Come on now, this is exactly why it’s such a mess—because people are involved and they’re still a bit semi-professional. The best part is that these guys came up with this in a sauna somewhere, and the idea is actually good. It’s just bound to be like this at the start. If they can bring any sense to this madness (never stop the madness, we’re going again soon), it’s going to be an absolute mega multibagger. Before that, though, we still have to slide a bit, and after that, everything needs to start going perfectly. A lot of “what-ifs,” but I don’t think this is a total scam. Just bungling.
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A bit of a follow-up to the mess surrounding Summa Defence from over a week ago, which related to the company’s CFO. Kauppalehti contacted CEO Huttunen to ask why the company decided to change its financial reporting to only include the year-end report and the half-year report right now. Huttunen suggested contacting the CFO for an answer, as he would be the right person to comment on the matter. However, it has not been disclosed anywhere, nor does it appear on the company’s website, who the company’s CFO is. Consequently, the reporter contacted the Chairman of the Board to clarify whether the CFO is authorized to comment on the company’s affairs. Apparently, at this point, there was some confusion between the CEO’s and the Chairman’s statements regarding whether the CFO belongs to the company’s management team or not.
In the end, Kauppalehti managed to get in touch with the CFO, who was apparently identified as Teppo Sipilä. Sipilä stated that he is not, in fact, the company’s CFO and that he cannot even indirectly comment on the company’s affairs. Contrary to Huttunen’s account, it turned out—straight from the “CFO” himself—that he was not the right person to explain the change in the company’s reporting practices after all.
Ultimately, the circle was completed when the interim CEO finally commented on the change in practice after first trying to pass the buck to someone else. The explanation is that the company is focusing more on the quality of reporting than the quantity and wants to lighten its own administrative burden by reducing the frequency of reporting. This would supposedly open up more opportunities for the company to execute its strategy. The Kauppalehti article, which includes a short interview with journalist Mikael Vehkaoja, can be found täältä.
I’ve come to the conclusion that the company simply does not have a CFO. That is probably one reason why the reporting practices are being changed. Of course, the company still needs to somehow squeeze out a Q4 bulletin. According to LinkedIn, Teppo Sipilä is looking for work. As the reporter mentioned in the Kauppalehti article, his profile shows no connection to Summa Defence. Some outsourced financial services were likely purchased from him, but they haven’t even bothered to list them on LinkedIn. Perhaps he doesn’t want to touch this outfit and doesn’t even want to mention it as a credential.
I am by no means belittling Sipilä in this regard; rather, the criticism is directed at Summa Defence for how a listed company can be in such a shambles and communicate, for example, that Sipilä and Vauhkonen are somehow involved in the company, while they themselves claim otherwise. It is no wonder that executives have been quietly heading for the exit one after another and seem to be distancing themselves.
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Poll. Does Summa belong on the stock exchange?
- Absolutely not!
- Yes!
- Perhaps, but a turnaround is needed.
0
äänestäjää
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96% are of the opinion that it doesn’t (or at least a shake-up is needed).
Without a stock exchange listing, nothing would be known about Summa Defence and we would have nothing to discuss. That’s why I hope that even junk companies are on the exchange. Summa has even more entertainment value than market value, and one can learn a lot from these if they want to.
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Sure, Summa provides plenty of material for discussion and wonder, as well as humor, but the stock exchange should be a place for serious companies, not some clown club. You can find humor elsewhere, but one would expect a bit more from the spearhead of the business world.
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In my opinion, a more relevant question than whether Summa belongs on the stock exchange is what kind of activities a listed company can engage in without regulatory authorities intervening at all. As recently as last summer, I considered Summa a low-quality company hyped up to a bubble valuation. Now, I consider it a scam. And I find it completely incomprehensible if a Finnish listed company is allowed to conduct the kind of investor communications Summa does without any consequences.
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In Finland, the Financial Supervisory Authority (FIN-FSA) is completely toothless and underfunded. It barely manages to handle the supervision of banks’ compliance with the Money Laundering Act and the cases delivered to it directly by the police.
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I’m not taking a stand on anything other than the hype and its impact on investing. An acquaintance of mine excitedly told me about a new Finnish defense industry company that a couple of colleagues had already invested a decent sum in as their very first stock investment. Inspired by this “surefire tip,” the plan was to also invest a relatively significant amount in this promising company relative to their personal finances. At the time, the share price was just over 10 cents.
We talked about it, and ultimately, my acquaintance decided not to invest, partly due to their financial situation and partly, presumably, because our discussion helped them understand the risks involved.
