Topic: Last Friday, Rosenbauer released strong Q3 results with top- and bottom-line above our estimates. Further, the company confirmed its FY24e guidance, which looks achievable for us.

Q3 sales increased 28.6% yoy to € 307m, clearly above our estimates (eNuW: € 271m) thanks to a higher volume of vehicle deliveries (9M: +22.6% yoy), significant price increases and restored supply chains. While sales in the Customer Service, Equipment and Preventive Fire Protection segments improved only modestly or even declined in Q3 (+7.5% yoy; +3.9% yoy; -33.9% yoy), Vehicle revenues increased by 38.4% yoy to € 234m.  

Q3 EBIT came in at € 15.0m, a 43.6% yoy disproportional increase and above our estimates (eNuW: € 14.1m). EBIT margin improved 0.5ppts yoy to a solid 4.9% mainly due to operating leverage and price increases.

Order intake continued to be strong and came in at € 489m, 35.3% above last year, leading to a new record high order backlog of € 2.2bn. As a result of the strong demand and the challenging supply chain situation in recent years, the order backlog was already at an elevated level. Rosenbauer intends now to reduce the book-to-bill to a level of 1.0x (1.60x in Q3’24) to decrease lead times and with that the implied risk in the order book of increases on the cost side like in FY21 & FY22.

Capital increase: the capital increase (company news: 20 June) is still conditional to competition and merger control approval. Nevertheless, management expects the deal to close in 2024.  

Guidance specified: Rosenbauer specified its FY24e outlook to sales above € 1.2bn (previously: around € 1.2bn) and an EBIT margin of 5%. € 1.2bn sales are well in reach, given that Rosenbauer achieved already 70% of its target and Q4, which is by far the strongest quarter, is not in the books yet. In the past five years, Q4 was responsible for 31.6%-37.2% of FY sales. In consideration of the fact that Rosenbauer (1) has a strong order backlog, (2) price increases are successively reflected in sales and (3) supply chains improved over the course of the year, we estimate FY24e sales of € 1,25m with an EBIT margin of 5.0%.

We reiterate BUY with an unchanged PT of € 50 based on DCF.