Kayaku's Vsetín plant earned CZK 612m from operations and kept CZK 309m, and tax alone does not explain the gap

Earned at the top, lost in the middle

CZK 612m earned, CZK 309m kept. That is the year to March 2026 at Kayaku Safety Systems Europe a.s., a maker of automotive safety components in Vsetín, eastern Moravia. Operating profit is what the plant makes from producing and selling, after materials, wages, energy and the wear on its machines. Net profit is what remains for the shareholders after everything else. Between those two lines, a sum not far short of the net profit itself went somewhere other than the owners.

The figures cover the company on its own, not a wider group, under Czech accounting standards, in Czech koruna. The financial year runs from April 2025 to the end of March 2026. The a.s. is a Czech joint stock company; its shares do not need to trade on any exchange. KPMG Česká republika Audit gave the statements an unqualified opinion, so the question is not whether the numbers are right. It is where the difference went.

The timing gives the question an audience. In October 2026 the company registered a change of control and new members of its administrative board, including a new chair. Kayaku uses the one-tier model Czech law allows: a single administrative board (správní rada) in place of the usual management board and supervisory board. A new owner reads the same income statement, and the gap is the first thing on it that needs explaining.

Tax, then financing, then one-offs

Only a few things can sit between operating profit and net profit. I would take them in order.

First, income tax. Czech corporate tax takes a fixed share of taxable profit, and that share is modest. On a profit of this size it would leave the bottom line far closer to the top line than it is here. Tax is part of the gap. It cannot be all of it.

Second, financial items. Interest paid on loans, including loans from a parent company, lands here. So do gains and losses on foreign exchange. A Czech plant in a foreign group typically buys materials and sells much of its output in euros while reporting in koruna. When the koruna moves, receivables, payables and any group loans are revalued, and the result goes below operating profit, not above it.

Third, one-off items: a write-down of an investment, a provision for a dispute, a loss on a sold asset. These do not repeat, which is exactly why they matter. A year with a large one-off says little about the next one.

The bridge between the two lines, split into those three parts, is the figure that would settle which one dominates here. Once tax is set aside, though, the remaining candidates are financing, currency and one-offs, and each points to a different conversation with the new owner.

The machines behind the operating line

The top of the statement has its own story. Depreciation and amortisation, the yearly charge for the wear on buildings, production lines and software, came to CZK 282m. Add it back to operating profit and you get EBITDA, profit before that charge, of CZK 894m. It is a rough measure of the cash the operations throw off before anything is spent on equipment.

In safety components that charge is heavy for a reason. Parts that protect a car's occupants come off automated, tightly controlled lines that cost a lot and wear out on schedule. Depreciation of CZK 282m is the accounting echo of that money tied up in machines. It is not a cash outflow in the year, but over time a comparable sum has to go back into the plant if the lines are to stay current.

Management says it will respond to weaker European demand, which it links to the war in Ukraine, by widening its product range. In this industry a wider range usually means new lines, and new lines mean more depreciation. The operating profit of the coming years will carry that weight.

Then there is the cash. At the end of March 2026 the company held CZK 1.4bn, more than its operating profit for the whole year. A company that holds that much cash and still loses a large slice of its profit below the operating line is unlikely to be paying for an urgent loan. That leaves currency effects, group financing arrangements or a one-off as the likelier explanations. The cash itself can be a buffer, money set aside for new lines or profit waiting to be paid out as a dividend. Under a new controlling owner, which of these it is will shape the next year's accounts as much as the plant does.

One question for the middle of your own statement

Most owners read the top and the bottom of the income statement and skip the middle. The middle is where financing decisions, currency exposure and one-off judgements show up, and none of them are visible on the factory floor.

So ask your finance team one question: how do we get from operating profit to net profit, in no more than four lines? Tax, interest, foreign exchange, one-offs. If the largest of those lines is anything other than tax, you want to know why, and whether it will come back next year. If nobody can answer without a week of work, that is an answer too.

If your company belongs to a group, add a follow-up: who decides the interest rate on group loans and the currency of intercompany invoices? Those decisions are often made far from the plant, and they land in exactly the part of the statement this piece is about.

Kayaku's Vsetín plant did its job: CZK 612m from operations, healthy EBITDA and a thick cash cushion. What happened afterwards, between operating profit and CZK 309m, is the part of the year the new owner will have to explain, and the line I would watch first.