OHB’s Record Backlog and a Blitz of Space Deals Can’t Halt a 45% Plunge

Despite a 45% sell-off from May's peak, OHB SE's operational momentum remains strong with record orders and landmark contracts, but a KKR block sale and thin free float weigh on market sentiment.

For a company that just signed seven partnership agreements, locked in a landmark military satellite contract and reported an order backlog of €3.35 billion, you might expect cheers on the trading floor. Instead, OHB SE has endured a brutal 45% sell-off from its May peak of €688 to as low as €378 per share. The disconnect between operational momentum and market sentiment could hardly be starker.

The week of the ILA Berlin air show was meant to showcase OHB’s expanding footprint. On 12 June, the joint venture KIRK – a fusion of OHB’s space systems with Helsing’s artificial intelligence expertise, beefed up by Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace and HENSOLDT – sealed seven letters of intent with start-ups and mid-cap suppliers. The alliance directly targets the Bundeswehr’s “SPOCK 2” project, which aims to track troops and vehicles from orbit in real time. The same day, KIRK signed up its seventh partner, underscoring the speed at which the consortium is building a European surveillance ecosystem.

Just a day earlier, OHB and Rheinmetall registered their joint venture “OHB Rheinmetall Space Networks GmbH” in Bremen. This entity will lead SATCOMBw Stage 4, a €8–10 billion programme to create a secure communications backbone linking satellites, soldiers, vehicles and drones for the German military – the largest space project in the country’s history. Dual leadership comes from OHB’s Dennis Winkelmann and Rheinmetall’s Alexander Beyer.

Underneath that headline-grabbing contract, OHB Italia also secured the HAMLET camera for the ESA-JAXA RAMSES mission, which will analyse asteroid Apophis as it hurtles within 32,000 kilometres of Earth in April 2029. And on the operational side, Dr. Luis Alejandro Orellano takes over as chief operating officer on 1 July, while the company’s majority stake in Rocket Factory Augsburg has filed for a first flight of the RFA ONE rocket – also targeted for July, carrying seven satellites. OHB is characteristically plain-spoken about the odds: historically, more than 70% of maiden launches fail.

So where does the disconnect come from? The first quarter of 2026 offered no reason for alarm: total revenue rose 15% year on year to €279.3 million, adjusted EBITDA jumped 37% to €27.3 million, and the order backlog hit that record €3.35 billion – up 45% from a year earlier. Management has guided for €1.7 billion in total revenue in 2027 and more than €2.0 billion in 2028, with an 11% EBITDA margin target.

The real weight on the stock is structural. Private equity giant KKR tried to offload a block of shares on 12 June but pulled the transaction. With only 6% of OHB shares in free float, the market is unusually thin and vulnerable to outsized moves – a fact reflected in an annualised volatility of 150%. The attempted block sale has created an overhang that keeps buyers wary, even as the company’s strategic value grows. Despite the 45% retreat from the high, the stock still shows a gain of over 200% year to date, a reminder that the rally was as extreme as the correction.

Investors now face a defining summer. The RFA ONE rocket launch on 1 July is a high-stakes proof point: a failure would be statistically likely but would barely dent the fundamental order book. A success, by contrast, could restore confidence and remind the market that OHB is not just a builder of critical infrastructure but a player in the fast-moving New Space segment. With the European Spaceport Company, the KIRK alliance and the SATCOMBw juggernaut all in motion, the company’s long-term bet on European sovereignty in space remains intact. The immediate question is whether the stock’s free-float squeeze will loosen before the next catalyst fires.