KNDS Piles Up Orders, Picks Advisors and Eyes a Factory as Its €20bn IPO Takes Shape

Europe's largest tank maker KNDS hires Lazard for dual IPO, sells RENK stake for €262m, and eyes Mercedes plant to boost output amid record €23.5bn order backlog.

The path to a stock market listing for KNDS is becoming more clearly defined — and more crowded with moving parts. Europe’s largest maker of battle tanks and howitzers has hired Lazard as its financial adviser for a dual listing in Frankfurt and Paris that it wants to launch by next summer. Simultaneously, management is exploring the purchase of a former Mercedes-Benz plant in Ludwigsfelde, near Berlin, to churn out Leopard 2s and Boxer armoured vehicles. The flurry of activity reflects a company struggling to keep pace with demand.

KNDS closed the 2024 financial year with an order backlog of €23.5bn, up 15% year on year. Revenue reached €3.8bn, while order intake hit €11.2bn — a book-to-bill ratio of 3.0, meaning every euro of sales was matched by three euros of new contracts. CEO Jean-Paul Alary has described the Ludwigsfelde site as a necessity rather than a luxury. The factory, which currently builds passenger cars, could be retooled for military land systems as the group races to fulfill recent large orders, including Leopard 2A8 tanks for the Netherlands and artillery systems for the British government.

One key piece of the pre-IPO puzzle fell into place on 22 May, when KNDS sold a 5.8% stake in the drivetrain specialist RENK Group AG. The accelerated bookbuilding raised roughly €262m, with 5.8 million shares placed at €44.95 each. KNDS’s holding in RENK dropped from just under 15.8% to 10%, and the remaining shares are subject to a 180-day lock-up. Proceeds are earmarked to tidy up the capital structure ahead of the initial public offering.

The ownership setup remains the most delicate variable. After the IPO, Germany and France will each hold 40% of KNDS — but only as a starting point. Both governments plan to cut their stakes to 30% within three years, preserving a blocking minority on security matters while moving toward a more market-oriented structure. The French state already owns 50% via GIAT Industries, while Berlin is reported to be weighing an acquisition of up to 40%, worth as much as €8bn at the current valuation target. The group itself aims to float roughly 25% of its equity through a mix of a capital increase and the sale of existing shares from private owners.

Investment bankers have pencilled in a valuation of around €20bn for the defence contractor, which unites Germany’s Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and France’s Nexter under a single holding company. The listing is slated for June or July 2026, though some German ministries are said to favour a delay into the autumn. Alary has so far stuck to the original timetable.

A clean auditor’s report is the next milestone. KNDS had pledged to release PwC’s audit of its 2025 accounts in May, along with the findings of an internal investigation into historical transactions. Once that document lands, the prospectus process can formally begin. The company has already strengthened its board with Christian Schulz, the former finance chief of the RENK Group, whose capital-markets experience is seen as a deliberate signal to institutional investors.

The IPO’s backdrop has also attracted unsolicited interest. Munitions maker CSG NV approached KNDS’s German founding families in mid-May with an offer for their shares. Whether the approach will develop into a full bid remains unclear, but it underscores how hotly the sector’s land-defence assets are being chased. For now, KNDS is focused on its own public debut — a summer listing that would hand investors their first pure-play bet on armoured vehicles in a world where governments are restocking arsenals at pace.