Bucher Industries shares fall 4% as guidance cut offsets agri order recovery

Investing.com -- Bucher Industries (SIX:BUCN) lowered its full-year guidance on Wednesday after weakness in several business segments outweighed a stronger-than-expected recovery in agricultural machinery orders, sending shares down over 4%.

The Swiss industrial group said it now expects “slightly lower” organic sales and a “somewhat lower” operating profit margin for 2025, excluding a recent property sale. 

That marks a step down from earlier forecasts of flat sales and margins. The downgrade came as performance in Bucher’s Glass, Hydraulics and Specials divisions fell short of expectations.

First-half order intake totaled CHF 1.29 billion, up 4% year-over-year and 6% on an organic basis, beating consensus by 1%. 

The KUHN division, which supplies agricultural equipment, drove the recovery with a 33% organic increase in orders, well ahead of the 22% forecast. 

Growth was strongest in Europe and Brazil, while uncertainty in the U.S. farm sector continued to weigh on sentiment.

Despite the improvement in KUHN, group-wide sales for the first half came in at CHF 1.54 billion, missing consensus estimates by 2%. 

The Glass division posted a 26% organic decline in orders, sharper than the expected 21% drop. Specials also underperformed, with orders down 1% against a consensus forecast of a 3% gain.

Earnings before interest and taxes rose to CHF 178 million, beating expectations by 4%.

The result was helped by stronger margins in the KUHN unit, which exceeded consensus by 220 basis points, as well as lower central costs tied to a property sale. 

However, weak utilization continued to pressure margins in the Hydraulics and Specials businesses.

The company’s book-to-bill ratio stood at 0.84x, slightly ahead of both consensus and RBC estimates of 0.81x. 

While the ratio signals some order strength, analysts noted that underlying trends outside KUHN remained soft.

Bucher’s updated guidance aligns with market expectations of a 1% year-over-year decline in organic revenue and an 80 basis point drop in margin, excluding property effects. 

Still, the revision highlighted continued uncertainty across multiple divisions, offsetting the positive signal from agricultural machinery.

The outlook cut was not unexpected, but the breadth of the weakness in non-agriculture segments weighed on investor confidence. 

Analysts at RBC Capital Markets maintained their “outperform” rating, citing Bucher’s long-term positioning, valuation discount and expectations of a broader cyclical recovery in agricultural demand. 

But they acknowledged near-term risks tied to lower crop prices and reduced municipal spending.