BayWa Sells Japanese Battery Portfolio as Legal Probes and Creditor Infighting Spiral
Published on 06/15/2026 at 13:15 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
BayWa has carved out a rare piece of good news by offloading a large battery-storage portfolio in Japan to Energy Vault. The deal, covering projects with a total capacity of 850 megawatts, provides the Munich-based agricultural conglomerate with desperately needed cash to chip away at its towering debts. Yet this single bright spot is increasingly overshadowed by a rapidly escalating legal crisis and deep fractures among the company’s creditors.
The sale is one piece of a broader divestment plan that has so far secured €1.3 billion — including the earlier disposal of agribusiness wholesaler Cefetra. Management aims to slash bank borrowings to €1.3 billion by 2028. But the headline figures mask a daunting reality: creditors are being asked to forgive roughly €1 billion of debt, while 1,300 jobs are cut and annual revenue is forecast to shrink to €10 billion over the next two years.
Prosecutors, Regulators and a Wave of Lawsuits
The legal troubles that now threaten to overshadow the restructuring began with a formal reprimand from the financial watchdog BaFin. In its 2023 annual report, BayWa failed to disclose material details of a billion-euro loan and omitted refinancing risks linked to a €500 million bond. That reprimand has unleashed a cascade of litigation.
The Tübingen-based law firm TILP is preparing damages claims against BayWa, former board members, and auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers. Shareholders who bought stock between January 2022 and January 2026 are eligible to join the action. Separate criminal investigations have been opened by the Munich public prosecutor’s office against former chief executives Klaus Josef Lutz and Marcus Pöllinger on suspicion of breach of trust and false accounting. Searches of their private homes were conducted in January. Both men are presumed innocent.
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PwC had issued an unqualified audit opinion for 2023, making no mention of existential risks. The audit oversight body Apas has now launched its own probe. BayWa has put the audit mandate out to tender from 2026 and is weighing claims for damages against PwC. Current management is also examining whether millions in severance payments to former executives can be clawed back.
On the criminal front, the Munich public prosecutor’s office has opened investigations against former CEOs Klaus Josef Lutz and Marcus Pöllinger for breach of trust and false accounting. Searches of their private homes took place in January. Both maintain their innocence.
Creditors Dig In
While legal pressures mount, the rift among BayWa’s lenders is widening. The 175 cooperative banks that hold around €200 million in promissory notes have already written down 60% of that exposure. The Bavarian Cooperative Association is now urging its members to build an additional safety buffer. Large commercial banks such as DZ Bank and UniCredit are pressing the regional institutes to inject fresh capital — a move the cooperatives have so far flatly rejected.
The operational picture offers little comfort. First-quarter revenue fell to €2.3 billion from €3.6 billion a year earlier, hit by weak construction activity and geopolitical tensions. Adjusted for portfolio sales, the decline was 18.2%. Still, adjusted EBITDA came in above both internal expectations and the prior-year level, as the company shed lower-margin products to focus on core segments.
BayWa at a turning point? This analysis reveals what investors need to know now.
BayWa’s shares closed Friday at €11.55, down roughly 31% since the start of the year and about half the 52-week high of €23.90. The stock carries an extreme volatility reading of 102%, leaving investors jittery at every new headline.
The Autumn Trap
The clock is now ticking towards autumn 2026. BayWa must simultaneously secure bank approval for its restructuring plan, close the sale of its T&G subsidiary, and publish a certified annual report for 2025 — delayed until the fourth quarter of 2026. A misstep on any one of those three conditions would destabilise the entire rescue effort. With €2.7 billion still missing from the balance sheet and no reliable financial data until the audit is complete, the margin for error has all but vanished.
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