Yesterday, LION announced its successful restart of production as scheduled at end of June 2026, marking an important commercial milestone and materially reducing execution risk involved with the transition. In detail:
Successful transition to NMC+. Following months of preparations, the commercial outlook for LION's segment Mobility has gained significant certainty with a timely resumption of production. This key step is vital to delivering on a nearly filled FY26e order book announced at the beginning of June (eNuW: € 25.9m in Mobility revenue expected for H2 26) and strong progress already made on the FY27e order book, thanks to defence customer demand.
To recap, in Q4 25, first NMC+ battery pack prototypes were qualified by existing customers, leading to significant orders. Customers also stockpiled legacy NMC packs ahead of the transition. LION stopped legacy NMC production in January to prepare for the May/June 26 plant adjustments. In June 2026, the first mass-produced NMC+ battery cells were shipped from China, paving the way for the successful production start and ramp-up to follow.
Beyond Mobility, Storage is to gain traction. LION already showed commercial progress with first BESS containers on the ground in Germany in May (eNuW: project value € 750k) and a second construction phase planned for FY27e (eNuW: project value € 1.5m). Recently, it strengthened its sales force by two more seasoned employees and is preparing a market entry into Italy. As the company continues to be in advanced talks with several clients, we expect further positive announcements to follow.
Confirming the operational inflection point, which we pointed out in early June, LION looks set to deliver € 36.4m (eNuW) in FY26e revenue from inventory of the legacy NMC sold, the new NMC+ deliveries and Storage sales supported by BESS acceleration. This implies 28.5% yoy growth despite the halted production in H1. In the past, its state-of-the-art factory had been significantly underutilized. With ample capacity to spare, we view a strong H2 to be likely.
The bottom-line is likely to be temporarily impacted by higher other operating expenses related to the transition and lower other operating income in the absence of additional research grants. Therefore, we project FY26 EBITDA at € 5.7m (eNuW), down temporarily by 12.2% yoy on an implied EBITDA margin of 15.6% (-7.2pp). However, these effects should prove transitory and do not alter our constructive view on the company's improved commercial outlook. Hence, the FY26 guidance of more than € 35m in revenue and a strongly positive EBITDA continues to look achievable in our view.
Maintaining BUY at € 3.2, based on DCF.
ISIN: CH0560888270
