Knorr - Bremse Takeaways from the Back to School call

Research evidence excerpt

J P M O R G A N

Europe Equity Research

16 September 2026

Knorr-Bremse

Takeaways from the Back to School call

Neutral

KBX.DE, KBX GY

Price (15 Sep 26):€103.90

Price Target (Dec-27):€108.00

We hosted Knorr-Bremse (KB) CFO Frank Weber as part of our Back to School

conference call series. There is no major change in trading conditions so far in Q3,

with management highlighting that there are no more slots left for this year’s truck

production in the US, where new EPA rules will increase the price of new trucks

from next year. Management emphasized that the focus is on achieving 2030

operating EBIT of >€1.6bn while revenue numbers could be slightly higher or

below €10bn mark depending on the truck volumes. While the RVS has several

avenues of growth, innovation will be a main driver for through-cycle growth in

the CVS segment. There was a clear message that the company will not pursue

margin dilutive growth. Overall, there is no change to our view that KB is a well

managed company with a unique portfolio but the current valuation offers limited

upside. We summarise our detailed takeaways below.

European Capital Goods

• Color on near-term trading: Management noted that rail markets are stable

Mariana Andrade

in all regions, and nothing has changed. There is always a risk of certain projects

shifting from one quarter to the other but there are no cancellations. On the truck

side, the company is seeing good orders in the past 2-4 months, especially in

North America, where customers are sold out for the rest of the year and aren’t

expecting any orders. Europe is holding up nicely (in terms of truck

production), which the management called an ‘ok-ish’ market. Management

sees European class 6-8 market for around 415K units, and North America class

8 market for aroud 263K. There is some pre-buy effect this year in North

America ahead of new EPA rules which will make the new trucks ~$15K more

expensive. However, management noted that truck operators can buy older

trucks (i.e. non-EPA compliant) and can pay a penalty of $6-9K. This is why

management believes it is difficult to estimate the level of pre-buy in 2026.

Akash Gupta AC

(44-20) 7742-7978

Phil Buller

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