Ori­gi­nal-Re­se­arch: So­mec S.p.A. (by GBC AG): BUY

Clas­si­fi­ca­ti­on of GBC AG to So­mec S.p.A.

Com­pa­ny Name:	So­mec S.p.A.
ISIN:	IT0005329815
Re­ason for the re­se­arch:	Re­se­arch stu­dy (Note)
Re­com­men­da­ti­on:	BUY
Tar­get pri­ce:	23.35 EUR
Last ra­ting ch­an­ge:
Ana­lyst:	Mar­cel Gold­mann, Cos­min Fil­ker

Busi­ness de­ve­lo­p­ment HY1 2025

On 25 Sep­tem­ber 2025, the So­mec Group pu­blished its half-year fi­gu­res for the cur­rent fi­nan­cial year 2025. The per­for­mance in the first six months was pri­ma­ri­ly cha­rac­te­ri­sed by mo­de­ra­te growth and a strong im­pro­ve­ment in pro­fi­ta­bi­li­ty at all ear­nings le­vels. Thanks to con­tin­ued strong mo­men­tum in the ma­ri­ti­me busi­ness and ro­bust re­fit­ting busi­ness (mo­der­ni­sa­ti­on of ol­der ships, etc.), the So­mec Group achie­ved mo­de­ra­te re­ve­nue growth of 3.9% to € 192.7 mil­li­on in the first half of the year (HY1 2024: € 185.6 mil­li­on).

In terms of ear­nings, the com­pa­ny achie­ved a dis­pro­por­tio­na­te­ly high in­crease in EBITDA of 24.1% to € 15.8 mil­li­on (HY1 2024: € 12.8 mil­li­on) due to the on­set of eco­no­mies of sca­le and a fa­voura­ble sa­les mix (hig­her share of high-mar­gin re­fit­ting busi­ness). This re­sul­ted in a si­gni­fi­cant im­pro­ve­ment in the EBITDA mar­gin to 8.2% (HY1 2024: 6.9%). The im­pro­ve­ment in ope­ra­ting ear­nings was also dri­ven by po­si­ti­ve ear­nings ef­fects from the or­ga­ni­sa­tio­nal op­ti­mi­sa­ti­on me­a­su­res im­ple­men­ted over the past 18 months. A si­gni­fi­cant im­pro­ve­ment was also achie­ved at the net re­sult le­vel (af­ter mi­no­ri­ties) to € 1.63 mil­li­on (HY1 2024: € ‑2.14 mil­li­on).

In terms of the com­po­si­ti­on of sa­les, the main busi­ness seg­ment ‚Ho­ri­zons‘ ac­coun­ted for the lion’s share (60.0%) of Group sa­les. This busi­ness seg­ment ge­ne­ra­ted re­ve­nue of € 115.5 mil­li­on in the first half of the year, al­most matching the high le­vel of the pre­vious year (first half of 2024: €119.8 mil­li­on). Pro­ject post­po­ne­ments, par­ti­cu­lar­ly in the ci­vil US glass busi­ness, had an in­hi­bi­ting ef­fect on growth and pre­ven­ted a bet­ter re­ve­nue trend. No­ne­thel­ess, a more fa­voura­ble sa­les mix (hig­her share of high-mar­gin re­fit­ting busi­ness) and stron­ger cost ef­fi­ci­en­cy ef­fects led to a si­gni­fi­cant in­crease in EBITDA to € 10.9 mil­li­on (H1 2024: € 9.2 mil­li­on) in this di­vi­si­on. Ac­cor­din­gly, the EBITDA mar­gin also im­pro­ved si­gni­fi­cant­ly to 9.4% (1st half of 2024: 7.7%).

By con­trast, the se­cond-lar­gest busi­ness seg­ment in terms of vo­lu­me, ‚Mes­tie­ri‘, re­cor­ded dy­na­mic seg­ment sa­les growth of 25.3% to € 48.8 mil­li­on (HY1 2024: € 38.9 mil­li­on), pri­ma­ri­ly thanks to in­creased ma­ri­ti­me pro­jects (par­ti­cu­lar­ly in the con­s­truc­tion of new crui­se ships). At the same time, EBITDA grew dis­pro­por­tio­na­te­ly to € 2.9 mil­li­on (HY1 2024: € 1.4 mil­li­on) due to the ac­qui­si­ti­on and im­ple­men­ta­ti­on of hig­her-mar­gin pro­jects and the po­si­ti­ve ef­fects of res­truc­tu­ring and re­or­ga­ni­sa­ti­on me­a­su­res, which was also re­flec­ted in a dy­na­mic in­crease in the EBITDA mar­gin to 5.8% (HY1 2024: 3.5%).

