Deck
Austrian maker of KTM, Husqvarna and GasGas premium motorcycles. Emerged from court-supervised restructuring in 2025 and is now 74.9%-controlled by Bajaj Auto of India through Pierer Bajaj AG.
A €900m dilution authority sits over the multiple regardless of how clean the operating restart looks.
- Dated trigger. The 27 January 2025 EGM pre-authorised up to 16.9m new shares — 50% of the count — plus €900m of convertibles valid to 2030, with preemption excluded on cash issues up to 10%. The June 2026 AGM is the first chance to retire it or ring-fence it.
- Captive board. Three of four supervisory seats sit with Bajaj Auto executives; the audit-committee chair is Bajaj Auto's own CFO. The Austrian Takeover Commission waived the mandatory bid on 23 October 2025 under the Sanierungsprivileg, so no minority received a control premium and none has an equal-exit right.
- Means and motive. A partial draw at today's €19 would lift share count toward 45-50m and transfer roughly €300-400m of equity value from float to parent before any operating recovery accrues to the listed minority. Minorities cannot block.
The FY2025 €590m "profit" is a creditor haircut, not earnings.
Net debt fell from €1.64B to €798M almost entirely through the 70% creditor write-down — only the €525m cash quota is real deleveraging. Reported CFO of -€22m was carried by a €254m working-capital release; gross cash flow before the working-capital release was -€295m (Brutto Cashflow per the IFRS statement). Capex at 58% of D&A and R&D capitalisation cut from 60% to 36% mean the cost base is honest at the trough — the income statement is not.
Eighteen months ago this was Pierer Mobility. Today it is Bajaj's.
Before: For three decades Stefan Pierer ran KTM out of Mattighofen, compounding a credible 9-10% EBIT margin premium-bike franchise. Through 2022-2023 dealer inventory was stuffed to 182,029 units and working capital tripled to €531m on flat European demand — the hole opened a full year before the headlines arrived.
Pivot: KTM AG filed self-administered restructuring on 29 November 2024. Bajaj signed a call option with Pierer Industrie on 22 May 2025, anchored €800m of restructuring and shareholder support, exercised the option to take 74.9% of the holding on 18 November 2025, and the listed entity was renamed and re-tickered on 13 January 2026. PIERER became BMAG; the founder left the Vorstand; a new CFO arrived in September.
Today: Q1 2026 revenue grew 70% YoY to €331m and EBITDA returned to €5.5m on 40,332 units. COGS still ran 80.6% of revenue against the ~70% pre-Corona baseline, and the new CFO declined to put a number on FY2026. The first standalone clean-accounting window is the H1 2026 report in August.
The only structural growth pool sits behind undisclosed transfer pricing.
- Volume is real. Bajaj-channel KTM and Husqvarna unit sales rose 27% to 78,906 in 2025 while group volume fell 28% and Mattighofen ran a five-month production halt; cumulative Chakan production sits above 1.3m units. This is the strategic logic of the November takeover.
- Economics are opaque. The royalty and license rate paid from Bajaj's Chakan plant up to listed BMAG is not publicly disclosed; the audit-committee chair is Bajaj Auto's own CFO. No outside minority can verify whether Chakan unit growth translates into economic profit at the float.
- Precedent already exists. FY2025 disposals of KTM Technologies and PIERER Innovation went to former-Pierer entities without disclosed arm's-length pricing — value transfer without disclosure has happened once on this register inside the last twelve months.
Lean cautious. The gifted equity, captive board and €900m of dilution dry powder weigh against a tape that has rallied 41% in six months.
- For. Aftersales is a structural annuity, not a cyclical line — €207m at 40-60% gross margin held positive gross profit through a five-month production stop, falling only 28.8% while new-bike revenue fell 47.8%.
- For. The India volume bridge is already compounding. Bajaj-channel units +27% to 78,906 in 2025 against group volume -28%; Eicher trades at 25× EV/EBITDA on the same Indian premium pool.
- Against. The €590m "profit" is debt forgiveness. Clean FY2025 EBIT was -€473m on revenue down 46%; operating cash flow ex the €254m working-capital release would have been roughly -€275m.
- Against. €900m of pre-authorised dilution sits with a Bajaj-controlled board that has both means and motive to convert at the bottom. Minorities cannot block and received no control premium.
Watchlist to re-rate: June 2026 AGM voting record on the €900m conditional capital authority. H1 2026 clean EBITDA margin in the August half-year report. Bajaj-channel India unit growth sustained ≥20% YoY through 2026.