In 2025 Airbus and Leonardo together received €523 million of dividends from MBDA, more than the €361 million of MBDA profit they recognised between them, while Leonardo owed the missile group €1.553 billion at the year-end. Their summaries of the same company’s balance sheet agree on revenue, profit and total current assets, yet report cash and cash equivalents of €7.379 billion and €1.283 billion respectively. Thales Alenia Space, by contrast, lost €86 million and showed €4 million of cash in Leonardo’s summary, while Thales states that its cash is pooled centrally and the company inaugurated a satellite factory in Rome financed through public, shareholder and lease funding. A share of profit recognised under the equity method is not cash received; a dividend is not necessarily paid out of the same year’s earnings; and cash reported for an investee may sit inside a shareholder’s treasury. These distinctions matter for European rearmament because the location, legal availability and contractual use of cash determine whether financial resources become working capital, equipment and accepted capability. The unresolved question is how far parent-level metrics reveal the resources actually available to Europe’s shared defence-industrial companies.