CSG Fires Back at Short Seller With Production Data as Stock Hovers Near Floor

Czechoslovak Group's shares tumble 36% in a month after Hunterbrook Capital alleges ammunition production is mostly reselling; rebuttal halts decline but stock remains near year low with Q1 results due May 20.

The Czechoslovak Group is fighting to restore investor confidence after a short seller attack sent its shares tumbling, but the ammunition maker’s detailed rebuttal has only managed to halt the slide — not reverse it. The stock closed Friday at €15.98, barely above its 52-week low of €15.73, after losing more than a third of its value over the past month.

Hunterbrook Capital struck at the heart of CSG’s credibility on May 4, alleging the defence and engineering group generates most of its ammunition revenue through reselling and refurbishing old stock rather than from its own manufacturing. The Amsterdam-listed shares plunged as much as 26% intraday before trading was briefly suspended, ultimately closing down 13% on the session.

CSG wasted no time in pushing back. The company called the report a selective and distorted reading of publicly available data, defending the disclosures made in its January initial public offering documents and its 2025 annual report. It stressed that its ammunition production is not concentrated at a single site but spread across factories in Slovakia, Greece, Serbia, Spain and India.

At the centre of the dispute is how much ammunition CSG actually makes itself. The company said it produced roughly 630,000 rounds of large-calibre munitions last year, with plans to increase that figure to 1.1 million over the medium term. It also confirmed that a €275 million receivable — a legacy from the sale of non-core assets ahead of the IPO — had been settled in full during the first quarter, exactly as outlined in the prospectus.

The rebuttal has done little to repair the technical damage. The stock sits 40% below its 50-day moving average of €24.56, signalling deep bearish momentum. On a weekly basis, the loss stands at 14.76%, while the 30-day decline has reached 36.09%. The shares are now within striking distance of retesting their lowest point in a year.

CSG’s heavy reliance on the defence sector — roughly 78% of 2024 revenue came from military products — means any doubts about production capacity hit the stock especially hard. Hunterbrook’s report questioned not just the volume of output but the nature of the business itself, implying CSG acts more as a trader than a manufacturer.

The next chapter arrives on May 20, when CSG publishes its first-quarter 2026 results. The interim report will put real numbers on order conversion, cash generation and production ramp-up. For a company that has just been forced to defend its very operating model, those figures will carry more weight than any press release.