Does Veolia Still Offer Upside After Strong Five Year Gains and DCF Implied Upside?

  • If you have been wondering whether Veolia Environnement is still a smart buy at around €29, you are not alone. This breakdown is aimed squarely at helping you decide if the current price makes sense.

  • The stock has been quietly grinding higher, with returns of 0.1% over the last week, 1.0% over the last month, 7.7% year to date and 90.3% over five years. That naturally raises the question of how much upside is left versus the risk.

  • Recent headlines have focused on Veolia’s ongoing role in large scale water and waste infrastructure projects, alongside its push into higher margin environmental services. These developments have reinforced the market’s view of it as a long term transition play. At the same time, regulatory and sustainability tailwinds in Europe continue to shape expectations for stable, utility like cash flows with embedded growth optionality.

  • On our checklist of six valuation tests Veolia scores a solid 5 out of 6, suggesting the shares still look reasonably priced. Next we will unpack what that means across discounted cash flow, multiples and other lenses, before finishing with a more intuitive way to think about what the market might be missing.

Find out why Veolia Environnement’s 8.6% return over the last year is lagging behind its peers.

A Discounted Cash Flow model estimates what a company is worth by projecting the cash it can generate in the future and discounting those cash flows back to today in € terms.

For Veolia Environnement, the latest twelve month free cash flow stands at about €1.95 billion. Analysts provide detailed forecasts for the next few years, with free cash flow expected to be around €1.60 billion in 2026 and €1.96 billion by 2027. Beyond that, Simply Wall St extrapolates the trend, projecting free cash flow to rise gradually to roughly €2.17 billion by 2035 as the business matures.

Using a 2 Stage Free Cash Flow to Equity model, these cash flows are discounted back to today to arrive at an estimated intrinsic value of about €58.10 per share. Against a current share price near €29, the DCF suggests the stock is roughly 49.5% undervalued. This indicates that the market may be placing a heavy discount on Veolia’s long term cash generation potential.

Result: UNDERVALUED

Our Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) analysis suggests Veolia Environnement is undervalued by 49.5%. Track this in your watchlist or portfolio, or discover 905 more undervalued stocks based on cash flows.

VIE Discounted Cash Flow as at Dec 2025

Head to the Valuation section of our Company Report for more details on how we arrive at this Fair Value for Veolia Environnement.

For a consistently profitable business like Veolia Environnement, the price to earnings (PE) ratio is a useful yardstick, because it links what investors pay today directly to the company’s current earnings power. In broad terms, companies with faster, more reliable earnings growth and lower perceived risk tend to justify higher PE ratios, while slower growth or higher risk usually calls for a lower multiple.

Veolia currently trades on a PE of about 17.7x, which sits close to the Integrated Utilities industry average of roughly 17.8x and modestly below the broader peer group average of around 19.1x. Simply Wall St’s proprietary Fair Ratio for Veolia is 17.1x, which reflects what the PE “should” be once factors like its earnings growth outlook, profit margins, size, industry positioning and specific risks are all accounted for. This tailored Fair Ratio is more informative than a simple peer or sector comparison, because it adjusts for Veolia’s own fundamentals rather than assuming all utilities deserve the same multiple. With the actual PE of 17.7x only slightly above the Fair Ratio of 17.1x, the shares screen as reasonably valued on an earnings basis.

Result: ABOUT RIGHT

ENXTPA:VIE PE Ratio as at Dec 2025
ENXTPA:VIE PE Ratio as at Dec 2025

PE ratios tell one story, but what if the real opportunity lies elsewhere? Discover 1442 companies where insiders are betting big on explosive growth.

Earlier we mentioned that there is an even better way to understand valuation, so let us introduce Narratives, a simple framework that lets you write the story behind your numbers by tying your view on a company’s future revenue, earnings and margins to a concrete financial forecast and fair value estimate.

On Simply Wall St’s Community page, Narratives are an easy, accessible tool used by millions of investors to connect a company’s story, the assumptions that flow from that story and the resulting fair value. This helps you clearly see whether your own fair value is above or below today’s share price and decide if Veolia Environnement looks like a buy, hold or sell.

Narratives also update dynamically when new information such as earnings, major contract wins or regulatory changes are released. This helps your fair value view stay in sync with the latest data instead of going stale after you first run the numbers.

For example, one Veolia Narrative might lean into new contracts, higher margins and faster earnings growth to justify a fair value closer to the bullish €45.30 analyst target. A more cautious Narrative, focused on M&A risks, tariff pressure and slower mature market growth, might anchor nearer the bearish €25.30 target instead.

Do you think there’s more to the story for Veolia Environnement? Head over to our Community to see what others are saying!

ENXTPA:VIE Community Fair Values as at Dec 2025
ENXTPA:VIE Community Fair Values as at Dec 2025

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

Companies discussed in this article include VIE.PA.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com

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