Eckert & Ziegler SE (XETRA: EUZ) published its half-year financial report for 2026 in August, showing group sales flat, profit slightly higher, adjusted operating earnings lower and the forecast for the year left where it was. The Berlin company supplies isotope technology for cancer therapy, industrial radiometry and nuclear medical imaging, organised in two reporting segments, Medical and Isotope Products.

Sales for the six months to 30 June 2026 came to EUR 149.3 million, against EUR 148.8 million a year earlier, a rise of 0.4 percent. EBITDA was EUR 41.6 million against EUR 41.0 million. EBIT before special items, the measure management uses to judge operating performance, fell to EUR 33.3 million from EUR 35.4 million. Reported EBIT rose to EUR 33.6 million from EUR 33.1 million, and earnings before tax were EUR 32.6 million against EUR 32.5 million. Profit reached EUR 22.4 million after EUR 21.4 million, with basic earnings per share of EUR 0.36 against EUR 0.34 restated for the share split in August 2025.

Two segments moving in opposite directions

The group total combines a wide divergence. External sales in Medical were EUR 80,888 thousand against EUR 80,487 thousand, and the segment lifted EBIT before special items to EUR 24,895 thousand from EUR 23,366 thousand. Isotope Products recorded external sales of EUR 68,457 thousand against EUR 68,316 thousand, almost identical, but its EBIT before special items fell to EUR 9,371 thousand from EUR 12,329 thousand. The holding company, reported as Other, was a larger drag on the adjusted EBIT line than a year earlier.

Inside Medical, the company points to pharmaceutical radioisotopes as the main revenue driver, with lutetium revenue more than tripling and contract manufacturing and development revenue close to doubling. Two effects raise the prior-year comparison base and the company names both: delays from the cyberattack in the prior year and a related short-term suspension of gallium generator shipments held back the earlier first quarter, and those delays were largely made up only in the second quarter. Licensing revenue booked in the prior-year first quarter has no counterpart this year. Plant engineering moved toward segment-internal projects on a somewhat weaker order situation.

Isotope Products closed a first quarter revenue gap during the second quarter on medical radiation sources and project business, while industrial demand was slightly lower and the product mix stayed weaker than a year earlier.

Analysis: the earnings decline has one address

Group EBIT before special items fell from EUR 35,397 thousand to EUR 33,318 thousand. Medical moved the other way, and the holding was only marginally worse, so the decline is explained by Isotope Products, where adjusted EBIT dropped from EUR 12,329 thousand to EUR 9,371 thousand on essentially unchanged external sales. That is a margin story rather than a volume story, and the company’s own description supports it: a weaker product mix, softer industrial demand, and revenue recovered late in the half rather than earned evenly across it.

The gap between the two EBIT measures is worth following, because it moved in the opposite direction. Reported EBIT rose while adjusted EBIT fell. In the prior year, restructuring charges of EUR 1,115 thousand related to the cyberattack were added back to reach the adjusted figure, and there were none in 2026. Adjusted EBIT is defined to exclude financial and currency results, hyperinflation losses under IAS 29, acquisition costs, divestments, impairments and restructuring, and a foreign exchange result of EUR 894 thousand in the prior-year half compares with EUR -264 thousand this time. A reader comparing headline operating profit across the two years is largely comparing the absence of last year’s incident costs.

The line that deserves the most attention is not in the earnings table at all. Operational cash flow fell to EUR 12.8 million from EUR 22.0 million, in a half where profit rose. Depreciation and amortisation on non-current assets was almost unchanged at EUR 8.0 million against EUR 7.9 million, so the divergence is working capital or timing rather than a change in the asset base. Investments excluding acquisitions were EUR 10,703 thousand against EUR 10,644 thousand, which means capital spending was maintained while cash generation nearly halved. That combination is sustainable for a half and worth checking at nine months.

Headcount barely moved, at 1,105 employees at the end of the period against 1,098. Consolidated total assets stood at EUR 474,151 thousand against EUR 457,926 thousand at the end of 2025.

Outlook and what the company flagged

The forecast published in March for the 2026 fiscal year remains unchanged, and the Executive Board continues to expect the revenue and adjusted EBIT it set out then. With sales of EUR 149.3 million and adjusted EBIT of EUR 33.3 million booked in the first half, the year rests on a second half that carries more than half of both targets.

Among the risks named, the company points to international trade and sanctions policy, and to geopolitical developments connected with the conflict in the Middle East, as sources of increased uncertainty. It states that at the time of reporting these have not had material effects on the group’s net assets, financial position or results.

The half also carried several operational milestones. The company obtained MDR certification for its ruthenium-106 eye applicators used to treat eye tumours. It entered a collaboration and supply agreement with Thor Medical covering alpha emitters, aimed at strengthening supply and manufacturing for lead-212 based therapies. With its Chinese partner DongCheng Pharma it opened a manufacturing facility in Changzhou and Jintan for medical isotopes serving cancer diagnostics and therapy in China. The Annual General Meeting held on 24 June 2026 approved a dividend of EUR 0.22 per share for the 2025 fiscal year.

What to check at nine months

Three items will show whether the first half was a pause or a trend. The first is Isotope Products adjusted EBIT, which is the entire source of the group decline and which the company attributes to mix rather than demand. The second is operational cash flow, since a EUR 12.8 million figure against maintained investment cannot repeat indefinitely without affecting the balance sheet. The third is Medical revenue growth stripped of the cyberattack comparison, which will only be clean from the third quarter, when the prior-year base is no longer distorted by delayed shipments.