Gerresheimer’s Rally Masks a Balance Sheet Still Under Siege

Gerresheimer shares rebound 53% from lows but face 59% yearly loss, BaFin probe, 11% short interest, and potential DSW lawsuit over accounting fraud.

The Gerresheimer share has clawed back more than half its losses since February, but the underlying picture remains deeply fractured. At €23.86, the stock has gained roughly 53 percent from its trough, yet on a twelve-month view it is still nursing a decline of nearly 59 percent. The 100-day moving average has been breached to the upside — a technical tick that chart watchers view as cautiously constructive — but the 200-day line at €28.59 sits almost 17 percent higher, a reminder of how far the recovery has to run.

The volatility tells its own story. The annualised 30-day reading of almost 95 percent underscores just how jittery the market remains. And while the share price has stabilised, the short-seller camp shows no sign of retreating. Open short interest has swelled to more than 11 percent of the free float — an extraordinary level for a German-listed company. Against that backdrop, a handful of institutional investors have taken the opposite bet. The CastleKnight Master Fund and Deka Investment have both disclosed new long positions at these depressed levels, signalling a belief that the worst may be priced in.

The Accounting Scandal at the Heart of the Crisis

The rot set in with faulty bookings tied to so-called bill-and-hold arrangements — a breach of IFRS rules that has since snowballed into a full-blown regulatory investigation. Germany’s financial watchdog BaFin opened a probe in September 2025 and widened its scope in early March 2026. Three specific problem areas have emerged: incorrectly recorded lease liabilities of €65.5 million, questionable capitalisation of development costs, and unimpaired goodwill in the Advanced Technologies segment. An independent law firm has confirmed the systematic nature of the violations.

The numbers are stark. The revenue impact from the bill-and-hold transactions alone is put at €35 million, with a corresponding hit to adjusted operating profit of €24 million. On top of that, Gerresheimer has flagged planned non-cash impairments of between €220 million and €240 million, largely tied to its Swiss subsidiary Sensile Medical and the impending closure of a glass plant in the United States.

Legal Firepower Gathers on the Shareholder Side

The shareholder protection association DSW is now weighing damages claims against former chief executive Dietmar Siemssen, former finance chief Bernd Metzner, and the supervisory board. A legal opinion has been commissioned to examine potential misconduct linked to goodwill impairments running into the hundreds of millions. DSW managing director Marc Tüngler has already floated the idea of bringing in external litigation funders to bankroll a lawsuit.

The role of the auditor has also come under scrutiny. KPMG took over the mandate from Deloitte in 2024 and shortly afterwards issued an unqualified audit opinion on the flawed accounts. Questions are now being asked about how the irregularities went undetected.

A Fire Sale and a Frozen Reporting Calendar

With the regulatory cloud hanging overhead, management has opted for self-help rather than a sale of the whole company. The US conglomerate Silgan had recently valued Gerresheimer at €41 per share — more than double the prevailing market price — but the approach was rebuffed, and talks have since ended.

Instead, the focus is on divesting the US pharmaceutical packaging unit Centor Inc. Morgan Stanley has been mandated to run the process, and a double-digit number of interested parties have emerged. The unit is carried on the books at €292 million and generates above-average margins, meaning its sale would bring in much-needed cash but also weaken the group’s future earnings power. A deal is still expected in 2026. Separately, the glass factory in Chicago Heights will be shut by the end of next year, with production moving to Italy and India.

The BaFin probe has effectively paralysed the financial reporting calendar. The first-quarter report for 2026 has been postponed, along with the annual general meeting originally scheduled for 3 June. The next fixed milestone is the half-year report on 14 July 2026, though that depends on the audited annual accounts being signed off in time. Management is sticking to its full-year guidance of revenues between €2.3 billion and €2.4 billion and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 18 to 19 percent — but that forecast is explicitly conditional on a clean bill of health from the regulator. Until then, institutional investors have little to go on, and the direction of the share price will be dictated by the twin unknowns of the BaFin findings and the shareholder lawsuit.