KKR has owned a piece of German satellite maker OHB for years and is now ready to start selling. The exit is happening at the exact moment European space and defense spending is climbing fast.
OHB is already publicly listed in Germany, but the new transaction is what bankers call a re-IPO - a fresh public offering meant to boost the free float, meaning the share of stock that actually trades on the open market.
Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan are running the deal, and Bloomberg reported Friday that OHB is bringing in additional banks to help with the offering.
The target raise is roughly $1 billion.
Germany's Fuchs family owns about 65% of OHB, while KKR, the US private equity giant, owns about 29%.
Together they plan to sell new and existing shares equal to around 20% of the company.
The structure mixes a partial KKR exit with new capital for OHB, which gives the company a cash boost while improving the share liquidity that bookrunners need to attract long-term fund managers.
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OHB closed 2025 with revenue up 21% to €1.25 billion, while adjusted operating profit rose 17%.
The order backlog - all the contracts already signed and waiting to be filled - hit a record €3.19 billion.
European governments are pouring money into satellites, missile defense and space launch, and OHB sits right in the middle of that wave.
A deal at the current valuation could price OHB slightly above its market value of about €5.5 billion, or roughly $6.37 billion.
That kind of premium is rare in secondary offerings and signals the bookrunners expect strong investor demand.
KKR backed OHB years ago in a private deal, and the move to cash out now is the bigger story for investors.
Private equity firms time these moves carefully, and the firm has clearly decided this is the window.
European space and defense names have rerated sharply higher this year on rising defense budgets and growing demand for satellite services, which gives sellers a chance to lock in prices that were unthinkable two years ago.
Other listed European space and defense players will be watching the demand for OHB shares closely, since the deal will set a fresh benchmark for valuations across the sector.
A strong pricing would also signal to other private-equity-backed European industrial firms that the IPO window is open again after a slow 2024 and early 2025.
The official pricing announcement is the next milestone for OHB and the broader space sector.
A heavily oversubscribed book would confirm that public-market appetite for European space stocks has caught up with the private-market hype.
A soft reception would signal that valuations may have run ahead of the underlying fundamentals.
The pricing details will tell the rest of the story.
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