TKMS Courts US Investors While Awaiting Canada’s €30bn Submarine Verdict

German naval builder TKMS pitches to US investors in New York and Boston, awaiting a €30bn Canadian submarine contract decision by June.

Less than eight months after its stock market debut, TKMS has taken its growth story on the road to America. The Kiel-based naval shipbuilder is holding investor meetings in New York and Boston this week, aiming to win over a broader US audience as it simultaneously waits for a Canadian decision that could define the next decade for its shipyards.

Canada is expected to announce by the end of June whether it will award a contract worth roughly €30bn for twelve submarines. TKMS is pitching its 212CD-class design against South Korea’s Hanwha Ocean, with the German government throwing its full weight behind the bid. Defence Minister Boris Pistorius recently travelled to Canada to push for a strategic North Atlantic partnership. A win would lock in utilisation of TKMS’s yards for years to come, while a loss would shift the focus squarely onto an already record-setting order backlog.

That backlog stood at €20.6bn at the end of March, and the company is scaling up to meet it. TKMS is recruiting more than 330 new employees, primarily engineers and project managers, to bolster its Kiel headquarters. The ramp-up comes as management forecasts full-year revenue growth of 2 to 5% and an adjusted EBIT margin above 6%. Medium-term targets call for average annual revenue increases of around 10% and a margin north of 7%.

The half-year figures, published ahead of the US trip, provide the raw material for those investor conversations. Revenue climbed 10% to €1.17bn in the first six months of fiscal 2025/26, while adjusted EBIT rose 14% to €60m, pushing the margin to 5.1%. One blemish is the free cash flow, which swung to minus €72m from a hefty positive €756m in the prior-year period, a swing driven by an advance-payment special effect that no longer repeated.

On the stock market, the shares have struggled to hold onto their early-year gains. After reaching a 52-week high of €102.90 on 26 January 2026, the price has retreated about 25%. The stock closed at €76.70, giving a year-to-date advance of nearly 11%. The 50-day moving average sits at €81.28, and the relative strength index of 44 suggests neither overbought nor oversold conditions. Volatility remains elevated, with an annualised 30-day reading of roughly 49%.

The roadshow gives TKMS a chance to explain to US investors why today’s entry point looks attractive against the January peak. The backlog, the confirmed guidance and the medium-term margin ambitions are all on the table. Whether that pitch resonates will become clearer in the trading sessions that follow. Meanwhile, in Canada, the countdown to a verdict that could reshape the global submarine market continues.