Insider Buying Meets Sector Rout: Hensoldt’s CEO Steps In as Defence Selloff Deepens

Hensoldt CEO buys €172k shares after 20% drop; defence rout pushes stock to €68.82, 40% below 52-week high, despite €9.8B backlog.

The gap between Hensoldt’s booming order book and its battered share price has rarely been wider. While the radar specialist’s backlog swells past €9.8 billion, the stock has shed nearly a quarter of its value over the past month — and Wednesday’s 3.5% slide to €68.82 took it deeper into correction territory. Against that backdrop, chief executive Oliver Dörre has put his own money on the line, picking up shares worth €172,230 in a pair of trades on June 22.

Dörre executed the purchases through both Xetra and the Stuttgart exchange, paying €69.50 a share for the Xetra tranche. The insider buying sent a clear signal at a time when the stock was already nursing a 20% decline from a month earlier, according to the company’s own calculations. Yet the CEO’s vote of confidence has so far done little to arrest the slide — the shares were trading even lower by midweek.

The immediate trigger for Wednesday’s drop was external. Rheinmetall’s sharp retreat pulled the entire German defence sector lower, with Renk plunging 7.2% and Hensoldt closely following. Market participants pointed to a weak technical picture, a challenging macro backdrop and broad risk aversion toward European equities as the underlying drivers. No company-specific news accounted for the move.

Technically, the damage is severe. The stock now sits more than 40% below its 52-week high of €115.10, reached in October 2025, and is only 6.2% above the year’s low of €64.80. It trades well beneath both its 50-day moving average — by 11.8% — and its 200-day moving average, which stands at €82.15 and represents a 16.2% premium to current levels. The relative strength index of 35 signals oversold conditions but has yet to generate a convincing buy signal.

Operationally, the contrast could hardly be sharper. First-quarter order intake nearly doubled to €1,483 million, pushing the total backlog to €9,801 million. Revenue rose to €496 million and adjusted EBITDA reached €44 million, lifting the margin to 8.9%. Management raised its cash conversion forecast in early June to roughly 50% of adjusted EBITDA, up from a previous 40%, citing faster procurement processes and higher customer prepayments.

The full-year outlook remains intact: around €2,750 million in sales, a book-to-bill ratio of 1.5x to 2.0x, and an adjusted EBITDA margin between 18.5% and 19.0%. Dörre and his team have been presenting this story at the Jefferies investor conference in Baden-Baden, yet the sector-wide risk-off mood overwhelmed any positive takeaways on Wednesday.

All eyes now turn to July 31, when Hensoldt publishes its half-year results. That report will be the next hard test of whether the company can convert its record backlog into revenue and free cash flow. Until then, the share price trajectory depends largely on whether the defence-sector selloff runs its course — or accelerates further. A single insider purchase, however symbolic, cannot by itself reverse a 23% monthly rout.