Ori­gi­nal-Re­se­arch: A.H.T Syn­gas Tech­no­lo­gy N.V (by GBC AG): BUY

Clas­si­fi­ca­ti­on of GBC AG to A.H.T Syn­gas Tech­no­lo­gy N.V

Com­pa­ny Name:	A.H.T Syn­gas Tech­no­lo­gy N.V
ISIN:	NL0010872388
Re­ason for the re­se­arch:	Re­se­arch stu­dy (Note)
Re­com­men­da­ti­on:	BUY
Tar­get pri­ce:	8.50 EUR
Last ra­ting ch­an­ge:
Ana­lyst:	Cos­min Fil­ker, Mat­thi­as Greif­fen­ber­ger

Pro­ject-re­la­ted tran­si­ti­on pha­se with tur­n­around po­ten­ti­al

As the busi­ness ac­ti­vi­ties of A.H.T. Syn­gas Tech­no­lo­gy N.V. (AHT for short) are hea­vi­ly pro­ject-ba­sed, the com­pa­ny is sub­ject to high sa­les vo­la­ti­li­ty. This is cle­ar­ly evi­dent from the si­gni­fi­cant de­cli­ne in sa­les of €1.91 mil­li­on in the first half of 2025 (pre­vious year: €9.47 mil­li­on). While par­ti­al sa­les were ge­ne­ra­ted in the pre­vious year for the par­ti­al com­mis­sio­ning of a Ja­pa­ne­se power plant and sa­les for the con­s­truc­tion of a ‘Hot­Gas’ plant to sup­p­ly a pain­ting fa­ci­li­ty for a Ger­man in­dus­tri­al cus­to­mer, the­re were only mi­nor pro­ject sa­les in the first half of 2025. The­se are pri­ma­ri­ly re­la­ted to par­ti­al pay­ments for the Ja­pa­ne­se pro­ject and re­si­du­al pay­ments for the Ger­man pro­ject.

In prin­ci­ple, the first half of 2025 was not af­fec­ted by pro­ject can­cel­la­ti­ons. Ra­ther, pro­ject post­po­ne­ments had a si­gni­fi­cant im­pact on the com­pany’s ear­nings si­tua­ti­on. One ex­am­p­le of a pro­ject that con­ti­nues to be post­po­ned is the Ja­pa­ne­se pro­ject, which was af­fec­ted by a de­lay in the de­li­very of plant com­pon­ents from a sup­pli­er and a de­lay in the in­te­gra­ti­on of lo­cal in­fra­struc­tu­re.

In view of the si­gni­fi­cant de­cli­ne in sa­les re­ve­nue, AHT also show­ed a down­ward trend in terms of ope­ra­ting pro­fit. Ho­we­ver, the com­pa­ny was able to im­ple­ment cost re­duc­tions. In ad­di­ti­on to the sa­les-re­la­ted re­duc­tion in ma­te­ri­al cos­ts, per­son­nel ex­pen­ses fell si­gni­fi­cant­ly to €0.51 mil­li­on (pre­vious year: €0.87 mil­li­on). As a re­sult, EBITDA re­main­ed just in po­si­ti­ve ter­ri­to­ry at €0.07 mil­li­on (pre­vious year: €0.80 mil­li­on). By con­trast, the net re­sult for the pe­ri­od was slight­ly ne­ga­ti­ve at €-0.04 mil­li­on (pre­vious year: €0.52 mil­li­on).

The se­cond half of 2025 is ex­pec­ted to be cha­rac­te­ri­sed by a lack of pro­ject re­ve­nue. The fo­cus on pre­pa­ring and im­ple­men­ting the growth stra­tegy, which in­cludes stan­dar­di­sing the tech­no­lo­gy and ex­pan­ding into the hy­dro­gen sec­tor, will in­iti­al­ly lead to low sa­les. On a full-year ba­sis, we fo­re­cast that the com­pa­ny will ge­ne­ra­te sa­les re­ve­nues of €2.25 mil­li­on, which re­pres­ents only a mar­gi­nal in­crease over half-year sa­les. We the­r­e­fo­re ex­pect cost co­vera­ge to de­cli­ne in the se­cond half of the year, which is li­kely to re­sult in a ne­ga­ti­ve ope­ra­ting re­sult (EBITDA: €-1.70 mil­li­on) for the full year. We are the­r­e­fo­re si­gni­fi­cant­ly ad­jus­ting our pre­vious fo­re­casts (see stu­dy da­ted 8 May 2025) down­wards.

