BMW Keeps Buying Back Stock Even as Jefferies Sees a 7% Revenue Slide

BMW has confirmed it will keep repurchasing its own shares beyond the expiry of the current buyback programme in November 2026 — a signal on capital returns that lands alongside a far less encouraging read on the operating side of the business.

The company bought 245,796 ordinary shares between 12 and 18 October inclusive, according to an interim disclosure published today. That announcement captures the programme as it is actually being executed; the pledge to continue covers the period after the current mandate lapses. Both strands matter to investors, but neither says anything about how well BMW is selling cars.

Jefferies stays on the sidelines

Analyst Philippe Houchois at Jefferies trimmed his forecasts following BMW's preliminary third-quarter statements and now expects a 7% decline in automotive revenue. He points to lower unit sales, the running down of inventories and an unfavourable product mix. The shortfall is therefore not simply a volume story — the composition of sales and the state of dealer stock are also weighing on the top line. It should be stressed that the figure is an analyst estimate, not a reported result.

The backdrop is a nine-month delivery tally of 1,707,799 vehicles worldwide for January to September 2026, down 4.9% year on year. Jefferies reiterated its "Hold" rating and a price target of 60 euros, leaving the stock without a buy case on the broker's numbers.

A personnel programme under strain

Separately, the take-up of BMW's voluntary severance scheme has created an administrative headache. According to a Handelsblatt report carried yesterday, unusually large numbers of employees sought to use the offer, and the application portal crashed on its first day under the weight of simultaneous access. BMW confirmed strong interest to Bayerischer Rundfunk but declined to give a figure for the number of applicants.

The distinction between interest and departure is the one that counts. Processing expressions of interest does not mean severance agreements have been signed, so neither the scale of the workforce reduction nor its financial impact can be inferred from the rush. The newspaper had reported last Thursday that BMW was pausing the process temporarily in order to work through the submissions received — a suspension rather than a termination of the voluntary programme. What would matter for any economic assessment are the exits actually agreed and the costs attached to them.

Deliveries paint a mixed picture

The severance news arrives against a difficult sales environment. Roughly a week ago BMW reported a 6.3% decline in group-wide deliveries for the third quarter of 2026, with China down 24.8%. Growth in Europe and the United States failed to offset the global shortfall.

Not every datapoint points the same way. Worldwide deliveries of fully electric BMW Group vehicles rose 7.2% to 110,257 units in the third quarter of 2026, and the new iX3 has drawn more than 100,000 orders in Europe within a year, according to the company. Orders, of course, are not the same as vehicles already handed to customers.

What to watch next

UBS cut its price target to 60 euros from 70 on 8 October while keeping a "Neutral" rating, as reported by dpa-AFX — a second cautious note from the sell side. The next hard checkpoint comes on 4 November, when BMW publishes its quarterly statement for the period to 30 September 2026. Until then, the confirmed buyback and the electric order book sit on one side of the ledger, and an expected revenue decline alongside a Chinese slump on the other. The unchanged hold recommendations reflect precisely that balance.