perhaps we could just start off. We could go through the highlights, which Tino w ill run through for us.
Thank you, Mark. Revenue for the half year was AUD 23.4 million, with activity similar. Our EBITDA came in within guidance at negative AUD 0.2 million versus guidance of negative AUD 1 million to +AUD 1 million. Our cash at the end of the year was AUD 9.1 million. Our net debt vastly reduced to AUD 1.8 million, and we have AUD 8.8 million in undrawn facilities between our overdraft, trade loan, and also undrawn loans in preparation for equipment financing. Cash flows from operations during the half year was AUD 4 million, which was very strong, as our ASC contract kicked off. I'll push to Mark for the executive summary.
Thanks, Tino. Look, our revenue is down, and we had a slow start the first half of the year. There is a marine slowdown going globally, which we're having to deal with, and there's also defense work, which we've been working so hard to gain accreditation for and start on, is just seen all been legally delayed, unfortunately, which is not good. Our EBITDA and the NPAT were down a little, and we had a writedown, which brought it down to AUD 19.3 as a write-off. We EBITDA, we sort of within guidance, what we said around the AGM, which we predicted based on the activities we're likely to see in that time. Look, we've got a...
We took this non-cash impairment of AUD 24.8, which was associated with the gyrostabilizers. Tino will cover a bit later on, that was a review of the gyro operation as we moved into the Mark III gyros. Cash flows were actually strong, which occurs with us. As the turnover goes down, there's more cash available from, working capital requirements are reduced. The net proceeds from the capital raising are strengthening our balance sheet, pleased to say that we still have all that available to us, we haven't used any of that. The propeller revenue was only down a little, even though there was this global marine slowdown. We've managed to stay within 9%, which does indicate that we've been increasing our market share, which is important.
Some of our larger clients are indicating some of them have gone back 50% over the last year. We're sort of seeing a bit of a slowdown, and I believe this will pick up towards the end of this calendar year. That we're looking forward to that. The revenue from Defense was down because we're in between ASC contracts. That was delayed due to necessary negotiations of re-signing our six-year contract. Now we've placed a lot of orders, and I believe we've placed over AUD 10 million worth of orders that ASC have placed on us. That's really positive from our perspective, and there's a bit more to come, and that'll be arriving Q3 of this financial year into the next quarter of next financial year.
We launched back in October, we launched the Gyro Mark III, and also the VEEM Extreme range of propulsion gear. The Mark III, though, is, it is the culmination really of the last 5 or 6 years of engineering work, which is a transitional gyro to the one that we perhaps felt we always should have. It's extremely reliable, and it has very, very low through-life costs. We'll see these leads will turn into reality once the Mark III are on the market later this year. We sort of look at this year as a transitional year. We've picked up a lot of costs in bringing the Mark III to market and developing those, and the VEEM Extreme range of propellers and propulsion systems.
The cost of developing those and turning them into production items and sales has all been going on, and the defense market has been particularly slow. The government shutdown in the U.S. didn't help that, of course, but what we're seeing, that's all moving to the right, but we are moving and dealing with a lot more defense customers. Just perhaps the next slide there, Tino, would be good. What we did is, we like to put this graph in to show where the company's been working since it was a public company. Obviously, this year will be little different to that, but the general trend is that, and we expect it to get back onto that trend in 2027. We've got some panels here of all our products.
Propulsion is obviously the busy one and the biggest one at the moment. We've spent the last year developing the VEEM Extreme, which was launched back in October. What we now have to do is, it's all well to launch it, test the prototypes, release the results, but now we have to develop the production methods for making these propellers, and that is very intensive, and that's where we're in at the moment. The results have been spectacular, and just with our rudder and propeller, which we've been trialing and have now got on other boats, we're seeing about an 18% reduction in fuel burn compared to a standard hand-finished commercial propeller and an industry-basic parallel plate rudder. Very basic, but it's what they use a lot of.
That's an enormous reduction in fuel burn, and pays for it over a very short period. We've been also working on the shaft and the bracket that holds it to the hull, the shaft to the hull, and that's due for testing. It'll be tested before June 30. We think there may be another 4 odd % in that. We've got to test that and verify it, but we do believe we'll be certainly putting out a system which will give, I would suggest, a little over 20% fuel reduction. Along with the fuel reduction, comes the carbon footprint reduction and the ability to generate carbon credits.
