OHB Caught Between SpaceX Tailwind and Operational Gravity as Annual Meeting Looms

German satellite firm OHB sees 430% YTD gain, but €11.1B market cap dwarfs €50M net profit. Order backlog of €3.35B and new defense projects provide some support.

The euphoria sweeping through European space stocks shows no signs of abating for OHB, even as the German satellite specialist takes a breather from its staggering run. The Xetra close of €584.00 marked a 2.18 per cent decline from the previous session, a modest pullback that traders attribute to routine profit-taking rather than a narrative shift. Since the start of the year, the shares have surged more than 430 per cent, stretching the 12-month gain to an eye-watering 812 per cent. At its peak on TradeGate, the stock touched €659, a far cry from the €116.50 it commanded at the turn of the year.

The catalyst for this meteoric ascent is not entirely homegrown. SpaceX’s recent filing for an initial public offering, targeting a valuation of nearly $2 trillion and the raising of $75 billion in fresh capital, has electrified the entire sector. OHB shares jumped 12 per cent on the news alone, riding a wave of investor enthusiasm for anything space-related. Yet the operational reality remains more measured. Full-year revenue of roughly €1.2 billion and an adjusted EBITDA of €125.6 million produced a net profit of around €50 million — numbers that, while solid, hardly justify a market capitalisation of €11.1 billion.

Beneath the froth, OHB’s order book provides a more tangible anchor. As of March 31, the backlog stood at over €3.35 billion. The first quarter saw revenue climb 15 per cent to €279.3 million, while net profit more than doubled to €9.89 million from €3.74 million a year earlier. Ongoing projects such as the EPS-Sterna microsatellite constellation, valued at €248 million, and the Ramses mission underpin visibility. Two recent announcements have further strengthened the operational story. On May 19, OHB joined forces with Helsing to create the joint venture KIRK, aimed at developing a space-based tactical reconnaissance and targeting system. Two days later, its Czech subsidiary secured the lead role in the ESA Scout mission SOVA-S for Earth observation.

Those developments align neatly with the political tailwinds sweeping Europe: a push for strategic autonomy in satellite infrastructure and the tightening nexus between defence and space. But the gap between market valuation and underlying earnings is hard to ignore. With a dividend of €0.60 per share proposed — unchanged from last year — the yield is negligible. The real point of interest at the upcoming annual general meeting on June 8 may well be the vote on expanding the company’s capital framework to support its ballooning project pipeline.

This week, the company is in Amsterdam for the Small Sat Conference EU, which runs until May 28, though no major financial disclosures are expected there. The next hard data point on the calendar is the second-quarter report on August 6. For now, the stock’s trajectory hinges on whether the SpaceX-induced mania can sustain itself long enough for the operational engine to catch up, or whether gravity will reassert itself first.