① Franco-German armaments manufacturer KNDS N.V. has announced the launch of IPO proceedings and plans to list in Frankfurt and Paris within the coming weeks.
② The IPO will easily rank among the largest listings in Europe in recent years, reshaping the shareholding structure of one of Europe’s most strategically significant defense companies.
June 24 — Franco-German armaments manufacturer KNDS N.V. announced the launch of IPO proceedings and plans to list in Frankfurt and Paris within the coming weeks to advance its plan to become a pan-European defense company.
According to a statement published on its official website on Wednesday, June 24, KNDS’s existing shareholders — the French government and German founding family holding company Wegmann & Co GmbH — will jointly sell a 20% stake.
Market valuations of KNDS once reached EUR 25 billion, but the German side expects a range of EUR 15 billion to EUR 18 billion, depending on share price performance in the weeks following the listing.
At this scale, the IPO will rank among the largest listings in Europe in recent years. The listing will reshape the shareholding structure of one of Europe’s most strategically significant defense companies, effectively turning it into a Franco-German joint enterprise.
KNDS CEO Jean-Paul Alary said that Wegmann & Co., which currently holds 50% of KNDS, will sell 40% of its stake to the German government before the IPO; the French government, which holds the other 50%, will reduce its holding to 40% in the offering.
In 2013, Germany’s Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and France’s Nexter Systems jointly launched preliminary research on a new tank. In 2015, the two companies merged to form KNDS, headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
After the listing, KNDS will remain headquartered in the Netherlands and will be listed on two European exchanges, with a free float of 20%. This arrangement reflects the growing emphasis among European countries on keeping critical technologies and security assets within Europe.
KNDS has a broad product line in the defense sector, with the most well-known being the Leopard 2 series of main battle tanks. This series has been widely equipped by the armies of multiple European countries and represents heavy equipment of European ground military forces.
As European governments pledge to increase military spending, an increasing number of defense companies are turning to the capital markets.
The report noted that KNDS said last year that it would continue to advance preparations for an IPO in 2026.
At the time, KNDS explained in a statement that the IPO would enhance the company’s investment capacity in growth, innovation and industrial capacity.
According to the latest financial report, KNDS achieved revenue of 4.4 billion euros in 2025, a year-on-year increase of approximately 16%. The company expects revenue growth of 30% in 2026. Order backlog, an important indicator of future business reserves, increased to 33.1 billion euros at the end of 2025, up from 23.5 billion euros a year earlier.
Michael Field, Chief Equity Market Strategist at Morningstar, commented that sentiment in the European defense sector has recently weakened, as investors are skeptical about whether Europe and the G7 can deliver on commitments to increase defense budgets, potentially limiting growth for related companies.
Although Morningstar is bullish on the defense industry as a whole and notes growing orders, the firm expects defense stocks to remain under pressure in the near term given that the U.S.-Iran conflict appears to be ending soon and progress has been made in negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.
Field said, “Now is a good time to invest in the defense sector. But I am not so sure now is a good time for an IPO.”
