Ori­gi­nal-Re­se­arch: PFISTERER Hol­ding SE (by GBC AG): BUY

Clas­si­fi­ca­ti­on of GBC AG to PFISTERER Hol­ding SE

Strong re­ve­nue and ear­nings growth achie­ved in Q1 2026; GBC ear­nings esti­ma­tes rai­sed slight­ly

In the first th­ree months of 2026, PFISTERER SE achie­ved an im­pres­si­ve 26.7% in­crease in re­ve­nue to €126.88 mil­li­on (pre­vious year: €100.13 mil­li­on). As ex­pec­ted and as fo­re­cast by the com­pa­ny in its 2025 An­nu­al Re­port, this was dri­ven in par­ti­cu­lar by the si­gni­fi­cant rise in re­ve­nue in the HVA (High Vol­ta­ge Ac­cess­ories) and OHL (Over­head Li­nes) seg­ments. Whilst the HVA seg­ment saw a 23.4% in­crease in re­ve­nue to €49.59 mil­li­on, re­ve­nue in the OHL seg­ment rose si­gni­fi­cant­ly by 69.1% to €35.56 mil­li­on. The strong rise in re­ve­nue in the OHL seg­ment is pri­ma­ri­ly at­tri­bu­ta­ble to high de­mand from the Midd­le East and In­dia. Here, the com­pa­ny be­ne­fi­ted from high cus­to­mer de­mand, gains in mar­ket share and the tech­no­lo­gi­cal shift from cera­mic to ligh­ter si­li­co­ne in­su­la­tors, which pro­vi­ded ad­di­tio­nal sup­port for de­mand, par­ti­cu­lar­ly in Sau­di Ara­bia. In the HVA seg­ment, the com­pa­ny be­ne­fi­ted from strong de­mand for high-vol­ta­ge ca­ble ac­cess­ories. The rise in re­ve­nue was pri­ma­ri­ly dri­ven by “Eu­ro­pe & Af­ri­ca” and fur­ther sup­port­ed by po­si­ti­ve de­ve­lo­p­ments in the “Ame­ri­cas” re­gi­on.

The sharp rise in re­ve­nue in the high-mar­gin high-vol­ta­ge seg­ments HVA and OHL is re­flec­ted in a dis­pro­por­tio­na­te­ly strong im­pro­ve­ment in ear­nings. Buil­ding on a re­cord gross pro­fit of €55.33 mil­li­on (pre­vious year: €42.06 mil­li­on), the gross mar­gin im­pro­ved to 43.6% (pre­vious year: 42.0%). Here too, PFISTERER be­ne­fi­ted from a si­gni­fi­cant im­pro­ve­ment in the gross mar­gin in the OHL seg­ment to 46.8% (pre­vious year: 40.0%), which had been af­fec­ted by a fire-re­la­ted pro­duc­tion stop­pa­ge in the pre­vious year. This led to an in­crease in EBITDA to €27.17 mil­li­on (prev. yr.: €19.73 mil­li­on) and thus to an im­pro­ve­ment in the EBITDA mar­gin to a new quar­ter­ly re­cord of 21.4% (prev. yr.: 19.7%). EBITDA ad­jus­ted for ex­pen­ses re­la­ting to the vir­tu­al share pro­gram­me amoun­ted to €27.69 mil­li­on (pre­vious year: €20.97 mil­li­on), re­pre­sen­ting a 32.1% in­crease on the pre­vious year’s fi­gu­re. Net pro­fit for the pe­ri­od was also si­gni­fi­cant­ly hig­her than the pre­vious year’s fi­gu­re at €17.79 mil­li­on (pre­vious year: €11.53 mil­li­on).

With the pu­bli­ca­ti­on of its Q1 re­sults, PFISTERER’s ma­nage­ment has con­firm­ed its fo­re­casts for the cur­rent fi­nan­cial year 2026 as well as its me­di­um-term tar­gets. Con­se­quent­ly, re­ve­nue growth of at least 12% is still ex­pec­ted in 2026, and the com­pa­ny is ai­ming for an EBITDA mar­gin in the high teens to low twen­ties in the me­di­um term. This is ba­sed, on the one hand, on the very con­vin­cing per­for­mance in the first quar­ter. On the other hand, as at 31 March 2026, the com­pa­ny had an or­der book of €335.8 mil­li­on, an in­crease of 17.7% com­pared with the same date last year (31 March 2025: €285.3 mil­li­on).

Re­ve­nue for the first quar­ter of 2026 rose dy­na­mi­cal­ly, as ex­pec­ted. The de­ve­lo­p­ment of the ope­ra­ting re­sult, ho­we­ver, ex­cee­ded our ex­pec­ta­ti­ons. Ba­sed on both ad­jus­ted EBITDA and EBITDA ‘as re­por­ted’, the de­ve­lo­p­ment is in line with the me­di­um-term fo­re­cast. For the co­ming quar­ters, which are li­kely to be cha­rac­te­ri­sed by fur­ther re­ve­nue growth and thus eco­no­mies of sca­le in terms of fi­xed cos­ts, a sta­ble trend in the gross mar­gin is also ex­pec­ted com­pared with the first quar­ter of 2026. We have fac­to­red this as­sump­ti­on into our esti­ma­tes and are rai­sing our ear­nings fo­re­casts for the fi­nan­cial ye­ars 2026 and 2027 re­spec­tively. We now ex­pect EBITDA of €102.87 mil­li­on for 2026 (pre­vious fo­re­cast: €92.42 mil­li­on) and EBITDA of €115.15 mil­li­on for 2027 (pre­vious fo­re­cast: €107.83 mil­li­on). Our fo­re­casts for the fi­nan­cial ye­ars 2028 to 2030, which also fall wi­thin the spe­ci­fic fo­re­cast pe­ri­od, re­main un­ch­an­ged.

Ba­sed on the up­ward re­vi­si­on of the fo­re­cast out­lined abo­ve, we have cal­cu­la­ted a new pri­ce tar­get of €115.00 (pre­vious­ly: €110.00). We are main­tai­ning our BUY ra­ting.

You can down­load the re­se­arch here: 20260521_PFISTERER_Comment_engl

Cont­act for ques­ti­ons:
GBC AG
Hal­der­stras­se 27
86150 Augs­burg
⁰⁸²¹⁄₂₄₁₁₃₃ 0
research@​gbc-​ag.​de
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Of­fen­le­gung mög­li­cher In­ter­es­sens­kon­flik­te nach § 85 WpHG und Art. 20 MAR Beim oben ana­ly­sier­ten Un­ter­neh­men ist fol­gen­der mög­li­cher In­ter­es­sen­kon­flikt ge­ge­ben: (5a,11); Ei­nen Ka­ta­log mög­li­cher In­ter­es­sen­kon­flik­te fin­den Sie un­ter:
https://​www​.gbc​-ag​.de/​d​e​/​O​f​f​e​n​l​e​g​ung
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Com­ple­ti­on: 20.05.2026 (4:47 pm)
First dis­clo­sure: 21.05.2026 (09:30 am)