Investing.com -- Compagnie de Saint Gobain SA (EPA:SGOB) shares jumped 6.9% on Friday a day after the French building materials group beat first-half core profit forecasts by around 4%, powered by a sharp second-quarter rebound across all regions, and held firm on its full-year margin outlook.

EBITDA for the six months to June 30 reached €3.63 billion, beating company consensus of €3.49 billion and topping Barclays' estimate of €3.43 billion by around 6%, with the EBITDA margin of 15.4% clearing the 15% consensus average.

Barclays, which rates the stock "overweight" with a €108 price target, attributed the beat mainly to Southern Europe-Middle East and Africa, where EBITDA of €671 million ran 6% above its €633 million estimate, and Asia-Pacific, where EBITDA of €372 million was 8% above its €344 million forecast.

Revenue of €23.60 billion was 1% above the company consensus of €23.29 billion but fell 1.1% from a year earlier on an actual basis, as a negative exchange rate impact of 1.3 percentage points and the disposal of distribution businesses weighed on reported sales.

Like-for-like growth of 0.7% for the half reflected a weak first quarter hit by unfavorable weather in the Northern Hemisphere; the second quarter recovered to 3.5% like-for-like as volumes turned positive across all regions.

Asia-Pacific delivered 7% like-for-like growth in both the second quarter and the first half, with the EBITDA margin hitting a record 18.5%. Europe posted 4.1% like-for-like gains in the second quarter, the strongest since 2022, while the EBITDA margin held stable at 13% for the half.

The Americas returned to 0.9% like-for-like growth in the second quarter after a 3.8% decline for the half, with an EBITDA margin of 19.5%; Americas EBITDA of €990 million came in marginally below Barclays' €1 billion estimate. Construction chemicals grew 8.5% organically in the second quarter.

Barclays flagged that higher depreciation and amortization limited the operating income beat to around 3% above its estimate, less pronounced than the EBITDA outperformance.

Free cash flow reached €2.11 billion, with the conversion ratio rising to 65% from 63% a year earlier, helped by working capital management. Net debt fell to €11.52 billion from €12.79 billion, bringing the net debt-to-EBITDA ratio on a rolling 12-month basis to 1.6 times.

The group completed around €3 billion of sales rotation year-to-date through 14 acquisitions and nine disposals and carried out net share buybacks of €292 million at end-July.