PARIS, May 11, 2026, 18:10 CEST
- Alstom heads into annual results on May 13 with fresh questions over whether new CEO Martin Sion will push beyond quick fixes into a broader industrial reset.
- The train maker has strong demand, including a record 27.6 billion euros in orders, but slower rolling-stock projects have hit margins and cash.
- Belfort remains tied to growth: the site is building the 24 power cars for Velvet’s 12 Avelia Horizon trains, part of an 850 million euro order.
Alstom faces a critical test this week as Martin Sion prepares to present his first annual results as chief executive, with French reports raising the prospect of a deeper industrial restructuring even as the group’s Belfort site works on trains for Velvet, a new private challenger to SNCF.
The timing matters. Alstom is not suffering from weak demand: it reported record order intake of 27.6 billion euros and a backlog above 100 billion euros for the year ended March. The problem is execution — getting trains built, certified and delivered on time — and the cash strain that follows when projects slip.
Alstom will publish audited 2025/26 results on May 13 at 0730 CEST, with an analyst call scheduled later that morning. Its Paris-listed shares were closed on Monday, down 0.5% at 17.22 euros, according to MarketScreener data, leaving the stock down more than 31% since the start of the year.
Le Monde’s Fabrice Gliszczynski wrote on Monday that Alstom’s weakness stems less from demand or Chinese competition than from an inefficient industrial system marked by repeated delivery delays, cost overruns and heavy cash consumption. The paper said Sion is expected to spell out the financial impact of fresh production slippage when he meets analysts.
Alstom has already lowered the bar. In preliminary results last month, the company said adjusted EBIT margin, a measure of operating profit before interest and tax, was about 6%, below its earlier target of about 7%. Free cash flow — cash left after operating needs and investment — fell to about 330 million euros from 502 million euros a year earlier.
Sion said profitability had “fallen short of expectations” and blamed large rolling-stock projects moving more slowly than planned. He said Alstom would launch immediate actions while preparing “deeper operational changes” to restore cash generation and profitable growth. Alstom
Investors have been unforgiving. Reuters reported that Alstom shares slumped 30% on April 17 after the group scrapped a three-year free-cash-flow target of 1.5 billion euros, while Citi said the preliminary outlook was worse than expected. Barclays analysts estimated at least a dozen projects were hit by multi-year delays, Reuters reported.
The contrast with Belfort is stark. Velvet, which calls itself France’s first independent high-speed rail company, plans to run services from 2028 linking Paris with Bordeaux, Nantes, Angers and Rennes, adding 10 million seats a year on direct routes averaging about two hours.
For that launch, Velvet ordered 12 Alstom Avelia Horizon high-speed trains plus maintenance, a contract Alstom valued at almost 850 million euros when it was booked in 2024. Alstom said 11 of its 16 French sites would be involved, with Belfort handling the power cars and La Rochelle handling passenger cars and project management.
Journal du Palais reported that all 24 power cars for the Velvet fleet are being built in Belfort and that nearly 1,000 Alstom workers are mobilised mainly in La Rochelle and Belfort. Rachel Picard, Velvet’s president and co-founder, said the company was moving forward with “exigence and confidence” through its Alstom partnership, the regional paper reported. Journal du Palais
That order shows why Alstom still matters in Europe’s rail market. Le Monde described the group as the world’s No. 2 train, tram and metro maker behind China’s CRRC, while recalling the European Commission’s 2019 veto of Alstom’s planned tie-up with Siemens Mobility, a deal Paris and Berlin had backed.
But the risk is that a big order book becomes a burden if production delays persist. Alstom itself warned that first-half 2026/27 free cash flow would see about 1.5 billion euros of consumption before recovering later, and Reuters said traders had revived concerns about balance-sheet pressure and possible credit-rating strain.
Sion’s task on Wednesday is therefore narrow but heavy: convince investors that the Velvet-type work can be delivered without further cash surprises, while showing whether the coming operational plan is a clean-up of project execution or the start of a broader restructuring. For now, Alstom has confirmed only that an operational transformation plan and new medium-term ambitions will be presented later in the fiscal year.
