2024-07-26 10:47:59
The agricultural group Baywa is in debt amounting to billions – and has now withdrawn its forecast.
The Baywa Group, which is in debt running into billions, has withdrawn its forecast for the current year. In view of the ongoing restructuring report, the Board of Management is currently unable to provide a sufficiently reliable, concrete new forecast for operating earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) for 2024, the company announced on Wednesday evening after the stock market closed in München However, the SDax-listed share continued its recovery that began on Wednesday afternoon in early trading on Thursday.
The stock rose by 20 percent at its peak by midday. Most recently, the price rose by almost 15 percent to 13.04 euros. This means that the stock has gained almost 40 percent since the multi-year low on Wednesday afternoon. The reason for the gains is the prospect of a financial injection from the major shareholder, a holding company of the Bavarian Volksbanken and Raiffeisenbanken.
Despite the gains since Wednesday afternoon, the share price is still well below the level it was at before the announcement of a restructuring report almost two weeks ago. Since then, the stock has lost just over 40 percent of its value. However, Baywa shares had already been on a downward trend before the announcement of the restructuring report.
Since the record high of EUR 49.20 in November 2022, losses have now totaled more than 70 percent. The market value is now only EUR 480 million. In autumn 2022 it was around EUR 1.7 billion. Just over a third of the shares belong to Bayerische Raiffeisen-Beteiligungs AG. 28 percent of the shares are in the hands of Raiffeisen Agrar Invest AG.
In addition to the revised forecast, the company announced preliminary figures for the first half of the year on Wednesday evening, which are, however, subject to an impairment test. Therefore, the publication of the half-year report, originally scheduled for August 8, has been postponed to September 27, the statement continued.
The troubled agricultural group brought a restructuring expert on board almost two weeks ago in order to improve what the company described as a “tense financing situation”. This week, rescue became apparent: a holding company of the Bavarian Volksbanken and Raiffeisenbanken, the largest shareholder, wants to support the traditional company.
The group, which emerged from the cooperative movement and has around 24,000 employees, has short- and long-term debts of around 5.6 billion euros. Due to the rapid increase in loan interest rates, the company’s interest burden has tripled to 362 million euros from 2021 to 2023.
According to preliminary figures, sales in the first six months fell by 15 percent to EUR 10.7 billion compared to the same period last year. Earnings before interest and taxes fell by two thirds to EUR 61.3 million. Baywa posted operating losses in the first quarter. Baywa had previously forecast an operating profit of EUR 365 to 385 million for the year as a whole.