The next chapter of the story was written when my acquaintance noticed that the company’s share price had “jumped” to over two euros. They were regretful and noted that they had missed out on a really large sum of money. Well, we went through the reverse split and had a brief discussion about how much of the invested capital would actually be left.
This true story should raise the question of whether this kind of start to one’s stock market journey encourages future investing in stocks, or whether it becomes yet another lesson for new investors, after which stock investing is no longer seen as a viable option for their money.
And it’s not worth commenting on this post that risk is an essential part of investing, or whether it could have been deduced from the hype surrounding the company, or if one could have found indications of that risk by reading the company’s disclosures—the very risk that acted as the counterweight to the massive return expectations presented to new investors.
I’m not blaming anyone; I’m just stating that, in my opinion, a better outcome could have been achieved here. Although nobody knows the future, and this saga might still end brilliantly.
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I also got a ”tip” about this back in August; this was before the reverse split and the price was 40 cents. For me, it was enough to look into each company individually. I only had and still have faith in one company within its segment’s competition. So, in my books, multiple negatives just don’t add up to a plus. In the defense industry, quality is what matters, and in my view, these companies didn’t have enough of it.
This thesis could very well be wrong, and some NATO country might pick up on this. My own faith just isn’t there. The company’s fumbling and way of operating have only reinforced this perception.
I’ve only just started direct stock investing and am a novice at this, but it’s better to stick to indices if the investment plan is to invest based on what’s discussed on the sauna benches.
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Kauppalehti wrote today about key influencers in the maritime industry:
Regarding Summa, “Työvene grew 2.5-fold last year compared to the previous year,” the journalist reported. I, on the other hand, can tell you that the previous financial year was 1.5 times longer than the comparison period and already ended in the middle of last year. The journalist only compared the revenue of the financial years and did not adjust the comparison figures in any way based on their duration. I can also tell you that since last summer, the order backlog reported by Summa has decreased significantly.
I sent feedback to the journalist, as KL actually bothers to correct those nonsensical claims. Last time, following a remark, they corrected a claim stating that Summa is negotiating a 30 MEUR drone deal with a NATO country.
@Maija_Vehvilainen Couldn’t your publication sharpen its journalism at least in the case of such clear hype, instead of building a bubble with these absurd claims.
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Jerovit Investment Oy has continued shoveling shares out the door. Last month, a million shares were offloaded, representing 40% of their holdings. BBA Holopainen’s firm holoborg Oy offloaded half a million shares, or just under a fifth of its holdings. And it was surely nice to sell in January after the price pump. I bet a million landed in the bank account from that.
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There was a slightly different tone at the CMD. At the 1h45min mark: Capital Markets Day 2025 – Summa Defence
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It seems Jerovit’s and Holoborg’s shares have moved to nominee registers. Both have fallen below the 5% thresholds, so where are the flagging notifications?
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The question was indeed whether the CEO intends to sell shares, and now that he is selling, he is no longer the CEO 
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…this is unbelievable stuff. Speechless. But many others probably too..
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Likely in the same place as the company’s CFO? So, vanished like a fart in the Sahara, or alternatively, it’s an imaginary position. Nobody knows 
. Maybe the company hasn’t heard that these kinds of things need to be disclosed?
Compliance isn’t exactly the first word that comes to mind with this company, anyway.
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Nominee-registered shares in January totaled 12.789308 million shares (28% of the share capital), across nine nominee registers.
Increase from December +1.6 million shares. Source: Euroclear Helsinki, statistics: Foreign ownership of shares.
Total trading volume in January was only slightly more than 1.6 million shares.
The stock exchange release on 4.9.2025 at 16:30 explains what the reductions by Jerovit and Holoborg are. Like many others, they subscribed to shares at a price of 4.67, at least partly with borrowed money, and now with the price at 1.40, creditors are demanding additional collateral.
This lock-up duo hasn’t reported selling even a single share. As a tip, at least Holopainen answers the phone.
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So, by this subscription, do you mean the share swap agreement related to the merger, where they practically received new Meriaura shares in a share issue, paying for them in a share swap with shares of the “old,” i.e., newly established Summa Defence?
I won’t go into why the newly established Summa Defence company (whose equity was significantly negative when the merger agreement was made) was valued as it was just months after its founding. I just meant to say that “Jerovit and Holoborg” didn’t exactly put their own cold hard cash into the company at a price of 4.67 euros. Your text could have been understood that way. This was just the paper value of the shares in the share swap agreement. If, that is, you were referring to the share swap agreement.
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