Lenzing Shareholders Take Up 99% of Rights Issue as €300 Million Raise Awaits Court Registration

Lenzing's €300 million cash call has drawn near-total backing from its shareholder base, with 34,411,626 new shares subscribed through rights by this afternoon — an exercise rate of 99.0%. Only a sliver of the offer will therefore fall to the syndicate banks for subsequent placement at a floor of EUR 8.65 per share.

The subscription price for the fully guaranteed capital increase, announced roughly three weeks ago, stands at EUR 8.65 per new share on a 10-for-9 ratio. Proceeds are earmarked to shore up the balance sheet and support the company's "Grow Nonwovens, Reset Textiles" strategy.

Who Took What

The consortium of B&C Group and Suzano S.A. subscribed 18,159,291 shares, while Oberbank accounted for 1,344,177. The Oberbank figure was disclosed in a mandatory notification published today: the stake is held by a person closely associated with supervisory board member Martin Seiter. CEO Georg Kasperkovitz and board member Christian Skilich had already exercised their own rights earlier.

Today's figure is preliminary and does not amount to completion of the capital measure. Delivery and the start of trading in the new shares are expected on 23 October 2026, conditional on entry of the capital increase in the commercial register.

A Financing Step, Not an Earnings Signal

Strong take-up demonstrates demand for the new paper through existing rights; it says nothing about whether the underlying business is improving. That distinction matters because the criticism aimed at Lenzing in recent weeks was pitched at a different level entirely.

Berenberg cut the stock from "Buy" to "Hold" roughly three weeks ago, slicing its price target to EUR 17.00 from EUR 29.50. Analyst Sebastian Bray's reasoning centred on earnings, not on shareholder appetite: higher cotton and viscose prices had not flowed through to Lenzing's results as expected. He also questioned whether consensus EBITDA estimates for 2026 could be raised, and the broker projected a loss per share of EUR 1.62 for 2026, against EUR 0.57 previously — the analyst's own forecast, not a reported annual figure.

None of that is answered by a subscription result. The capital measure is designed to provide financial ballast; whether the strategy lifts profitability is a separate question that only hard operating numbers can settle. For investors, the sequence is clear enough: registration in the commercial register, settlement and first trading on 23 October — and then the operating evidence.