RWA boss: “Warehouses back in farmers’ hands”

He is proud: “We have succeeded in bringing the RWA back into 100 percent Austrian ownership and thus into cooperative and farmer ownership.” The buyback involved a lot of effort, but it paid off. You can now act independently of foreign interests. The Baywa – in which the RWA still has a stake – was close in 2024 Broke scraped past. The agricultural group from Bavaria held at this point around 50 percent of RWA AGwhich was published in May 2025 by the RWA cooperative bought for around 176 million euros became.

They have separated themselves from legacy issues from Germany

“We are happy and grateful to everyone who helped us free ourselves from the Baywa.” They were specific Raiffeisen Holding Lower Austria-Vienna and the Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) financially involved in the buyback. RWA has already repaid the acquisition loan in full. About two were made for this in February 2026 property sold in downtown Vienna. Company values ​​that are related to Germany have also been separated. “Nothing from the Baywa adventure can now have an impact on the Austrians Warehouse cooperativessays Schuster.

At the Sales volume the RWA group recorded a decline in 2025. At 3.3 billion euros, this was six percent lower than in 2024. The segment was the main deciding factor Energywhich developed only cautiously in 2025. Also in the area Agricultural technology RWA can only reduce its high inventories slowly.

RWA board director Christoph Metzker reports a long-term decline in registration numbers. While there were 12,500 tractor registrations in 1972, there were only around 3,000 in the previous year; for combine harvesters there were around 1,000 in the 1970s and 85 in the previous year. The reason for this is the declining number of companies.

The economically particularly important one Agrar-Sparta The company’s sales remained stable compared to the previous year with sales of 1.9 billion euros. Schuster referred to the “extremely high volatility” of the agricultural markets, falling prices since December 2024 as a result of strong global harvests, as well as increased energy and input prices. 2026 will be above all dryness and geopolitical tensions like that Iran war stressful factors.

Expensive fertilizer because of the Iran war is hardly an issue in Austria

The Seed business was stable in 2025. At the Plant protection moving sideways, the use of active ingredients has been declining in Austria for years. In the fertilizer business Many warehouses and farmers have already stocked up in autumn 2025 due to expected increases in prices. The fact that the Iran war is now leading to price increases, especially for nitrogen, is hardly an issue. “The situation is currently relaxed. We don’t see any supply risks,” says Metzger.

Overall, the result before taxes was 1.6 million euros. The number of RWA employees remained stable last year at around 3,000, as did the number of domestic warehouse locations at around 1,000. These are run by around 70 economically independent companies Cooperatives – partly run as franchise locations – with a total of 12,000 employees. These warehouse cooperatives are in turn the owners of RWA AG.

The group will be in one by the end of 2027 Transformation projectin order to reduce net debt “step by step,” reports Schuster. Individual companies could also be sold – especially in Central and Eastern Europe, as it is said.