Gerresheimer has spent decades building a reputation as an indispensable supplier to the pharmaceutical industry — pre-filled syringes, glass ampoules, digital autoinjectors. The markets it serves are growing steadily, with global pharma packaging projected to reach around $200 billion by 2034. Yet the company’s shares have shed 43 percent over the past twelve months, and the reason has little to do with product demand.
The real problem sits in the finance department.
Germany’s financial regulator BaFin has widened its investigation into Gerresheimer’s books, moving beyond the initial focus on prematurely booked revenues. The probe now encompasses faulty lease accounting, omitted impairment charges, and the valuation of goodwill and technology assets. At the centre are goodwill positions totalling roughly €676 million and technology-related values of €196 million within the Advanced Technologies division.
Audit delays fuel speculation
Gerresheimer has been unable to publish its audited annual report for 2025, originally expected in June, and has not set a date for first-quarter 2026 figures. That silence has sent institutional investors to the sidelines. The shares were expelled from the SDAX in April, and the annualised 30-day volatility has surged to around 44 percent — far above the typical SDAX member.
The stock has nevertheless staged a recovery from its February low of €14.90, climbing to the €25.54 area. That is a gain of roughly 74 percent, and the price now sits above its 50-, 100- and 200-day moving averages. But market participants remain wary: the rebound rests on thin ice as long as the accounts for 2024 and 2025 remain unverified.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Gerresheimer?
The auditor Grant Thornton has been tasked with reviewing the past two financial years. Meanwhile, the German shareholder protection association DSW is preparing legal action, targeting former CEO Dietmar Siemssen and former CFO Bernd Metzner. DSW chief Marc Tüngler has indicated that a litigation funder could join the effort. KPMG, which signed off on the 2024 accounts without qualification, is itself under scrutiny from the audit oversight body APAS.
Divestiture and debt relief buy time — at a cost
To shore up its strained balance sheet, Gerresheimer is selling its US subsidiary Centor. Morgan Stanley is running the sale process and has attracted a two-digit number of interested parties, with management expecting to close the deal this year. Centor was valued at €292 million at the end of 2024. The catch: the unit generates above-average margins, so its disposal will further pressure profitability that has already declined.
On the financing side, Gerresheimer has secured a temporary reprieve. Creditors of its Schuldschein loans, totalling €870 million, have agreed to extend the maturity to 30 September 2026. But that extension is conditional on obtaining a clean audit opinion. If the attestation remains missing by then, an acute liquidity crunch looms.
Management has set a revenue target of up to €2.4 billion for the current year, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 18 to 19 percent. Those numbers are comparable to the corridor of €2.3 billion to €2.4 billion and a margin of around 18 percent cited earlier. Yet every projection is subject to the outcome of the BaFin probe and the completion of the audits.
Gerresheimer’s operational trajectory remains intact: biopharmaceuticals, home therapy and digital treatment support are all growth areas where the company holds concrete positions. The strategic profile is sound. The credibility gap is not. Until the accounting questions are resolved, the stock’s recent recovery will be seen less as a turnaround and more as a technical bounce in a storm of uncertainty. The next hard data point — whenever it arrives — is likely to move markets sharply either way.
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