Source: Inderes

 Translation: Original published in Finnish on 10/26/2026 at 8:05 am EET.

Raute will publish its Q3 report on Friday, October 30.  We expect revenue and earnings to have declined significantly from the comparison period on the weak order book. Beyond the large order from Estonia, our focus in the report will be on other order intake, as the market environment has remained uncertain amid weakness in global construction. We expect the company to reiterate its guidance for the current year.

Revenue under pressure from low order book

We expect Raute’s Q3 revenue to have fallen by ~30% year-on-year to 31 MEUR. The decline is driven particularly by Wood Processing, where we expect deliveries to have fallen clearly on the low order book at the start of the quarter.  Services revenue, by contrast, likely held up better.  We forecast revenue in the smallest unit, Analyzers, to have declined from the comparison period, likely reflecting weak order intake in recent quarters. We do not expect the 31 MEUR order from Estonia announced in September to contribute to Q3 revenue, as the early phase of the project focuses on engineering, with deliveries scheduled only for H2'27 and early 2028.

Volume decline hits profitability

We forecast Raute's adjusted EBITDA to have more than halved in Q3 to 3.0 MEUR from 6.5 MEUR in the comparison period. In our view, this corresponds to a satisfactory adjusted EBITDA margin of well over 9% relative to the sluggish revenue level. The main driver of the earnings decline is Wood Processing, where lower volumes weaken earnings due to negative operational leverage. In addition, we estimate that the reversal of project provisions that supported earnings in the early part of the year will fade towards the end of the year, removing the support for profitability seen previously. We expect Services earnings to have grown slightly along with revenue, whereas we estimate Analyzers profitability to remain below its potential due to low volumes and development investments made. We do not expect any significant non-recurring items on the lower lines, and we forecast EPS to decline clearly in line with the operating result. As for cash flow, Q3 is likely to have been strong, as Raute is expected to have received advance payments for projects sold to Estonia in September.

Estonian order returns order book to growth, but underlying demand in focus

In our view, the 31 MEUR plywood mill expansion project in Estonia, announced in September, will provide a significant boost to Q3 order intake. We estimate that demand for small projects and services has remained somewhat stable, albeit at a modest level, giving a Q3 order intake forecast of 50 MEUR.  We therefore expect the order book to have returned to quarter-on-quarter growth after a decline lasting more than ten quarters, reaching a tolerable 85 MEUR at the end of Q3 (-21% y/y). We will follow the company’s comments on underlying demand with interest, as weakness in global construction, elevated interest rates (high in some markets), and geopolitical uncertainty have likely continued to weigh on customers’ investment decisions.

We expect Raute to reiterate its guidance alongside the Q3 report, under which current-year revenue will be 125–145 MEUR and adjusted EBITDA 11–18 MEUR. We forecast revenue of 130 MEUR and adjusted EBITDA of 14.6 MEUR. In our assessment, meeting the guidance should not be a problem, but attention is increasingly turning to next year’s outlook and the timeline for a market recovery.