Wienerberger has trimmed its full-year 2026 operating EBITDA forecast to a range of EUR 640 million to EUR 650 million, citing persistently weak demand and a sharp rise in energy, raw material, and logistics costs. The revision marks the second downgrade in the current cycle and sent the building materials group’s shares down 3.3% to EUR 16.24 in today’s trading.
The Austrian brickmaker had already lowered its guidance to roughly EUR 700 million in July, according to Reuters, down from an original target of more than EUR 800 million. The latest cut lays bare just how slowly conditions in the European construction sector are improving.
Q3 Falls Short of Analyst Expectations
For the third quarter of 2026, management projects revenue of approximately EUR 1.2 billion to EUR 1.3 billion and operating EBITDA of EUR 170 million to EUR 180 million. Those figures land well below what the analyst community had penciled in. Raiffeisen Research put the consensus at EUR 1.33 billion in quarterly revenue and EUR 200 million in operating EBITDA, while Erste Group had forecast EUR 212 million. Erste Group calculates the expected year-on-year earnings decline at roughly 13%.
The shortfall stems primarily from new residential construction, which remains weak in the UK, the US, and Canada, weighing on demand and factory utilization. Renovation and infrastructure segments, by contrast, have held up comparatively well. A seasonal uptick in September — normally a reliable rebound after the summer lull in construction — came in far softer than the company had anticipated.
Compounding the pressure, costs for energy, raw materials, and logistics have climbed sharply again since late August. Sales initiatives, price adjustments, and efficiency programs proved insufficient during the quarter to fully offset the renewed cost inflation. The benefits of those countermeasures are expected to materialize only gradually.
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Market Reaction and 52-Week Low
Investor sentiment has been rattled by the deteriorating outlook. Wienerberger’s stock changed hands at EUR 15.98 today, a decline of 4.9%, hovering just above its 52-week low of EUR 15.82 — a level the shares touched during the session. Many market participants remain cautious, with few reliable signs of a construction recovery to justify a more optimistic stance.
Interim Chief Pushes Cost Cuts and Portfolio Review
Gerhard Hanke, who took over as interim head of the group more than a month ago following the CEO’s resignation on health grounds, is steering the operational response. To shore up profitability and reduce debt, management is accelerating cost-cutting measures and has launched a strategic review of its various business units. The company is also tightening spending controls and scrutinizing its organizational structure to protect margins against inflation.
Investors will get a clearer picture of the damage in mid-November. Wienerberger plans to publish detailed results for the first nine months of 2026 on November 12, 2026, alongside an update on the progress of its portfolio review and savings programs. Until then, uncertainty over the trajectory of demand is likely to keep a lid on sentiment.
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