OHB Shareholders Endorse €1.2 Billion Capital Plan as KKR’s June Exit Deadline Nears

OHB shareholders approve €1.2B capital raise and stock option plan; KKR to sell ~20% stake boosting free float; stock jumps 10% despite thin liquidity.

OHB shares vaulted more than 10 percent on Monday to €412 after investors gave management a nearly unanimous green light to raise up to €1.2 billion in new financial instruments through mid-2031. The rally extends a stunning run that has left the stock up roughly 239 percent since the start of the year, though the 52-week high of €688 still sits almost 40 percent above current levels.

The capital authorization, approved at the annual general meeting, allows the Bremen-based space group to issue convertible bonds and other tools, giving chief executives a deep war chest for the next five years. Alongside that mandate, shareholders also backed a new stock option program covering as many as 576,447 new shares — up to three percent of the existing capital — for senior staff and other employees, subject to a four-year vesting period.

Monday’s advance reversed a sharp sell-off the previous week, when the stock tumbled more than 14 percent and closed at €372.50 on Friday. The reason for that slide, according to the company, was a sale of just 800 shares — a stark illustration of how thin liquidity has become. With only about 1.09 million shares freely tradable, or roughly 5.7 percent of the 19.2 million total, even modest trades can move the price dramatically.

That liquidity bottleneck is about to widen. The financial investor KKR, which owns around 29 percent of OHB through a holding structure, plans to place roughly 20 percent of its stake in the coming weeks, targeting a completion date before June 30. The block trade is expected to raise well over €1 billion and would lift the free float to about 26 percent — a structural shift for the stock. The founding Fuchs family will retain clear control with 65 percent of voting rights.

The AGM also brought a change to the supervisory board. Dr. Theodor Weimer, an adviser to KKR, replaces Claire Wellby, giving the private equity giant a direct representative on the oversight panel. Shareholders meanwhile approved a dividend of €0.60 per share, payable on June 11, for a total payout of nearly €11.5 million.

Beyond the corporate governance moves, the next few weeks are packed with catalysts that could push the stock in either direction. Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA), a subsidiary consolidated at equity, has applied for a launch window starting July 1 at SaxaVord Spaceport in Scotland. The rocket is slated to carry seven satellites into orbit. OHB itself cautions that historically fewer than 30 percent of maiden flights succeed, making a failure statistically more likely. RFA’s performance does not feed directly into the group’s earnings guidance but remains a symbolic and strategic milestone in OHB’s “access to space” ambitions.

This week also sees the ILA Berlin air show, where OHB will present new mission contracts. The European Space Agency’s three focus areas — autonomy and resilience, exploration, and planet and climate — align closely with OHB’s project portfolio, with its order backlog underpinned by ESA awards and rising European defence budgets.

The operational core, meanwhile, continues to churn out solid numbers. In the first quarter of 2026, total output rose 15 percent year-on-year to €279.3 million and adjusted EBIT jumped 63 percent to €16.8 million. Management is targeting full-year output of €1.4 billion, with a longer-term goal of €2 billion by 2028 and an 11 percent EBITDA margin. The market’s next official check-in comes on August 6, when second-quarter results are due.

For the moment, the AGM has armed the board with the firepower it sought and the stock is riding the confidence wave. But the combination of a looming KKR block sale, a high-risk rocket launch and an extremely volatile share price means that the coming weeks will test whether the rally can hold.