We see this as a very significant product that we're bringing into production now, and over the rest of this year, we'll see all this come to fruition, and we expect to see sales, more sales towards the end of the year into next year of complete systems. It's, it's all happening now. We have our first contract for 6 vessels and rudders, and now we're developing rudders for a couple of other clients globally to bring them in, that's all good. Well, along with that, we have a facility expansion going on here with about 1,000 square meters and 3 more machines that are arriving probably in April. They'll probably be running in May. That's a necessary space we need as soon as the market recovers.
Later this year, we'll need them for normal production, but also the VEEM Extreme takes longer in these machines, being a material which is, has twice the strength, so it is, takes longer to machine and we'll need it for the rudders and brackets as well. It's very timely, in fact, that it's coming on, coming into production for us. On the defense side, as I said a bit earlier, we're dealing with four international defense customers and seven Australian ones, so that's growing and growing. We've seen some quite extraordinary delays, particularly with the Hunter Class, where, whilst we now finally have our secret accreditation, our certificate, which took six months after completing all the necessary requirements, which was quite extraordinary from our perspective.
Now that certificate's gone off to our customer in Sweden, they have to go to their customer in England to get approval. We have Sweden approval. We do not have British approval, and that could take another 2 to 6 months. That's the kind of delays defense have, and then once we've got all that organized, then we can then start looking at the production side. Much later than what we thought, but once it's running, you know, the Hunter Class program and other Type 42 opportunities is good, steady work for 20 years. We also have the AUKUS opportunities.
What we're seeing with the overseas companies in America, we're seeing now we have 3, 2 of the majors and 1 of the very, major subcontractors to them, that we're in negotiations with terms and conditions, working on going forward, and getting tenders, more specifications. This is all a slow, steady progress. It's all happening now at the moment, but it's been delayed. We've got, I think it's, there's been 5 people working on defense accreditations for the last year. We're carrying that half a million dollar cost as well at the moment. The Gyro has been a bit of a, I think a bit of a victim of the slowdown in the marine sector. We've seen similar products that are well-established halving their volumes.
This one is not a surprise that we haven't seen sales, particularly in light of the fact we've released the Mark III, told the market, and they'll come out progressively over this calendar year. Everyone's waiting, we've got a bit of a double effect there. The Mark III is certainly the product we think we perhaps should have always had. The improvements mean that moving into this no scheduled maintenance regime is a huge bonus for the operators, and we've now got ourselves an extremely robust product. Engineering side, all going on well. It seems to have, I think it's done very well, considering in Western Australia, the nickel industry is now gone and the coal-fired power stations are slowing down.
That's gone quite well, and Hollow Bar being a very positive part of this as well. I think that's always good to, good to see, continuing on in our business. I'll hand across. If, Tino, you could go through the financial results.
Thank you, Mark. From our P&L, Mark has touched about prepared revenue was slightly down but resilient in the face of a softer marine market, which we're seeing green shoots of improvement starting right at the end of last calendar year and into this quarter. We're optimistic, and as Mark has touched on, everyone thinks that by the time we get to the end of the year, we'll be really hitting our straps. VEEM Extreme inquiries have been robust. Mark will talk later about how that rollout is happening, starting off with some launch customers, which will start us off.
ASC revenue was down 65% due to the delayed delivery of orders. That was important in terms of buttoning down the new contract and making sure it worked for both parties. Those orders are now in hand. We've started delivering into them. That'll underpin defense revenue into the second half, particularly while we carry on with the work Mark mentioned, with qualification with other defense contractors, which will then hopefully come online as we finish the work in relation to these orders. Engineering products and services was steady. As Mark talked about, in the face of anecdotal evidence and nickel industry and the like, which have been coming down, we continue to receive work in that area as we have.
Not a huge or big growth sector in the business, but steady and reliable. Part of the result obviously includes costs which we've incurred to bring our products to market, so Gyro Mark III, VEEM Extreme, and also costs we are incurring to do our qualifications for defense contractors, particularly the U.S. This has particularly been big in the IT section, so cybersecurity and making sure our systems are robust. We'll then obviously see that investment we've made will pay dividends as the revenue comes through, and the revenue will be multiples of that, so there'll be a big inflection when that happens. We've also taken a pre-tax non-cash impairment of AUD 24.8 million in relation to gyros.
The lack of sales in the half was an impairment indicator, and management and the board looked at that and took this opportunity to write that off with some of those costs relating to the original Mark I, which we did have some issues with back in the past. Mark II has been far more robust and good in the market, but our advancements with Mark III mean that there's a lot of that technology we're making redundant, which is how we're gonna be able to do things like the no scheduled maintenance and the bearing technology that's gonna reduce power. That has resulted in that write down, and also AUD 600,000 of inventory, which relates to Mark II, which we won't be using going forward.
