Kalmar Q2'25 preview: Cooling-off period before result

Translation: Original published in Finnish on 07/23/2025 at 8:00 am EEST

We feel Kalmar's target markets have demonstrated resilience amid heightened uncertainty, which has also alleviated the worst uncertainty surrounding the operating environment. As a result, we also made slight positive forecast revisions for the coming years and lowered our required return for the stock. Reflecting the estimate changes, we raise our target price to EUR 37 (was 30). However, due to the increased valuation following the share price rally, we downgrade our recommendation to Reduce (was Accumulate). Kalmar will publish its Q2 results on July 25, at around 9 am EEST.

Source: Inderes & Vara Research (07/22/2025, 8 estimates), (consensus)

Fairly stable operational development expected

We expect Kalmar's revenue to have decreased slightly from the comparison period (-1% y/y), which is below the consensus expecting slight growth (+1% y/y). Relative to the consensus, we expect the company's deliveries to be more weighted towards the end of the year, with our full-year growth forecast being practically at the same level as the consensus. We estimate that the company's reported performance in the quarter also faced at least a slight headwind from currencies. Similarly, we estimate that the adjusted EBIT margin decreased slightly year-on-year, reflecting revenue development and the very slight impact of tariffs, and settled at 12.2% (vs. consensus of 12.5%).

Orders are expected to increase slightly

In turn, we expect the Q2 order intake to have increased slightly, as does the consensus (Inderes +2% y/y, consensus +3% y/y) from the moderate comparison period, despite the elevated trade policy tensions and negative currency effects. We estimate that the company's total market has demonstrated resilience amidst uncertainty, due to, e.g, Drewry's container traffic forecasts that were raised in early summer. However, we will closely monitor the company's comments in the report regarding the development of the market situation in its various customer segments and geographical areas.

We also made small positive estimate revisions

As noted, we estimate that the company's market situation has remained fairly stable, but that regional differences are quite large. We suspect that the uncertainty among the company's customers and the slowdown in decision-making have concentrated in the US market, while elsewhere we believe that market activity has remained at least at a reasonable level overall. Reflecting this, we have also slightly raised our forecasts for the coming years, although we expect the weaker dollar to slow down the reported development. As a result of the changes, our forecast for this year remain practically unchanged (2025e adj. EBIT-%: 12.5%) and we expect the company to meet its guidance (adj. EBIT-% above 12%). Instead, our adjusted EBIT forecasts for 2026-2027 increased moderately (~+3%). We expect Kalmar's margin development to be positive in the coming years (2026e-2027e adj. EBIT% 13.0-13.2%) supported by revenue growth.

The stock is fully priced in the short term

Based on our updated estimates, Kalmar's adjusted EV/EBIT figures for 2025 and 2026 are around 12x and 10x, while the P/E ratios are around 16x and 14x. We believe the multiples are at a reasonable level, considering the company's return on capital (cf. previous 12 months ROCE %: ~18%). However, in our opinion, it is difficult to see significant upside in the short term, considering the limited earnings growth we forecast for the current and next year, as well as the still partly elevated forecast risks related to the global economy. Our view of the stock's current full valuation is also supported by our DCF model, which is slightly below the share price (EUR ~37.4 per share).