USMC / Navy Sales Director - USA

Citigroup Global Markets Australia and its affiliates have become a substantial shareholder in DroneShield Ltd, acquiring a 5.69% stake in the company. The investment comprises 52,537,753 ordinary fully paid shares. The substantial holder threshold was crossed on 5 August 2026. DroneShield received formal notice of the initial substantial shareholding from Citigroup on that date. The acquisition marks Citigroup's entry as a significant investor in the drone defence technology company, which is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange.

DroneShield share continues to weaken: analyst slashes price target. 29.07.26 10:10 a.m. DroneShield continues to grow strongly operationally according to preliminary figures, but the forecast remains below consensus. Research house Bell Potter draws consequences. * Bell Potter nearly halves price target for DroneShield share * Revenue guidance for 2026 clearly below analyst consensus * Contract for the Football World Cup turned out to be much smaller than hoped The DroneShield share takes a hit from analysts: After the drone defense specialist presented a weaker-than-expected revenue forecast for the current fiscal year on Tuesday, Bell Potter cut the price target from 4.80 to 2.50 Australian dollars. The buy recommendation remains nonetheless. Weak guidance despite strong growth. For the first half of 2026, DroneShield expects revenue of around 125.8 million AUD, an increase of 74 percent compared to the same period last year. For the full fiscal year, the company expects 250 to 270 million AUD, an increase of 15 to 25 percent compared to the 216.55 million AUD in fiscal year 2025. However, the analyst consensus had previously calculated with around 323 million AUD, so the company's own forecast is 17 to 23 percent below that. Additionally, the margin came under pressure: For the first half of 2026, a gross margin of around 60 percent is expected, compared to 65 percent in the same period last year. The company cited an increasing share of purchased third-party hardware, currency effects, and a write-down on raw materials as reasons. By July 28, 2026, 206 million AUD in orders for the current fiscal year were already booked, compared to 161 million AUD at the end of May 2026. To achieve its own guidance, DroneShield must therefore win and process orders worth 44 to 64 million AUD in the remaining five months. "Orders secured later in 2026 - and especially in the final months - are likely to count more toward secured revenues for CY27 and beyond," criticized the experts at Bell Potter according to The Motley Fool. Order for the Football World Cup falls short of the company's own narrative. The research house was also disappointed by missing orders related to the Football World Cup. DroneShield provided detection and defense technology for the host city Kansas City during the 2026 World Cup. However, Bell Potter had expected significantly more orders according to The Motley Fool. Of the total 325 million US dollars distributed by US authorities for drone protection across eleven states, DroneShield secured an estimated volume of only 5 to 10 million US dollars. "This result, which fell short of our expectations, suggests that DRO is initially achieving a lower market share in the US public safety market than established providers in this sector, such as Axon Enterprise," the analysts said. This discrepancy between DroneShield's self-cultivated image as a market leader in the government segment and the actual order outcome is likely to be more important for investors than the price target cut itself. Bell Potter cuts price target for DroneShield share for the second time in months. Already in February, Bell Potter had reduced the price target for the DroneShield share from 5.00 to 4.80 AUD after the fiscal year 2025 figures. The current cut to 2.50 AUD is now significantly sharper, but the stock is also trading clearly lower: Since the beginning of the year, the DroneShield share has lost around 41.3 percent in value in Sydney. On Tuesday alone, the paper crashed by 13.22 percent to 1.805 AUD after publication of the preliminary results. On Wednesday, the DroneShield share ultimately fell a further 0.83 percent to 1.79 AUD. Even with the drastically reduced price target, Bell Potter experts still see an upside potential of around 39 percent - and are also optimistic on another point: "We expect further contract wins, especially in Europe, where DRO holds a leading market position in the C-UAS-EW (Counter-UAS Electronic Warfare) segment - supported by next-generation products with a strong competitive advantage," they state in their analysis. Other houses also recently adjusted their expectations for the shares of the Australian drone defense specialist: Jefferies lowered the price target on July 23, 2026 from 2.80 to 2.05 AUD, and Ord Minnett reacted according to TipRanks to the preliminary figures by cutting the price target from 2.28 AUD to 1.60 AUD. Both gave a sell rating, unlike Bell Potter. Clarity on the figures and further prospects is likely to come from the audited half-year report, which DroneShield has announced for August 26, 2026. One day later, an investor conference follows, which should show whether management can dispel questions about margin and order quality. Carolin Ludwig, Editorial team finanzen.net This text is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an investment recommendation. finanzen.net GmbH excludes any liability claims. Selected leveraged products on DroneShield. With knock-outs, speculative investors can participate disproportionately in price movements. Simply select the desired leverage and we will show you suitable open-end products on DroneShield. | Name | Leverage | KO | Issuer | | No products available for this underlying with the selected leverage | Risk warning: On average, 7 out of 10 small investors lose money when trading turbo certificates. Turbo certificates are high-risk products and not suitable for long-term investment strategies. More DroneShield news. Image sources: Droneshield

