Q4 2025 Sixt Earnings

This article is a work in progress!

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Aron’s assessment and recommendation:

Post-earnings assessment and recommendation:

TLDR: Growing bullish again, further reflection and research needed to change my rating to buy from hold (i.e. update valuation model again).

My assessment of Sixt’s performance in Q4 2025 is limited by the fact that they won’t publish the 2025 annual report until March 27. However, I am starting to grow more bullish again on Sixt given the stronger than expected rebound in Germany revenue, commentaries on costs which make me think that costs might come down in future, management's guidance which seems conservative to me given business trends in 2026 seem better than in 2025 and business performance in Q4 which was stable (when you exclude other operating income which is highly volatile).
Sixt performed better than expected when you keep other operating income (which is highly volatile) flat compared to 2024. If other operating income had stayed flat at €100 m, Sixt's diluted EPS would have been €1.05 versus my estimate of €0.86 based on it. Other operating income (Google Sheets) are mainly made up of one-offs such as forwarding costs to third-parties, currency translation, misceleneous income, etc,.
Management appears conservative in its 2026 revenue growth rate guidance of 4%-7.5% (lower than last years guidance of 5%-10%) given that macro conditions in 2026 look better than last year's. Maybe this is mainly due to the ongoing Iran war which could impact travel to Europe and North America from Asia.
Observations and key insights

Pre-earnings recommendation:

Given continued macro and demand headwinds in the U.S., I currently rate the shares as Hold. Overall, I think the current EPS growth rate (compared to P/E) is minimal to warrant a Buy rating, especially given the cyclicality of the industry. </aside>

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What to watch

In order of importance

Germany

Assumes rental revenue growth rate of +2% (actual: 6.1%)

Germany GDP grew 0.3% in Q4 2025, after stagnating in Q3 2025: https://forum.investmentwiki.org/t/eurozone-gdp/242/13?u=aron
Despite Germany’s GDP stagnation in Q3 2025, Sixt’s Germany rental revenue rose 1.6% (Google Sheets), signaling sequential improvement in Q4 2025.
Germany car rental prices was up 17% y/y according to billiger-mietwagen.de. : [Rental car prices were about 17.4% higher than a year ago during the December holidays in Germany, according to billiger-mietwagen.de.](https://curved-newsboy-c80.notion.site/Rental-car-prices-were-about-17-4-higher-than-a-year-ago-during-the-December-holidays-in-Germany-a-313950cb737780ffb024f04f9ba14676)

Reasons for discrepancy: Not mentioned but I suspect the rebound in German economy.

Assumes Germany Depreciation of rental vehicles as % of Germany revenue will be 8% (actual: 7.6%)