In terms of the positives on the balance sheet, our AUD 13.1 million net proceeds from the capital raising strengthened that balance sheet. We ended the half year with AUD 9.1 million in the bank, and ended January with about AUD 10 million in the bank. We have AUD 8.8 million in unused facilities. That's across our trade loan overdraft, and also, facilities granted for equipment that's on the way. Cash flow from operations during the half was strong at AUD 4 million, and that's a result of the commencement of the next stage of ASC. Some of it is a working capital adjustment, as we received deposits to begin that work.
We raised AUD 13.1 million net from our capital raise, and we repaid AUD 1.1 of hire purchase liabilities, as well as eliminating our overdraft, and eliminated the rest of our trade loan at the end of January. At the end of January 2026, our cash balance had risen to AUD 10.3 million. Now, putting on to what Mark had spoken about earlier in terms of the disappointment we had with the U.S. government shutdown that delayed our entry into the U.S. defense and work around that money has really been held in reserve as a result of those delays. As you can see, we started with AUD 13.1 million net debt at the end of June 2025.
That reduced to AUD 1.8 million, and now a net cash position of AUD 200,000, and that's after our net proceeds of AUD 13.1 million. Essentially, those net proceeds from our capital raising are still there. The business, essentially outside of that, generated a little bit of cash in the half year. That's showing the resilience of the underlying business, but also now we'll be hitting our straps in terms of pursuing those defense opportunities, and we're looking forward to working with all those contractors. Mark has mentioned we're working with 11 all up, so a lot of work going into that. I'll now hand over to Mark to talk about the different sections of the operation separately.
Thanks, Tino. I've alluded to a lot of what's occurring in propulsion at the moment, and this is covering that in more detail. The VEEM Extreme range is a real first globally, and it's not just the design side of what we're doing here, it's the new development of what we've developed in terms of materials, which we will apply for a patent for. The ability to have corrosion-resistant materials with very high strength is very rare, and they're traditionally reasonably difficult to cast. We've developed those techniques, and that's actually a picture you can see on the screen there of a VEEM Extreme propeller. They come up looking beautiful, but they're also very strong.
They're almost double the strength of the bronzes that we were using previously, and they have very high corrosion resistance, so which is very, very important. The whole shaft line package is what we're now putting forward. We don't make a lot of shaft line packages, and haven't historically done so, but this will. Because it involves using a smaller shaft in many cases, and with the high-tech brackets and rudders, they will gain so much advantage by using a complete package. We believe that that's what we'll be selling very quickly. We have also offered a retrofit package, which is a propeller and rudder, which will give them as much as 18% of an improvement, dependent upon what their current configuration is.
It means that they can fit these products overnight and be back in the water the next day, so it won't interrupt their operations at all, and they can enjoy the benefits. For new builds, of course, they can gain that extra advantage by using the bracket and the shaft that on the new builds boat, which is quite easy. Manly Ferries are really keen, and I think we mentioned at the AGM, they've signed up for six more boats for the propellers but they wouldn't sign the contract until we agreed to make them a set of rudders. We're actually going to production with those, I think, next week. So that and if they're as successful as they were on our boat, then we will produce another six sets for them.
Of course, we've been contacted by Sydney Pilots and the Sydney Ferries, because they are also looking to reduce their carbon footprint. This is gonna grow legs, and we're dealing with a couple of companies in America, and now, we've got, I think the next target is we've got some customers in Italy, in the superyacht area, that we'd like to turn our attention to. There's a couple of customers there, very, very keen. We're getting a lot of contact around the world, and it's gonna be very positive, but we have to just be careful.
There's a lot of development work in the designs, and we have to develop what's known as parametric models on the rudders and the brackets, so we can automate the design process, which is what you have to do, and we've done with propellers, necessary to get the cost efficiencies out of the product. It's a process of doing a sample of vessels that we can then use the results from to build up that model. It takes time. We'll do it over the next year, and a lot of work in engineering at the moment going on behind the scenes. The results so far have been extraordinarily impressive. On top of this, what we've done is, by developing this material, it's also applicable to Sharrow.
