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Investing.com -- Verbund (VIE:VERB), an Austrian energy company, faces a downgrade in its stock rating due to a combination of risk factors by analysts at Bernstein in a note dated Friday.
The brokerage downgraded Verbund to "underperform" from "market-perform," and reduced the price target to €55.30 from €73.50.
The analysts cited several concerns, including the extension of a windfall tax in Austria, lower expected returns from flexibility products, and questions about the profitability of new renewable energy investments in Spain.
A dry start to the year has also negatively impacted the company’s hydropower generation, a key part of its business, the analysts said.
"We believe Verbund is currently facing an accumulation of risk overhangs," the analysts said.
The analysts also believe there is a high risk that Verbund’s full-year 2025 guidance will be lowered. The current consensus estimates are also likely to be reduced, they said.
Verbund confirmed that its hydro assets are dealing with a very dry start to the year, with a low hydro coefficient that led to a €40 million electricity buyback in the first quarter of 2025, the brokerage said. This trend continued into April and May, according to the analysts.
The Austrian government’s extension of the windfall tax on the energy sector adds further financial pressure.
The new coalition aims to collect €200 million per year from the energy sector until 2030.
While several parameters are still unclear, Verbund expects the levy to cost it between €50 million and €100 million for 2025.
The analysts also noted the company’s concern about a potential lowering of the levy threshold in the future.
In its first-quarter 2025 results, Verbund adjusted its EBITDA guidance to a range of €2.7 billion to €3.2 billion, compared to the previous guidance of €2.7 billion to €3.3 billion.
The Bernstein analysts’ estimate is €2.66 billion. The company also adjusted its group net result guidance to a range of €1.35 billion to €1.70 billion, compared to the prior range of €1.35 billion to €1.75 billion. The Bernstein analysts’ estimate is €1.37 billion.
The analysts said they updated their model to reflect the market-to-market value of the power-price curve, the latest data on hydropower, and the impact of rolling the model forward by one year following the 2024 results.
As a result, they reduced their earnings-per-share estimates for 2025, 2026, and 2024 by 18%, 10%, and 15%, respectively. They also cut their target price by 25% to €55.3.