Redcare Pharmacy’s Leadership Reshuffle Complicates the Case for a Turnaround

Redcare Pharmacy's CCO resigns as stock falls 62.6% in a year. Q1 revenue jumps 18.4%, but OTC margin cuts and leadership gaps weigh on sentiment.

When a company is trying to convince the market its margin story isn’t broken, losing a top executive is the last thing it needs. Redcare Pharmacy’s Chief Commercial Officer Dirk Brüse stepped down at the end of April for personal reasons, leaving CEO Olaf Heinrich to fill the role temporarily while a permanent replacement is sought. The departure comes as the supervisory board and finance chief are themselves relatively new – Michael Köhler took the chair not long ago and Hendrik Krampe, a former Amazon veteran with two decades of e?commerce experience, only joined as CFO in December 2025. The leadership team is still finding its feet, and now it has another hole to plug.

The stock, meanwhile, is nursing deep losses. It closed Friday at €43.96, edging up 2% on the day but still down 8.5% over the past month. Year?to?date the decline stands at 34.6%, and over the past twelve months the shares have shed 62.6% of their value – a brutal retreat from the 52?week high touched last May.

Business keeps humming, but the market isn’t listening

On the operating front, the first quarter told a different story. Revenue climbed 18.4% year?on?year to €849.5 million, while adjusted EBITDA jumped 58% to €14.4 million, driven by higher gross margins and cost discipline. The net loss narrowed to €10.5 million. Management confirmed its full?year guidance: 13?15% revenue growth, Rx sales in Germany of more than €670 million, and an adjusted EBITDA margin of at least 2.5%.

The engine of that expansion remains the e?prescription business. German Rx revenue leaped 55% to €168 million, up from €108 million a year earlier, giving Redcare a commanding 67% share of the country’s online prescription market. Crucially, potential rivals like Rossmann – which is building its own online pharmacy – have explicitly ruled out selling prescription drugs. The digital backdrop is also improving. A new system called PoPP (Proof of Patient Presence) is set to replace the current CardLink process, with gematik planning a rollout for stage?2 by the end of 2026. Redcare’s CardLink licence runs until January?2027, providing a tidy transition window. In parallel, the company is integrating a fully digital pharmacy identity system via partners ehex and D?Trust, eliminating the need for a physical institutional card and cutting connection times.

The OTC headache and the margin reset

For all the Rx momentum, the over?the?counter segment remains a source of investor unease. German non?Rx sales were up 9.7% to €287 million – a welcome stabilisation after a soft patch – but the structural pressure is mounting. Drogeriekette dm launched its own “dm?med” platform in late 2025, and Rossmann is following suit. That competition forced Redcare to slash its medium?term EBITDA margin target for the non?Rx business from above 8% to just north of 5% back in March. The overall group target was similarly cut, a move that hit the stock hard.

The gross margin on non?Rx stood at 21.3% in 2025, already signalling pricing squeeze. Analysts now expect non?Rx growth of only 8?10%, and the question is how much further the margin can erode. Conservative forecasts for 2028 pencil in revenue of around €4.2 billion and a profit of barely €19 million, factoring in the extra cost of the PoPP transition. Optimists counter that automation and scale will offset that drag.

Analyst consensus still leans bullish – but the range is wide

The divide between the share price and analysts’ outlook remains striking. Of the nine analysts covering the stock, seven rate it a buy, two are neutral, and none recommend selling. The average price target is €94.94, more than double the current level, though the range stretches from €54 to €150. Deutsche Bank, Berenberg and Baader Bank all reiterated their buy calls in May; Kepler Capital stayed at “hold”.

Technically, the shares are treading water. The close of €43.96 sits just above the 50?day moving average of €43.17, but almost 28% below the 200?day line of €60.89. The relative strength index of 50 points to a market in equilibrium, with no clear directional bias.

All eyes are now on the half?year report due July?29. That will be the first full quarter under the new leadership duo of Heinrich and Krampe, and it will show whether the Rx surge can sustain its pace and whether the non?Rx business can hold the line. If both check out, the stock may have a base from which to rebuild. If the margin squeeze again dominates the narrative, the valuation discount could prove stubbornly hard to shake.