BMW's Buyback Machine Grinds On as Munich Puts a Brave Face on Slashed Targets
Published on 09/01/2026 at 15:52 | Editorial boerse-global.de
The arithmetic of BMW's current predicament is hard to escape. The shares have lost roughly a third of their value since the start of the year, the company has hacked its profitability forecasts to a fraction of what it originally promised, and the stock is trading miles below the levels that even the most cautious analysts think it is worth. Yet in the same breath, the carmaker is busy handing out milestones: two million electric vehicles delivered, a new i3 rolling off the Munich line, and a buyback programme that shows no signs of letting up.
Investors are being asked to weigh two very different stories at once.
The Buyback Ticker Keeps Ticking
Between 24 and 30 August, BMW repurchased 435,378 of its own ordinary shares on Xetra, according to mandatory disclosures tied to the 2025/2027 programme. That is a step down from the 608,831 shares bought the previous week, though such weekly fluctuations are par for the course in a programme of this scale. The company continues to report the transactions in weekly batches with daily breakdowns, a routine that has become as predictable as the quarterly earnings cycle.
For shareholders, the buyback is a quiet but persistent signal: even as the company wrestles with margin compression and a deteriorating Chinese market, it still considers returning capital to owners a priority. Fewer outstanding shares also provide a modest tailwind to per-share earnings calculations, even if the operational picture remains far less flattering.
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An Electric Milestone With a Spanish Address
The operational news has been considerably more upbeat on the electric front. In late August, BMW crossed the two-million mark for fully electric vehicles delivered since the end of 2013. The commemorative vehicle was an i5 M60 xDrive handed over to a customer in Spain, fresh from the Dingolfing plant. Sales chief Jochen Goller has also pointed to roughly 100,000 pending orders for the iX3, a model that is increasingly carrying the brand's electrification ambitions.
The iX3's momentum is hard to argue with: European registrations jumped 38 per cent in the second quarter to 81,445 units, and within the broader X3 family, every second vehicle ordered is now the fully electric variant. Fully electric models accounted for around 28 per cent of BMW's European sales in the first half of the year. Meanwhile, series production of the new i3 has begun at the Munich plant, with deliveries slated to start in the autumn, supported by what the company describes as strong demand and an earlier-than-planned order book opening.
Beyond the showroom, BMW has been burnishing its sustainability credentials. A pilot facility under the "BayWater" research project has started at the Landshut site, aimed at resource-efficient water treatment, while the Car2Car project has demonstrated high-quality material loops from end-of-life vehicles at industrial scale. The company also used the Monterey Car Week to preview the BMW M Concept Neue Klasse and the Vision BMW ALPINA.
The Numbers That Won't Go Away
None of that, however, changes the arithmetic that has weighed on the stock all year. In late June, management cut its 2026 guidance in a way that stunned the market: the EBIT margin for the Automotive segment was lowered to a corridor of 1 to 3 per cent, down from a previous 4 to 6 per cent. Return on capital employed was slashed even more dramatically, from 6 to 10 per cent down to 1 to 5 per cent. The stated reasons were operational burdens, one-off effects from restructuring and efficiency measures, and a second-quarter acceleration of the negative trend in China's auto market.
The half-year report, published at the end of July, showed the damage in concrete terms. Second-quarter earnings before tax fell 35 per cent to €1.7 billion. Yet there was a silver lining of sorts: earnings per share of €2.05 came in €0.16 above expectations, and revenue of €31.26 billion beat forecasts by €330 million. The pattern is becoming familiar — BMW keeps lowering the bar, then manages to clear it.
Analysts Split, Targets Drift Lower
The analyst community has responded with a curious divergence. The DZ Bank downgraded the stock from Buy to Hold at the end of July, cutting its price target from €75 to €65. A fortnight earlier, HSBC had moved in the opposite direction, upgrading from Hold to Buy — but simultaneously trimming its target from €79 to €71, an acknowledgment that even the more optimistic houses are tempering their expectations.
More recently, the gap has widened further. On 27 August, the DZ Bank lowered its fair value to €60 while keeping a Hold rating. The very next day, Bernstein Research reaffirmed an Outperform rating with a price target of €82 — a far more bullish stance. The shares, meanwhile, are trading at roughly €61, sitting about 3.7 per cent above their 50-day average of €59.14, which suggests a tentative stabilisation in the very short term. But that is cold comfort when set against the 52-week high of €97.90 reached in early December, a level the stock now sits 37 per cent below.
A Board Change in Choppy Waters
September also brings a change at the top of the human resources function, with Dorothea von Boxberg taking over from Ilka Horstmeier. The transition lands at a delicate moment, as BMW tries to position its electric offensive — the i3 launch, the iX3's order book — as a counterweight to the sharply reduced margin outlook.
The technical picture reinforces the sense of fragility. The shares broke an intermediate low in September, shifting the chart into bearish territory, and remain well below the 200-day moving average of €77.09. With the stock sitting 8.1 per cent above its 52-week low of €56.40 and 30-day volatility at 27 per cent, the market is clearly pricing in an uncertain path ahead. The buybacks continue, the electric story is advancing, but the fundamental question — whether BMW can rebuild profitability while transforming its model line-up — remains very much open.