The ‚Ta­len­ta‘ di­vi­si­on also achie­ved seg­ment sa­les growth of 5.7% to € 28.4 mil­li­on (HY1 2024: € 26.9 mil­li­on) due to in­cre­asing or­ders in the area of pro­fes­sio­nal kit­chen sys­tems for the ship­ping in­dus­try and a slight in­crease in sa­les of pro­fes­sio­nal kit­chen pro­ducts (pri­ma­ri­ly in­dus­tri­al piz­za ovens). Due to res­truc­tu­ring cos­ts in­cur­red in the pro­duc­tion area (bund­ling of pro­duc­tion fa­ci­li­ties), seg­ment EBITDA was al­most on a par with the pre­vious year at € 2.1 mil­li­on (HY1 2024: € 2.2 mil­li­on). This re­sul­ted in a slight­ly lower EBITDA mar­gin of 7.4% (HY1 2024: 8.0%).

With re­gard to the or­der si­tua­ti­on, the So­mec Group’s to­tal or­der back­log (back­log award­ed in­clu­ding op­ti­on con­tracts), which pri­ma­ri­ly in­cludes or­ders in the core seg­ment ‚Ho­ri­zons‘, amoun­ted to € 678.0 mil­li­on as at 30 June 2025 and was the­r­e­fo­re only slight­ly be­low the pre­vious year-end fi­gu­re (31 De­cem­ber 2024: € 744.0 mil­li­on). Ho­we­ver, it should be no­ted that, thanks to se­ve­ral lar­ge or­ders al­re­a­dy an­noun­ced in July, the to­tal or­der back­log (back­log award­ed in­clu­ding op­ti­on con­tracts) as of 15 July 2025 rose si­gni­fi­cant­ly to € 769.0 mil­li­on, ther­eby si­gni­fi­cant­ly ex­cee­ding both of the­se re­fe­rence va­lues. This ex­ten­si­ve or­der back­log even ex­tends into 2033 and pro­vi­des a high le­vel of vi­si­bi­li­ty and plan­ning ca­pa­bi­li­ty while also forming a good ba­sis for fur­ther growth.

With re­gard to the ba­lan­ce sheet struc­tu­re, So­mec car­ri­ed out a non-cash ca­pi­tal in­crease (wi­t­hout sub­scrip­ti­on rights) to­tal­ling € 6.11 mil­li­on at the end of the first half of the cur­rent fi­nan­cial year to streng­then its equi­ty base. The sub­scrip­ti­on of the ca­pi­tal in­crease was re­ser­ved for VIS S.r.l., which is whol­ly ow­ned by Somec’s main share­hol­der Ve­ne­zia S.p.A.. This tran­sac­tion in­cluded the trans­fer of the pro­per­ty lea­se whe­re So­mec has its head­quar­ters. The ca­pi­tal in­crease by con­tri­bu­ti­on in kind com­pri­sed the is­sue of 381,875 or­di­na­ry shares at an is­sue pri­ce of € 16.00 per share, cor­re­spon­ding to 5.53% of Somec’s share ca­pi­tal.

In view of the plea­sing half-year re­sults and good or­der si­tua­ti­on, the So­mec ma­nage­ment has also con­firm­ed its pre­vious gui­dance with the an­nounce­ment of the half-year fi­gu­res and con­ti­nues to ex­pect a si­gni­fi­cant im­pro­ve­ment in mar­gins and an im­pro­ve­ment in the debt si­tua­ti­on (‚le­vera­ge‘ re­duc­tion) for the cur­rent fi­nan­cial year 2025.

In light of the po­si­ti­ve half-year per­for­mance, the con­tin­ued good or­der si­tua­ti­on and the con­firm­ed out­look, we have main­tai­ned our pre­vious sa­les and ear­nings esti­ma­tes. Thanks in par­ti­cu­lar to its strong mar­ket po­si­tio­ning in the boo­ming ma­ri­ti­me sec­tor, the So­mec Group should be able to con­ti­nue its growth tra­jec­to­ry and achie­ve a fur­ther gra­du­al im­pro­ve­ment in mar­gins. Ba­sed on our con­firm­ed fo­re­casts and the ‚roll-over ef­fect‘ that has oc­cur­red (pri­ce tar­get ba­sed on FY 2026 in­s­tead of FY 2025), we have mo­dera­te­ly in­creased our pre­vious pri­ce tar­get to € 23.35 (pre­vious­ly: € 22.50) per share. In con­trast, the di­lu­ti­on ef­fect (in­crease in the pre­vious to­tal num­ber of shares by ap­pro­xi­m­ate­ly 5.5% to 7.28 mil­li­on), which was due to the ca­pi­tal in­crease against con­tri­bu­ti­on in kind car­ri­ed out in the midd­le of the fi­nan­cial year, had the ef­fect of re­du­cing the pri­ce tar­get. In view of the cur­rent share pri­ce le­vel, we the­r­e­fo­re con­ti­nue to as­sign a ‚BUY‘ ra­ting and see si­gni­fi­cant up­si­de po­ten­ti­al in the So­mec share.

You can down­load the re­se­arch here: 20251008_Somec_Note_HY1_final_ENG

Cont­act for ques­ti­ons:
GBC AG
Hal­der­stras­se 27
86150 Augs­burg
⁰⁸²¹⁄₂₄₁₁₃₃ 0
research@​gbc-​ag.​de

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Date (time) of com­ple­ti­on: 08/10/2025 (9:29)
Date (time) of first dis­tri­bu­ti­on: 08/10/2025 (11:00)