Rheinmetall Seals Record €5.7bn Romanian Order and Exits Automotive, Yet Shares Slide 27% This Year

Despite a record €5.7B Romanian order for Lynx IFVs, naval vessels, and air defense, Rheinmetall's stock remains 26% below January highs as investors await concrete financial targets.

The Düsseldorf-based defence group has pulled off a rare double – a historic international order and a clean break from its civilian past – but investors are looking straight past the headlines. Rheinmetall confirmed on Thursday it has won a €5.7 billion contract from Romania for nearly 300 Lynx infantry fighting vehicles, four naval vessels, air defence systems and ammunition, the largest single foreign deal in the company’s recent history. Deliveries are scheduled from 2028 to 2030, with partial financing from the EU’s SAFE programme.

The stock responded with a modest 2.01% gain to €1,188.40, but that did little to repair the damage done over the past year. The share price remains roughly 26% below its January level and stands more than 25% adrift of its 200-day moving average of €1,588.70. At Wednesday’s close of €1,165.00, the paper was hovering just 5.93% above its 52-week low – a disquieting proximity given the operational fireworks.

Symbolically, Rheinmetall is stripping away its last civilian layer. The company is selling its Power Systems Division, the remaining automotive business, to the Munich-based industrial group AEQUITA for around €350 million. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026. From that point, Rheinmetall will operate exclusively as a defence and security contractor, a transformation underscored by the launch of kamikaze drone production in the third quarter of 2026.

Yet the market remains unmoved by the strategic narrative. At the Eurosatory defence exhibition in Paris this week, Rheinmetall unveiled priorities for its Destinus Strike Systems programme and signed a term sheet, with the final shareholder agreement imminent. But concrete order volumes or revenue targets were conspicuously absent. One announcement after another – air defence, satellite reconnaissance – rolled out without the financial heft needed to shift the needle.

The last truly market-moving disclosure came on 3 June, when the automotive divestiture was first announced. Since then, the shares have drifted lower, and the technical picture has darkened. With the stock now trading more than 27% below its September 2024 all-time high of €1,995.00, the gap between the group’s operational momentum and its equity valuation has rarely been wider.

Attention now turns to back-to-back investor events: the Mediobanca CEO Conference on 23 June and the Baader Bank Partner Summit two days later. If management fails to deliver hard figures on order intake or margins during those appearances, the stock could test fresh lows. For now, Rheinmetall’s biggest order book in history and its farewell to civilian roots are not enough to convince a sceptical market.