The GEA Group stock has had a rather weak year on the stock exchange so far: since the beginning of the year there has been a minus of about 8 percent on the course table, since the end of April it has even been around 20 percent. In recent weeks, the paper has been able to recover somewhat and is now trading at just under 35 euros (as of December 11, approx. 11 a.m.).

The Dusseldorf industrial group recently presented no bad, but certainly mixed quarterly figures and investors are now looking forward to the coming quarters. Although the nine-month figures were overall decent, Q3 and the order intake have left a bitter taste.

GEA Group with good and bad news in Q3 After 9 months of the current financial year, the machine manufacturer from the MDAX achieved sales of 3.96 billion euros, which is about 5.7 percent more than in the same period of the previous year. The group result landed at around 300 million euros, 17 percent above the previous year. The goals for 2023 could be confirmed by GEA: the organic sales growth should be around 8 percent in the full year and the EBITDA margin should be at least 14 percent.

However, business at GEA has somewhat cooled off in the 3rd quarter. Sales were roughly at the same level as the previous year and EBITDA only rose slightly by just over 4 percent to 207 million euros. In particular, the order intake in Q3 was not very encouraging: it landed at just under 1.25 billion euros, around 9 percent below the previous year’s figure. GEA has had to contend with negative currency effects and a difficult environment – all the more eagerly, investors are looking forward to the year 2024 and the development of the order intake that is important for it.

GEA Group-Aktie: Analysts are not in agreement The solid forecasts for the 2023 financial year are likely to be achieved by the industrial group. More interesting is the question of how it will continue in 2024. If sentiment were to turn and the order intake were to climb again, the GEA Group stock would certainly have potential. Because the performance of the past months offers catch-up opportunities in view of the robust business – also aspects such as the newly launched share buyback program and the dividend yield (currently more than 2.5 percent) speak for the paper.

Accordingly, some analysts are also positive: in the analyses following the quarterly figures, Deutsche Bank confirmed its target price of 45 euros. UBS has reduced its target price from 52 to 47 euros, but still sees around 35 percent price potential in the GEA stock. However, there are also critical voices such as the recent analysis by JPMorgan – here the target price is 35 euros and the stock is rated „Underweight“.