VAT 1H26 First Take: Very strong order intake key takeaway

Research evidence excerpt

VAT 1H26 First Take: Very strong order intake key takeaway

J P M O R G A N Europe Equity Research

22 July 2026

VAT Overweight

VACN.S, VACN SW

1H26 First Take: Very strong order intake key takeaway Price (21 Jul 26):CHF700.40

Price Target (Dec-27):CHF730.00

Our Take: VAT orders were the key metric investors were monitoring in the European Tech Hardware &

release. With orders of CHF 500m which are 22% ahead of JPMe/consensus, the Payments

co. exceeded these expectations considerably. The co. has guided for 3Q sales of Sandeep Deshpande AC

CHF 370m at the midpoint, which is slightly (1.6%) ahead of consensus. However, (44-20) 7134-5276

the co. is indicating that they will ramp factory capacity above CHF450m by year sandeep.s.deshpande@jpmorgan.com

end. With consensus expecting FY26 sales of CHF 1,305m, this could provide Craig A McDowell

about 2% upside to sales expectations for the year. To deal with the very strong (44-20) 7742-4576

trends, VAT has hired >700 FTEs in 1H. The increase in costs associated with the craig.mcdowell@jpmorgan.com

ramp meant that the co.’s 1H EBITDA of CHF148.2m missed JPMe/cons by Anthony Girard

(44-20) 3493-6469

1%/1.9%. We believe the focus will be on the strong order intake which points to anthony.girard@jpmorgan.com

a potential yearly run-rate of CHF2bn in '27 which is 18% higher than current J.P. Morgan Securities plc

revenue estimates.

Specialist Sales contact details:

• Noteworthy Areas: VAT reported 2Q26 net sales of CHF 291m (i.e. at the Scott Silver - Specialist Sales -

higher end of guidance of CHF 265m-295m), implying growth of 2.9% YoY European TMT

and 31.7% QoQ, which came 3.2% above JPMe and in line with consensus. (44-20) 7134-0412

Aggregate 1H26 sales of CHF 512m imply a decline of 0.7% HoH and 8.3% scott.silver@jpmorgan.com