The re­ve­nue and ear­nings fo­re­casts for 2026 and 2027 in­clude, in par­ti­cu­lar, spe­ci­fic pro­jects that are curr­ent­ly at va­rious stages of de­ve­lo­p­ment. For ex­am­p­le, con­tracts are al­re­a­dy in place for two pro­jects in Ger­ma­ny and Aus­tria, for which fun­ding de­cis­i­ons and ap­pr­ovals are still pen­ding. In ad­di­ti­on, a con­tract is about to be si­gned for a pro­ject in Pol­and. Some of our fo­re­casts also in­clude pro­jects that have been iden­ti­fied but are still awai­ting a pos­si­ble con­tract. To this end, we are dra­wing on a pro­ject plan de­ve­lo­ped by the com­pa­ny, for which, ac­cor­ding to the com­pa­ny, the­re is high cus­to­mer de­mand. By fo­cu­sing on Eu­ro­pean pro­jects, the com­pa­ny achie­ves an ear­ly re­duc­tion in their de­pen­dence on the Ja­pa­ne­se key ac­count. This is in line with the com­pany’s com­mu­ni­ca­ted stra­tegy.

All pro­jects are ba­sed on the com­pany’s al­re­a­dy ful­ly de­ve­lo­ped core tech­no­lo­gy. We do not an­ti­ci­pa­te any ex­pan­si­on into the field of hy­dro­gen pro­duc­tion from bio­mass un­til the 2028 fi­nan­cial year. Com­pared to our pre­vious fo­re­casts, we as­su­me a lower pro­por­ti­on of plants with hy­dro­gen tech­no­lo­gy. In ad­di­ti­on, the in­vest­ment-in­ten­si­ve con­trac­ting busi­ness is also of les­ser im­portance than in our pre­vious fo­re­casts. In our spe­ci­fic fo­re­cast pe­ri­od up to 2028, we only as­su­me the con­s­truc­tion and com­mis­sio­ning of one con­trac­ting plant, which should ge­ne­ra­te its first ope­ra­ting re­ve­nues in the cour­se of the 2028 fi­nan­cial year.

This more cau­tious plan­ning has re­sul­ted in si­gni­fi­cant­ly re­du­ced re­ve­nue and ear­nings esti­ma­tes for the 2026–2028 fo­re­cast pe­ri­od. The main ad­jus­t­ment ef­fect stems from the sharp re­duc­tion in the plan­ned high-vo­lu­me plants for pro­du­cing hy­dro­gen from bio­mass. This has a par­ti­cu­lar­ly strong im­pact on the fo­re­casts for the 2028 fi­nan­cial year: we now as­su­me sa­les re­ve­nues of €20.39 mil­li­on (pre­vious fo­re­cast: €46.42 mil­li­on) and EBITDA of €2.11 mil­li­on (pre­vious fo­re­cast: €8.97 mil­li­on).

AHT should reach EBITDA break-even as plan­ned from the co­ming fi­nan­cial year on­wards, and this should also be the case at the le­vel of af­ter-tax ear­nings from 2027 on­wards. Using our DCF va­lua­ti­on mo­del, we have de­ter­mi­ned a tar­get pri­ce of €8.50 (pre­vious­ly: €20.20) per share. The si­gni­fi­cant re­duc­tion in the tar­get pri­ce is a re­sult of our ad­jus­ted fo­re­casts, which par­ti­cu­lar­ly af­fect the 2028 fi­nan­cial year, re­sul­ting in a lower ba­sis for the con­ti­nui­ty pha­se of the va­lua­ti­on mo­del. We con­ti­nue to as­sign a BUY ra­ting.