DroneShield bags $23.2M European contracts as margins slip. DroneShield landed $23.2 million in European contracts, rolled out a new detection engine and lifted its full-year outlook, all in one hit on 28 July. The DroneShield $23.2 million European contracts came through a familiar face. COBBS BELUX BV, a reseller the Sydney company has worked with in the Benelux region for years, will pass the gear on to a European military buyer it won't name. The kit is vehicle-mounted counter-drone hardware, plus subscriptions, warranties and services. Of that total, about $21 million lands inside this year's committed revenue. The rest trickles in later as subscription income. Here's the bit worth chewing on. DroneShield says it doesn't think the end-customer's identity would move the share price. That's a careful line. Companies only write sentences like that when they've thought hard about what they legally have to tell the market. Read it as a nod to how closely this stock is being watched right now. Why the DroneShield counter-drone contracts in Europe keep coming. Europe has become the company's engine room. Back in December it booked a $49.6 million European deal, its biggest at the time. This new package is smaller, but it fits the same story: NATO-aligned buyers moving from testing drones defences to actually buying them at scale. The war in Ukraine did that. Cheap drones now do real damage, and every army near the fighting wants a way to knock them down or jam them. DroneShield sells exactly that. The company opened a European factory in June and set up a Polish supply chain a fortnight later. Poland spends more than 4% of its GDP on defence. Sitting close to that money is the whole point. So the contract isn't a shock. It's the tempo that matters. Deals this size have gone from rare to routine, and that changes how the numbers stack up. RfAI-3 and the shift from selling boxes to selling software. The second announcement got less attention but might mean more over time. DroneShield unveiled RfAI-3, the third version of its radio frequency detection engine. Visual output from RfAI-3 [Droneshield] The clever part is what it does with drones it has never seen. Older systems only spot an aircraft if it's already in a library, catalogued and named. RfAI-3 scans wide across the spectrum, compares an unknown signal against past ones, then builds a fresh signature on the spot with a confidence score for the operator. CEO Angus Bean put it bluntly. "The threat that matters most is the one we have not yet encountered, and by the time we encounter it a second time, it will have changed again," he said. He called software-defined radio a "genuinely dynamic battlespace" and framed RfAI-3 as the answer. That quote tells you where the head office is pointing. Bean took the top job in April after a decade inside the business, replacing Oleg Vornik. His plan leans on software and subscriptions rather than one-off hardware sales. RfAI-3, built for hardware that ships from late 2026, is that plan taking shape. The trading update hides a margin story. Now the money. First-half 2026 revenue is tipped at $125.8 million, up 74% on the year before. Committed revenue for the year sits at $206 million, near what the whole of 2025 brought in, with five months still to run. Full-year guidance is $250 million to $270 million. Committed revenue nearly doubled in seven months, hitting $206 million by late July. Big numbers. But run your eye down to the margin line. * 1H 2026 gross margin: about 60% * Same period last year: 65% * Full-year target the company still wants: around 65% Five points off the gross margin is the detail most headlines skip. DroneShield blames the sales mix, because it had to buy third-party hardware to fill these contracts, plus currency swings and a raw-material write-down tied to moving factories and switching on new software. None of that is fatal. Growing this fast costs money, and margins wobble when a business is bolting on capacity. But it's the kind of thing that bites at results time on 26 August if it drifts lower instead of recovering. Bean is banking on the company's own next-gen hardware and more subscription income to pull the margin back up in the second half. That's a promise, not a result yet. The market has stopped clapping. Here's the awkward truth an investor takeaway has to face. Wins like this used to send DRO flying. In 2024 it was the best performer on the ASX 200. Lately the stock has done the opposite, sliding through much of 2026 even as the order book swelled past $2 billion. Two clouds explain a lot of it. One is price. The stock still trades on a rich multiple, so any hiccup gets punished hard. The other is trust. An ASIC investigation into a November 2025 announcement and some director share sales has hung over the register for months. DroneShield itself isn't accused of wrongdoing, but the probe left a mark. That's why the "not material by omission" language in this announcement reads like a company minding its every word. For a reader weighing this up, the question isn't whether DroneShield can win contracts. It plainly can. The question is whether it can turn a $2 billion-plus pipeline into cash without the margin leaking or another governance stumble. The 26 August results are the next real test. FAQs. Q: How much are the new DroneShield European contracts worth? A: $23.2 million, with about $21 million landing in FY2026 committed revenue. Q: Who is the buyer? A: A European military end-customer, unnamed, supplied through reseller COBBS BELUX BV. Q: What is RfAI-3? A: DroneShield's third-generation RF detection engine that can identify drones not yet in its signature library. Q: What is DroneShield's full-year revenue guidance? A: Between $250 million and $270 million for FY2026. Q: When are the half-year results due? A: Wednesday 26 August, with an investor call the next morning. Q: Why did gross margin fall? A: Sales mix with third-party hardware, currency moves and a raw-material write-down from a factory relocation. Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. It does not account for your personal objectives, financial situation or needs. Figures are drawn from DroneShield's ASX announcement dated 28 July 2026 and are preliminary and unaudited. Share price and market data must be verified against live sources before acting. Investing in shares carries risk, including loss of capital. Seek advice from a licensed financial adviser before making any investment decision.