We're still working with Sharrow, and we are producing some Sharrows at the moment, but they're still developing the design side of this to optimize the performance. Certainly, with the VEEM Extreme materials, we're taking everybody forward on that journey, and we believe that the Sharrow propellers will see the same benefits from VEEM Extreme that we've seen on our product range. We are very still walking in lockstep with them and allowing them the space to develop, their product, the technical side of that product, so we can manufacture it. Let's move on to defense. Defense has been interesting. ASC work, as you know, goes up and down over the years, and we're just about to go into our upside, and we're gonna be very, very busy.
We are talking to a number of other people Australia-wide. I think the overall defense accreditation going to secret level, and now working with a number of these other companies, means that when people contact us, they have the confidence. There is a defense contractor in Australia that has made contact with us, and we're moving forward very quickly because we already have all of the necessary Australian accreditations in place. It didn't help us that the American government shut down for 6 weeks. It's taken them a further 6 or 7 weeks after that just to catch up on that work. Things we thought we would see, you know, around the time of our AGM last year, we're only just starting to see now. Obviously, there is a bit of a slowdown in that space.
They're very, very supportive. We've seen from people like the HII's, Electric Boat Company, Northrop Grumman , they're all on board with bringing Australian companies into the AUKUS program, and we're one of the first companies coming in, so a very positive result. They want this to work, and they are going to be sending us tenders. I think our last audit for them is in April, so we should start to see things start to move up from that point. It's just taken a lot longer. It's got to march to its own drum, and not having the experience in this before, we're a little surprised it takes this long, but that's it. It just has to go through its journey. Very pleased to be in that space. As I said, already dealing with 11 people is quite good.
I do expect more from Australia, perhaps from the missile program and for as AUKUS gets closer. We're spending our time marketing in that area as well at the Sea-Air-Space Conference in Washington, and we'll be there in the next few months just to pursue all the leads that we've got so far. Looking very good, but delayed. Okay, the next one, the gyros. We've talked a fair bit about this. The Mark III has got this mechanical oiling system we've applied for a patent for. Which means that the oil pumping system that's critical to the operation and success of this model is now mechanical, and it is absolutely 100% reliable forever. We have been using, up to this point, electric pumps, which have proved to be quite problematic.
Whilst we have now developed new electric pumps, and have them and are using them, we still feel that the ultimate solution is what the Mark III's got. That's the end of the equation. We can remove all the seals from inside the ball or the gyro, which have to be changed regularly, reduce the cost of the through-life cost. A major service, one of these units, even the small ones, is over AUD 20,000. That's all gone. The way we're marketing it is, the retrofit kit we've developed with it can be sold to our existing customers for around the same price as a major service, and then they won't see us again. From here on in, it'll just be small filter changes and oil sampling, to run that gyro.
Of course, we have telemetry, which enables us to monitor the gyro at all times. That's a really important feature. We're also moving to a lower friction bearings, which are coming down the track as well. Sometime this year, they will appear, and that's a great thing. On a boat, there's limited power. We'll have gyros with around 20% less power consumption. Of course, the tidying things up, because we make our own castings here, we've been able to incorporate all of the fluids being moved around the gyro. We've incorporated them into the casting, which means all the pipework has disappeared off the gyro, off the ball of the gyro. That's about 60 points of potential leakage. We have eliminated that, again, making the unit much more robust.
We just found that this year, people are waiting for the new models, there's a bit of hesitancy, and the slowdown in the global marine market has meant we just have to be patient. There is a lot of leads we have at the moment that we think will be very fruitful. We just have to be patient. We are still the largest supplier of the biggest gyros globally, and it still is a billion-dollar a year market around that number. We still see it as a very important product for VEEM going forward. It is the product we've got here that can turn over very large amounts of turnover, and that hasn't changed.
I think our product has developed to the point where now we've got something which we believe is the best in its class, and we think it'll bring the success that we want. Engineering products and services, it continues on as always. Forever Pipe, going well, everything's good. We've found that the demand is still there, and that will continue on as normal. For the outlook We're looking forward. We expect the global demand for propellers to pick up in the second half of this financial year and into beyond. And we think the VEEM Extreme, that is gonna be a game changer for us, because every propeller that we used to sell, if they move to VEEM Extreme, we'll be selling five times that value at a higher margin.
The VEEM Extreme, we're targeting particular target customers that are of great value to us, where we get good feedback, and key customers. One of our key customers in the US, once they make the change to our product, the rest of the market will tend to follow. A very powerful influencer in that space, and we have an excellent working relationship with them for over 20 years. Obviously expanding the range, and automation is still driving us, so there's continual automation going into the business, including in our foundry. We're just installing now, a 3D sand printer, where we can start printing molds, printing our own cores, specialist cores for castings. We are using more robotics, and that's a continued drive for us.
