Ori­gi­nal-Re­se­arch: SMARTBROKER HOLDING AG (by GBC AG): BUY

Clas­si­fi­ca­ti­on of GBC AG to SMARTBROKER HOLDING AG

Dy­na­mic growth ac­ce­le­ra­tes as ma­nage­ment rai­ses full year tar­gets

Smart­bro­ker Hol­ding AG has once again in­creased its cor­po­ra­te gui­dance for the cur­rent fi­nan­cial year, con­fir­ming the con­tin­ued ex­cep­tio­nal­ly strong ope­ra­ting per­for­mance in 2025. Ma­nage­ment now ex­pects group re­ve­nue of bet­ween 65 and 70 mil­li­on eu­ros, pre­vious­ly 60 to 66 mil­li­on eu­ros, as well as ope­ra­ting EBITDA in a ran­ge from mi­nus 1.5 mil­li­on eu­ros to plus 1.5 mil­li­on eu­ros, pre­vious­ly mi­nus 3 mil­li­on eu­ros to zero. The main dri­ver be­hind this re­ne­wed ad­jus­t­ment is cus­to­mer tra­ding ac­ti­vi­ty that has been si­gni­fi­cant­ly stron­ger than plan­ned, sup­port­ed by ri­sing cli­ent num­bers in bro­kera­ge, on­go­ing pro­duct im­pro­ve­ments wi­thin SMARTBROKER+, a com­pel­ling over­all of­fe­ring, and an in­cre­asing­ly con­s­truc­ti­ve ca­pi­tal mar­ket en­vi­ron­ment. At the same time, the me­dia seg­ment is de­ve­lo­ping no­ti­ce­ab­ly bet­ter than in the pri­or year, ai­ded by gro­wing edi­to­ri­al reach.

Ba­sed on this im­pro­ved cor­po­ra­te out­look, we are ad­jus­ting our esti­ma­tes for the 2025 fi­nan­cial year. Pre­vious­ly, we ex­pec­ted re­ve­nues of 65.0 mil­li­on eu­ros and ope­ra­ting EBITDA of mi­nus 1.2 mil­li­on eu­ros. Fol­lo­wing the la­test gui­dance in­crease, we now rai­se our re­ve­nue esti­ma­te to 68.0 mil­li­on eu­ros and ex­pect ope­ra­ting EBITDA to break even. This ad­jus­t­ment re­flects the ex­cep­tio­nal­ly strong ope­ra­tio­nal mo­men­tum in the bro­kera­ge seg­ment as well as vi­si­ble ef­fi­ci­en­cy gains in plat­form ope­ra­ti­ons.

The ope­ra­ting per­for­mance in 2025 sup­ports this as­sess­ment. Smart­bro­ker now ser­ves more than 250,000 bro­kera­ge cli­ents, in­clu­ding ne­ar­ly 80,000 new cus­to­mers ad­ded du­ring the cur­rent year. As­sets un­der cus­t­ody ex­cee­ded 14 bil­li­on eu­ros at the end of Oc­to­ber, while cash un­der cus­t­ody re­a­ched 915 mil­li­on eu­ros. The shar­ply hig­her tra­ding ac­ti­vi­ty high­lights the at­trac­ti­ve va­lue pro­po­si­ti­on and the con­sis­tent fur­ther de­ve­lo­p­ment of SMARTBROKER+, which is ad­di­tio­nal­ly evi­den­ced by se­ve­ral ma­jor awards.

De­spi­te the dy­na­mic per­for­mance, 2025 re­mains a tran­si­ti­on year, with fo­cu­sed in­vest­ments in growth, plat­form op­ti­miza­ti­on, and in­creased mar­ke­ting in­ten­si­ty. Ho­we­ver, the broa­der cus­to­mer base that has been es­tab­lished and the hig­her le­vel of tra­ding ac­ti­vi­ty will form the foun­da­ti­on from 2026 on­ward for stron­ger re­cur­ring re­ve­nues and a si­gni­fi­cant im­pro­ve­ment in mar­gins.

The re­ne­wed gui­dance in­crease streng­thens our in­vest­ment case across key di­men­si­ons and un­ders­cores the company’s gro­wing po­ten­ti­al. As a re­sult of our mo­de­ra­te fo­re­cast in­crease, our pri­ce tar­get ri­ses slight­ly to 17.60 eu­ros, from 17.50 eu­ros pre­vious­ly. We re­af­firm our buy re­com­men­da­ti­on, as re­cent ope­ra­ting and fi­nan­cial de­ve­lo­p­ments cle­ar­ly sup­port our view that Smart­bro­ker will ful­ly meet and so­lid­ly con­firm our ex­pec­ta­ti­ons over the cour­se of the year.

You can down­load the re­se­arch here: 20260107_Smartbroker_Note_en

Cont­act for ques­ti­ons:
GBC AG
Hal­der­stra­ße 27
86150 Augs­burg
⁰⁸²¹⁄₂₄₁₁₃₃ 0
research@​gbc-​ag.​de
++++++++++++++++
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: http://​www​.gbc​-ag​.de/​d​e​/​O​f​f​e​n​l​e​g​ung
+++++++++++++++
Com­ple­ti­on: Ja­nu­ary 7, 2026 (11:15 a.m.)
First dis­clo­sure: Ja­nu­ary 8, 2026 (10:00 a.m.)