First Berlin Equity Reiterates Buy Rating for Verve Group SE with €4.50 Target

First Berlin Equity Research GmbH has released a research update on Verve Group SE, maintaining a Buy rating and a target price of €4.50 for the company. Despite the Q1 results not meeting expectations, the shortfall is attributed mainly to a timing mismatch between investment costs and anticipated growth, rather than operational decline. The company's AEBITDA was below forecasts due to ongoing expansion of the sales team and the introduction of cost-heavy Retail Media activities.

Operational metrics, however, indicate improvement, with the gross margin increasing by 2.7 percentage points year-on-year to 41%. This suggests positive impacts from last year's platform unifications. The management anticipates that 2026 will be back-loaded concerning profits, with significant gains from sales hires, AI-driven efficiencies, and Retail Media expected in the second half of the year.