to $600.9 million as it reported almost a month of production shutdowns due to systems and legal reintegration of its commercial aviation unit in January.
The reintegration was necessary after negotiations for Boeing (NYSE:BA) Co to take over its commercial plane division fell apart in early 2020 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-embraer-backlog-idUSKBN22O1MY.
Its consolidated gross margin, however, jumped to 20.1% from 9.5% a year ago, helping it offset lower than usual deliveries amid better performance in all segments, it said.
The planemaker announced this month that it delivered 14 jets in the first three months of 2022, down 36% from a year earlier.
The company initially filed results in Brazilian reais before reporting its earnings in U.S. dollars.
($1 = 4.9642 reais)