If we want to compete on the global stage, we have to be highly automated and highly efficient. We're still marching down that path. The defense side of it, I think everyone can see the future of that is growing and growing. The fact that we're in contact now and negotiating with 11 companies is terrific news from VEEM's perspective, and they will all fall into place over the next 12-18 months. The demonstrator program for the Hunter is great. We're a bit sad that that's taken so long to get through the government review processes. Unfortunately, no one was able to tell us any of this when we finished our accreditations last May. There's a very lengthy review process.
I guess, in hindsight you'd say, "Well, you are going to secret," I guess there should be a lot of scrutiny and review, but it's certainly been a long, a long time. We'll move into the manufacturing program, I would imagine, in the back half of this year and into, I guess 2027 is when we'll start manufacturing. Look, it's looking very strong. We're very well positioned, and we know that AUKUS is still strong, and there's a lot of other defense programs as well that we're hooking into. On gyros, yep, Mark III, I'm so excited. It's the product it always should have been, in my opinion, and it's with a new concept, a new technology. It just takes time to develop. We're certainly seeing the Mark II had significant improvements out in the marketplace.
The Mark III is what I call the killer, so it's gonna go very well. Engineering is steady, which is great. General speaking, and we reduced our overheads during the year, which is really important. On an annualized basis, about AUD 3.5 million, just to make sure we're running as lean and as keen as possible. There may well be, with the automation we're putting in place, we won't necessarily be growing back to the same amount of people in those areas. It's, that's probably a, a good thing that we can grow with automation rather than having to bring more people back in. That's the end of the presentation. Any questions from anyone?
Thank you, Mark and Tino. Just a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please do so via the Q&A function down the bottom of the screen there. Just the first question, Mark, does the VEEM Extreme directly compete with a Sharrow shaft drive propeller?
It's interesting that, it probably doesn't, because the VEEM Extreme will be using the same materials. If you look at the Sharrows in bronze and our propellers in bronze, we believe the Sharrow will show advantages over our propeller. We expect the same difference, with the new materials, 'cause they'll both be available in VEEM Extreme. We still think that Sharrow ultimately, perhaps be even more efficient, but it's up to Sharrow, with their development work, to be able to bring them into the market and demonstrate that, and we simply manufacture those. I don't mind which one becomes the most efficient product in the world, because we'll be manufacturing, both of them. I think we're in a very strong position.
Thank you, Mark. Next one. Just regarding the Sharrow JV, I'm just wondering how you see that evolving over the next two years?
At the moment, we've extended our agreement with them, which enables them to work directly with their customers and design the propeller, and we simply manufacture then for Sharrow, and they deliver it to the customer. I think that is a much more efficient arrangement, and they're very happy with that arrangement, and we've extended it by six months. What we see is, as they go into the marketplace more and more, they're selling more and more. At some point, when their designs are finalized, it makes a great deal of sense for VEEM to then take over that marketing, distribution role and sales role, because we have such a large global spread. It's really going, looking at it every six months, we review it with them, and we're working together in lockstep to achieve the best result for Sharrow.
Thank you. Does VEEM expect any flow-on from the recently announced landing craft projects?
Yes. In a nutshell, we are very interested in the propulsion side of these vessels. We are already in discussions on the larger landing craft on the propulsion side. The smaller landing craft uses water jets, so that won't be an area that we'd necessarily be involved in, but because Austal are literally 25 minutes drive away, and we do a lot of work for them, we are staying in very close contact to see what else might come of that project. There may well be other fabrication and manufacturing, which we'll be able to tender on.
Okay, a question from Alex Lou, of Morgans. The reduction in overhead costs of around AUD 3.5 million, was that mostly labor? If so, are you confident you can add labor back when volumes improve?
Yes, I'm happy to take that one. Yes, most of that was labor, but that's overhead. We've made sure, obviously, not to, reduce our capabilities in terms of skills for the products we have. There was a natural reduction coming after the products were launched, and there was a natural peak there. Also other costs were overhead costs, which we, rationalized. Certainly in terms of where we're going forward, Mark has talked about automation. Some of those roles won't be required, but used by automation. Some of that, what we expect to grow going forward, means we'll be able to do more with less. We're very comfortable. It was certainly a considered decision.
Other costs were also within the business, not personnel-related, That's just a means of making sure we're as lean and as keen as possible going forward.
