07/07/2026
HMPA Group H1 2026: A Defense Boom Absorbs the South American Shock, Europe Anchors the Balance Sheet, and Governance Proves Its Mettle Under Fire
Rome's Bvlgari Hotel provided an apt backdrop on Friday evening for a board meeting that read less like a routine mid-year checkpoint and more like a case study in navigating chaos. With the Board of Directors gathered in person and a constellation of senior managers dialed in from across the globe, HMPA Group's leadership approved a Half-Year Report defined by one unmistakable theme: volatility, managed. CFO Sandy McNamara, flanking the Group's Chief Executive Officer, walked the room through numbers that told a story of turbulence absorbed rather than turbulence survived.
South America: A Hub Goes Dark
The region's long-running softness hardened into something sharper in H1 2026, as the contraction deepened well past the prior year's -0.9% following the shutdown of the Buenos Aires office. The suspension — layered atop Argentina's already unresolved political and regulatory fog — has pushed the Group toward a genuine crossroads: scale back to a lean, remote-operations footprint, or exit the market altogether. A decision is expected before the year closes.
Middle East Turmoil, Defense Windfall
War rewrote the rules of engagement across the wider Middle East this half, snarling logistics, straining supply chains, and threatening to derail a string of active engagements. And yet the McNamara-Dumava governance structure didn't just hold the line — it turned crisis into currency. A staggering 305.4% surge in defense-sector demand, as HMPA's infrastructure, logistics, and training capabilities became suddenly indispensable to a security-conscious clientele, transformed what could have been a defensive half into an offensive one. "This is what a genuinely diversified portfolio is built for," McNamara noted, with the kind of understatement reserved for numbers that speak for themselves.
Oil Volatility Becomes an Asset
The same geopolitical shockwaves that rattled global energy markets found the Group's treasury desk exactly where it needed to be. Sharp, sustained swings in crude prices were converted into extraordinary trading gains — profits McNamara confirmed will be earmarked directly to cushion the Buenos Aires fallout, effectively letting one crisis pay for another.
Europe: The Quiet Engine
While headlines were made elsewhere, Europe simply delivered — steady, unshaken, and closing the half on a distinctly positive note. It was the ballast the Group needed, the reliable counterweight against a hemisphere of noise.
Italy Keeps Climbing
HMPA Italia posted 5.8% year-over-year revenue growth, up from 5.1% the year before, extending its grip on digital transformation, healthcare logistics, and smart public services — a domestic engine running at full throttle even as the Group's global map redrew itself around it.
Governance in Motion
Fresh off a mandate renewed at the close of 2025, McNamara and Deputy CFO Victoria Dumava delivered a joint governance review that reinforced the Board's confidence in the dual-leadership model — a partnership that, one year in, looks less like an experiment and more like a template. By direct order of the CEO, McNamara will relocate to the Group's Lugano offices to personally steward a major financial operation the Board has flagged as strategically sensitive, with Dumava stepping up to run day-to-day financial governance from London in the interim. Dumava also used the session to report on the consolidation of new regional clusters and to map out the roadmap ahead for H2.
Meanwhile, in Osaka, the Board opted for patience over haste — keeping the office fully operational while awaiting the results of a tender launched by the local university's AI research center, a decision that will shape the Group's footprint in the region for years to come.
A CEO's Verdict
"In a period marked by real geopolitical turbulence," the CEO said, "the dual leadership of McNamara and Dumava has proven its worth — turning an unpredictable defense market and volatile oil prices into genuine sources of resilience. It is exactly the agility and forward-focused strategy the Group needs in moments like this."
Purpose Beyond Profit
The Board also turned its attention to the Group's philanthropic arm, the Donna Sara Charity program, which this year has directed its efforts toward humanitarian initiatives in Gaza — work the Board acknowledged as extraordinarily difficult given the regulatory and logistical barriers involved, yet work the program has pressed forward with regardless. The Board reaffirmed its full commitment to the initiative through the second half of the year, framing it not as a side project but as core to the Group's institutional identity.
Ukraine: Closed, Not Forgotten
The 2025 divestiture of Ukrainian operational assets remains fully absorbed, with prior-year contingency reserves having covered the associated write-down in full — no residual exposure, no lingering liquidity impact. The redeployment of former Ukrainian staff, achieved through internal absorption and structured outplacement with partner firms, continues to stand internally as the Group's benchmark for handling difficult exits with humanity intact.
The Bottom Line
The Board closed the meeting by reaffirming the three pillars that have carried HMPA Group through a year few could have scripted: prudent governance, disciplined international expansion, and proactive risk management — the same principles now steering the Group into the second half of 2026.
