OHB's Two Billion-Euro Headaches: A Stock in Freefall and a Factory That Hasn't Been Chosen

OHB shares fell 12% after IRIS² award despite strong H1 results; investors eye SatcomBw decision and valuation concerns.

The market's reaction to OHB SE's landmark IRIS² contract award has been nothing short of perverse. When the Bremen-based space group announced on Monday that it had been selected by satellite operator SES to build 18 satellite platforms for Europe's new MEO-shell constellation, the shares initially responded as expected — jumping 8.4 percent to €205.50. Then came Tuesday, when the stock surrendered all of those gains and more, collapsing 12 percent to close at €183.00. By Wednesday, the slide had extended another 1.5 percent to €181.20, making OHB one of the weakest performers in the SDAX, which itself fell 1.47 percent.

The pattern is a textbook case of "sell the news," with investors who had ridden a spectacular multi-month rally using the €1 billion contract announcement as their exit cue. The correction has been brutal: the stock now sits 27 percent below its 50-day moving average of €249.67, and while it remains up 56 percent year-to-date, it has shed 22 percent over the past month alone.

Yet even as the share price bleeds, the operational picture at OHB has rarely looked healthier. First-half 2026 revenue climbed to €628 million on double-digit growth, while adjusted EBITDA jumped more than 30 percent to €60 million. The workforce has expanded by half to nearly 4,100 employees — a direct reflection of the order load — and the pipeline has swelled to a record €20 billion. Management has reaffirmed its full-year guidance of €1.4 billion in total output and an adjusted EBITDA margin between 10.5 and 11 percent.

The first quarter had already set the tone: revenue rose 18.46 percent to €270.9 million, and earnings per share nearly doubled from €0.26 to €0.52. Additional wins have piled up alongside the IRIS² award, including a contract for the second generation of the PRISMA Earth-observation system from the Italian space agency ASI via subsidiary OHB Italia, plus cooperation agreements with Rheinmetall on military satellite communications and with Schwarz Digits on AI-assisted satellite manufacturing.

Financially, OHB has been fortifying its balance sheet with equal vigor. A rights issue worth up to €510.7 million at €300 per share and an upsized private placement of €900 million were completed over the summer. Mid-August brought another visible milestone: inclusion in the SDAX, where OHB took the slot vacated by Klöckner.

The IRIS² contract itself — valued at just under €1 billion, with SES supplying the communications payloads, first launches slated for 2029 and service operations beginning in 2030 — was hailed by CEO Marco Fuchs as "a significant step toward Europe's independence." But for all its strategic weight, the award has done little to calm investor nerves about valuation and execution risk. Several banks, including Jefferies, Berenberg, Goldman Sachs and Rothschild, initiated coverage in early August with price targets ranging from €250 to €360, with Rothschild the most bullish. The wide dispersion of those targets hints at the uncertainty surrounding OHB's trajectory.

That uncertainty extends well beyond the current share price turbulence. A far larger prize looms on the horizon: the Bundeswehr's SatcomBw Stage 4 military satellite program, valued at €8 billion to €10 billion — roughly ten times the size of the IRIS² order. But before OHB can begin work, it must resolve a thorny question: where will it build the capacity?

Saxony has emerged as the frontrunner, thanks largely to its university partnerships. Bremen, OHB's home base, labors under a structural disadvantage — a "civilian clause" at local universities that prohibits defense-related research, complicating academic collaboration on a military project. No final decision has been made, yet the choice carries significant implications for how swiftly and efficiently OHB can execute SatcomBw, and for whether the company continues to expand its Bremen footprint at all.

The strategic backdrop remains supportive. On Wednesday, Berenberg initiated coverage of the broader US and European space sector with buy ratings on Rocket Lab, AST SpaceMobile, Planet Labs and HawkEye 360 — a signal that institutional investors continue to see structural potential in the industry despite OHB's recent share price woes. OHB itself had already carried a Buy rating from the bank.

For now, the market's attention has shifted from the order book to its execution. The stock trades roughly 32 percent above its 50-day average on a longer view, a reminder of how extended the rally had become. The coming weeks are likely to be defined less by new contract announcements and more by operational questions — chief among them how OHB prepares its workforce and infrastructure for SatcomBw, and when the company finally puts the location question to rest.