EOS's biggest counter-drone deal starts with EOS posting the collateral

A £370m Gulf contract that cannot begin until the contractor puts up guarantees and wins export licences.

Electro Optic Systems has signed the largest contract in its history, a £370m (~A$700m) nation-wide counter-drone system for an unnamed Gulf Cooperation Council state, but it is not yet live: performance cannot start until conditions are met, and EOS says there is no guarantee if or when that happens.^[1]

The conditions are the story. EOS has already posted a £37m performance bond, 10% of contract value, secured by a £40.3m cash deposit at a commercial bank. It still has to provide a £74m bank guarantee against a matching £74m customer advance, and obtain export licences for system components within two months of receiving the customer's paperwork. It also needs consents and "further accommodation" from WHSP and its guarantee providers.^[1]

The core is NiDAR, the command-and-control layer EOS picked up with MARSS. Radar, electro-optical and sonar sensors and the initial hard-kill and soft-kill effectors are third-party. EOS is the integrator, which explains the cash profile: it flags a "significant short-term working capital funding requirement" expected to turn positive in mid-2027. More than 80% of revenue is expected within 12 to 24 months of the contract going unconditional; about 20% is four years of support.^[1]