RC Fornax plc
RC Fornax plc is a veteran-founded, AIM-listed UK consultancy that provides outsourced engineering, technical and programme management services to the UK Ministry of Defence and defence primes, covering land, sea and air platforms (fighter aircraft, naval vessels, drones, military vehicles). It operates a managed-services model delivered under Statements of Work, drawing on an in-house team plus a security-cleared associate network, and is developing an AI-driven 'SME Procure' platform to connect SMEs with defence buyers.
FY2025 in sixty seconds
year to 31 Aug 2025 · approved 23 Feb 2026 · 72 pages · Companies House
RC Fornax, which supplies engineering and project management services to the Ministry of Defence and large defence contractors, saw revenue fall to £4.1m in the year to 31 August 2025, from £6.4m the year before. It went from a profit to a loss before tax of £1.6m.
The company blamed delays in defence buying around the government's Strategic Defence Review, which meant fewer leads became contracts than expected. Running costs also rose sharply because of more staff, recruitment and fees linked to its stock market listing. A one-off settlement with a former director added cost.
New shares raised £3.4m during the year, and £910k was spent, mostly on fitting out a new Bristol headquarters. Year-end cash was £892k, with £323k of borrowings. A dividend was paid before the listing, but no final dividend is proposed for the year. A further £2.1m was raised after the year end. Management warned that uncertainty over the timing of government defence spending plans continues, but expects to return to profit in due course. The auditor gave a clean opinion. Four customers provide most of the revenue.
Statement of Work (SoW) managed-services contracts with MOD and defence primes
Operating model centres on delivery of managed services under SoW, transferring deliverable/programme responsibility to RC Fornax while ensuring IR35 compliance
page 4SDR-related procurement delays and slower pipeline conversion
Gross margin fell to 23.36% (£950,686 gross profit) from 24.27% (£1,563,158) as revenue fell from £6.44m to £4.07m
page 70FY25 tested our agility and resilience in a year of profound change for the defence sector...revenue and adjusted loss reflect the impact of SDR-related procurement delays that did not result in the conversion of leads at the rate initially expected, and our deliberate investment in capability.
page 6No final dividend recommended for FY25 (loss-making year). Interim dividends of £163,625 were paid prior to the IPO in February 2025 (FY24: £564,565), declared by the founder directors. Following the IPO and move into negative distributable reserves, no further dividends were declared or paid, as distributions may only be made from accumulated realised profits.
page 312 years on one page · FY2024–FY2025
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GBP millions, negatives in brackets. Per-share lines in pence. Share counts in millions. Margins and returns as percentages, calculated from the filed figures. later is what a following report restated the figure to; vs is a second reading that disagrees. The figure shown is the one the original filing printed, and both readings are kept. Click any figure: opens the report page it was read from, highlighted; shows how it was calculated.
Nothing restated
Nothing to compare yet: that takes a second report, which prints the first year's figures again.