VOL 87 | FEB 2026
Finance Snapshot - December Financial Year To Date against Budget and Prior Year To Date. December is often a tricky month for a business, as whilst the employees are at home having fun and eating turkey or enjoying another glass of wine, the costs of the business like rent, rates and salaries carry on regardless. As such, the plan is generally to do well enough in the rest of the year that we can then afford a slower month. We duly had the slower month, with deliveries behind those budgeted, particularly to Rheinmetall. Unfortunately, this has been the story of the year so far. This in turn directly affects profits, and cash into the business. We remain behind budget on both. That said, we had notable wins in the month, with the successful trials of our OTAS/ Hawkeye MS kit unlocking millions in cash over the next few months. Well done all. This wont get us out of the overdraft hole we are in, but it significantly helps. Cohort our parent company, continue to support us; but we need to further increase orders, revenue, and profits that will then feed into repaying the overdraft. So, where are we: Orders won: we continue to have a great and growing order book. We enter the new calendar year with real confidence that this will grow significantly over the coming years. We were better than both budget and year to date, as our products remain really well received. We continue to need to improve our processes and planning in order to be ready for the increase in revenue these orders allow for. Revenue: we continue to struggle against our budgets here, as in particular Rheinmetal kit has been slower out the door than planned. That said, we are ahead of Prior Year, so let's take a moment to celebrate that. Profit: again, we are struggling here. The link between delivering for customers and profit is a strong one, and so it is no great surprise that when revenue is lower, profit is also lower. This really illustrates the value we store in getting the whole business aligned to improving our delivery rate for our customers, as then profits should rise. Cash: this has been a really difficult this year. We remain fortunate to be part of a financially secure group in Cohort plc. We did have a budget this year to repay the overdraft in full. And even with the good news on OTAS/ Hawkeye MS, this will now not happen, and whilst we need to prepare for the future revenue growth, we need to double down on efforts to appropriately spend our cash. Our company wide stock take has been now counted, and the work or checking through the balances will now be completed. It has been a mammoth task, and I would like to thank all involved for their efforts and keeping going to the end. We are learning a lot about what is on Epicor and this stock count has put us in a great position to improve the way this works further. Well done all -
- Laurie
marketing@chess-dynamics.com
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