Mutares' Record SABIC Deal Caps a Summer That Has Left the Market Waiting for Proof
Published on 08/30/2026 at 03:12 | Editorial boerse-global.de
The Munich-based holding company has spent the past few months redrawing the contours of its portfolio at a pace few investors in the sector could have anticipated. The centrepiece arrived in early August, when Mutares closed the largest acquisition in its corporate history: the engineering thermoplastics business carved out of SABIC, now operating under the name NexPoint Materials.
That single transaction brings roughly €2.0 billion in annual revenue, around 2,800 employees and eight production sites across the Americas and Europe into the fold. For a group whose portfolio had previously operated at a noticeably smaller scale, the step-change in size is difficult to overstate. The deal also lands at a moment when the company is simultaneously pruning less attractive assets — a two-track strategy that has kept both the balance sheet and the share price under scrutiny.
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A Deal Pipeline Running in Both Directions
The SABIC acquisition is far from an isolated event. In late July, Stellantis signed an agreement to sell its entire Free2move car-sharing operation to Mutares. That business, active across 14 cities in Europe and the US, generated roughly €55 million in revenue most recently, with the transaction expected to close by year-end. Just days earlier, Mutares offloaded Walor Precision Turning to Reed Capital, underscoring that portfolio pruning continues in lockstep with the buying spree.
June brought further movement on both fronts. The group signed a deal to sell NEM Energy Group to Hyundai Heavy Industries Power Systems, with closing anticipated in the third quarter. In the same window, Mutares secured Synthomer a.s., a carve-out adding approximately €110 million in revenue and around 300 employees to its Chemicals & Materials segment — also slated for completion in Q3.
The pattern is clear enough: smaller, thinner-margin units are being swapped out for larger, strategically better-fitting positions. Yet the sheer density of transactions has done little to excite the equity market.
Half-Year Numbers Tell a Two-Sided Story
The interim figures, released alongside the SABIC closing, capture the mixed picture. Group revenue rose 9 percent in the first half to €3.4 billion, while adjusted EBITDA swung from minus €89 million to plus €67 million. The adjusted holding net result, however, tells a less flattering tale: it fell from €70 million to just €6 million year-on-year.
Management nonetheless reaffirmed its full-year guidance of €7.9 billion to €9.1 billion in revenue and a holding net result between €165 million and €200 million. Crucially, the company also confirmed that all bond covenants were fully complied with at the half-year mark — a point of reassurance given the capital intensity of the recent acquisition wave.
That covenant compliance matters more than usual here. Mutares' business model depends on a continuous cycle of buying, restructuring and eventually selling portfolio companies, with exits traditionally serving as a high-margin contributor to earnings quality. As long as the covenants hold, the group retains the financial headroom to keep that engine running without overstretching its balance sheet. Management has also flagged further divestments for the second half, a signal that the exit pipeline remains active.
A Share Price That Has Yet to Turn
The market's response to all this activity has been muted at best. The stock closed Friday at €25.95, up 1.2 percent on the day, but the longer-term picture is less encouraging. Over 30 days, the shares are down 4.1 percent, and the year-to-date decline stands at 14 percent. That leaves the stock roughly 26 percent below its 52-week high of €35.15, reached in January, and trading well under its 50-day moving average of €27.28.
Technical indicators point to an oversold condition, with the relative strength index sitting below 38. That may reflect the market's inclination to wait and see how NexPoint Materials integrates operationally before rewarding the strategic repositioning. With Free2move, NEM Energy and Synthomer still pending completion, there is no shortage of execution risk for investors to weigh.
Two upcoming events could provide greater clarity. Early September brings a specialist conference hosted by Commerzbank and ODDO BHF, followed by an investor day in London in November. For now, the guidance reaffirmation signals one thing above all: management sees no reason to budge from its forecasts, even as the share price continues to test investor patience.