All right. Thank you, Tino. A question from James Tracy from Blue Ocean Equities. Can you please comment on U.S. Defense demand? Are there any subcontractors making inquiries?
Yes, indeed, particularly in the submarine program. We've seen Northrop Grumman, who do a lot of work for both Electric Boat Company and HII, and they're very keen, and they're one of the companies we're dealing with very closely. It is the submarine area of the business is most... However, one of the early tenders was for the aircraft carrier program. HII do both, and there's a demand in particular areas in America where we specialize. They were the first inquiry. They are struggling with their non-ferrous foundry industry as well. High-quality non-ferrous foundries are in short supply globally, and that's what we specialize in. That seems to be of great interest to them, and we're really excited because it's something we do very well.
We don't have to invent anything new to do this. We just have to adapt what we do. They've been very receptive and very proactive for defense. When we go to Sea-Air-Space, they have offered to introduce us to their supplier network. We're obviously going to pursue that with them. We expect to be introduced to more and more, and everyone's keen because they know that the AUKUS program is alive, and there's a great degree of support and responsibility for making it work.
If I can just add from Mark there, in terms of a financial point of view, you've seen in this half, where we have a big drop in defense revenue of 65%, entry into US defense is really gonna help us change that and have a step change. Collins-class work has shown that it's very long, the longevity is great, so from the 90 days we've been doing that. Obviously, with that work, we're constrained by the limited number of Collins-class vessels, so that market and that work we do is based on those refits and isn't really growing, and obviously they're going to be retired over the next decade or two. Going into US defense, then that should enable us to increase that revenue gradually. With the production they're trying to achieve, they have a lack of supply.
Also, even when that program is complete, which is a multi-decade program, there'll be all the submarines that have come out of that for sustainment work and other work, which is similar to what we're doing with Collins. Going forward, well, our aim is to have less variability in defense. As we push forward and with each half year, step up that revenue, we then shouldn't have this sort of, you know, a half where you can have, you know, a greater than 50% drop because we'll have consistent, steady revenue going forward. It's taking time, and it's something that we're working on, but that's definitely a very positive outlook that's gonna make the business steadier and also mean we can grow with more certainty in terms of overheads and other products, et cetera.
There's a big advantage to that we're working towards.
Right. Thank you, Tino and Mark. A follow-up question from James. How big could the U.S. defense opportunity be?
They make 10,000 castings per submarine. Pretty big. It's very hard to get information from any of these customers because it's all secret, but we were able to find out that on submarine, 10,000 castings. There's lots of opportunities for VEEM. It will be much bigger than what we're currently doing in the submarine program here, and there's more players. We've got to work and see how that is, but we think it will be significantly high. I think, Tino, you put some conservative numbers together on this.
Yes, we did just some very back-of-the-envelope work and, you know, we're sort of saying if we are doing, say, AUD 10 million in ASC work, equivalent would translate to maybe AUD 20 million-AUD 25 million as we grow and enter. I mean, we really had a, you know, all the way up to, say, AUD 100 million in blue sky territory, in which case, you know, we then bump up against constraints of space here and all that sort of stuff. Really, in terms of opportunity, it's very large.
Of course, there's a local Australian defense work going on. We're building tanks, we're building unmanned vessels. We're shortly building missiles. I think there's quite a lot of opportunities for VEEM in these spaces, and we are very well qualified to be able to tender into that space. The accreditation we've got will go a long way. It's expensive to get, it's expensive to run, but it opens many doors.
All right. Thank you, Mark and Tino. That concludes the Q&A segment of the webinar. I'll now hand it back to Mark for a closing comment.
Thank you, Ben. This is a transitional year for VEEM. We're moving to releasing such significant products that are world-leading products, in the VEEM Extreme and the Mark III gyros. They're enormous tasks. We had to announce them in October, because we were at the trade shows, as the big ones are in October in Fort Lauderdale at FLIBS, and METS in Amsterdam. If we don't release them then, you've got to wait a year. It's critical they're released. Now our engineers are working really hard to transition from the first designs and testing into production. Very much a transitional year for both those products. Defense has been delayed a little, but we're trans-positioning into more defense and more international defense.
It didn't help us that there's been a global slowdown, and a significant one in the marine sector, which appears to be. We can see the signs, the green shoots now, and certainly by the end of this calendar year, I believe things will be back to normal. That's what we're dealing with at the moment, and we're very excited, and we're very busy, but we've just had to deal with this slowdown as well. Obviously, not something we wanted to see, but certainly 2027, we'll see ourselves back on track, I believe.