The global slowdown has forced Suez Environnement to abandon the profit targets set just seven months ago at its market debut, as industrial customers of the water and waste treatment group mothball factories to cut costs.

Jean-Louis Chaussade, chief executive, insisted that the group had proved its resilience with maiden annual results showing organic growth in sales and earnings in spite of the grim economic environment. “Since December a certain number of our big industrial clients have closed their factories, but this is crisis on a scale never before seen and we will still deliver growth in 2009.”