EDF, EDIP, SAFE and NATO — the Instruments, the Rules and the Careers
Julian R. Sterling
Four Excel workbooks. The book opens with a warning about figures, and it is the right warning: budget
data goes stale within eighteen months. So every figure sits in an input cell with its date beside it, and every
relationship between them is a formula — replace six numbers next year and the whole picture recalculates.
Alongside that: the 35 per cent content test, live; the proposal economics that decide whether a firm can
afford to bid; and the four readiness checklists as working documents. 79 figures are checked against the book.
Free to download. No sign-up, no email address, nothing to fill in.
Everything described below is inside it, with the read-me.
The four workbooks
Chapters 1 and 2
The money and the instruments
The build-up with the ratios the book states and the ones it implies: the prior-year value behind every growth
rate, the implied GDP behind every percentage-of-GDP figure, the gap between each benchmark and the actual. The
EUR 800 billion Readiness 2030 arithmetic taken apart — and the finding that the
EUR 650 billion national component assumes an average deviation of about 0.9 per cent of GDP,
sixty per cent of the 1.5 per cent cap the escape clause permits. The Roadmap targets with a live
countdown. And a derivation worth the download on its own: the first EDIP call had EUR 165 million
available, described as roughly EUR 470 million once industry co-financing is counted — a ratio of
35.1 per cent, which is exactly the industrial reinforcement co-financing ceiling. The
EUR 470 million is not an estimate of industry's contribution; it is the arithmetic consequence of the
ceiling. Which makes that ratio a fingerprint: it tells you which window and which ceiling a call sits in, and how
much matched spend it expects, before you have read a page of the topic text.
The_Money_and_the_Instruments.xlsx · XLSX · 29 KB
Chapter 7
The 35 per cent content test
The most consequential arithmetic in the book, because it decides eligibility rather than score. Chapter 7's
worked example reproduces exactly: 27.0 per cent on the first pass, 35.25 after the drill-down into
European-built assemblies that turned out to contain foreign silicon, 33.0 after requalification. Then the same
calculation on a tape of your own — sixty lines with a booked origin, a cost and an embedded-foreign-content
column — where the booked origin passes at 30.7 per cent and the exploded share fails at 36.0. Then
two sheets the book implies but does not supply. Headroom under stress moves the exchange rate, the supplier price
and the design one at a time and together, because the chapter says a team carrying two points of margin into four
years should put that in its risk register — and this is the sheet that goes in the risk register. And design
authority, treated as what it is: a capability test that fails independently of the percentage, on items such as a
firmware toolchain or a signing key that carry no cost on a bill of materials at all.
The_35_Per_Cent_Content_Test.xlsx · XLSX · 29 KB
Chapters 3 and 9
Proposal economics and scoring
A twenty per cent funding rate on prototyping is not a subsidy decision — the consortium finds the other
eighty per cent, and firms that discover this after the technical concept is written lose weeks and often lose the
bid. The funding-rate calculator returns the effective rate, the co-financing gap in cash and what each bonus is
worth. The co-financing sheet turns it into the board paper it really is: matched spend per year against a
probability-weighted order, with the break-even probability computed so the case can be argued rather than assumed.
Then the EDIP windows, where triggering the higher ceiling is priced. Then the threshold that kills: a proposal
scoring 21.6 weighted points against a pass mark of 18 is rejected for scoring 3.8 on a criterion with a 4.0
threshold. There is no averaging away a weakness, and the practical consequence is that a bid team's marginal effort
belongs on its weakest criterion, not its strongest.
Checklists do not win anything on their own; what they do is stop the avoidable losses — the missing
declaration, the expired registration, the clearance nobody started. Sixty-eight items across company, proposal,
export-control and personal readiness, each with a status, a date, an owner and a note, and Chapter 13's
six-month plan with a date against every month. The twelve job families with a scoring column, because the plan's
first month asks you to choose two. Appendix B as a registration tracker, including the NATO sequence whose
Declaration of Eligibility is issued by your government on its timetable rather than yours. Appendix D's
questions with the trap the book names for each. And an opportunity tracker whose first three columns are the three
questions practitioners answer in seconds: whose money is this, under which regime, and therefore which team does it
belong to.
79 figures are checked against the book across the first three workbooks: 77 reproduce and 2 are flagged. Each line
carries its own tolerance, set to the precision the book actually prints.
The two flagged lines are reconciliations that do not close, and they are shown rather than quietly adjusted. The
2026 European Defence Fund results are reported as EUR 1.07 billion allocated, of which
EUR 675 million to development actions and EUR 332 million to research — those two add to
EUR 1.007 billion. And the six EDIP work programme allocations add to about EUR 1.66 billion
against a programme of EUR 1.5 billion. Neither changes an argument in the book, and both are worth finding
before quoting a line from them in a bid.
It is worth saying what they are not. The book’s own arithmetic is exact: Chapter 7's content example
reproduces to the euro with no rounding at all, Chapter 9's scoring scheme closes, and the EDF budget splits
precisely. Both discrepancies sit in aggregates quoted from published sources, which is where inconsistency in this
field lives — and is exactly why the book warns about figures in its introduction.
Opening the files
The workbooks open in Microsoft Excel, LibreOffice Calc, Google Sheets and Numbers. They use no macros
and no add-ins, so nothing needs to be enabled or trusted. If your spreadsheet asks to update links on
opening, decline — there are none.
The book these files come from
Breaking Into European Defence Procurement by Julian R. Sterling. The workbooks reproduce the worked examples in the
chapters; the book is where the reasoning behind them is set out. It is not yet on sale —
these files are published ahead of it.
Also by Julian R. Sterling
The other books with companion files. The full list of titles is on the
author page.
Closing the DealTwo defensible bridges 20.70 million apart, a peg worth 7.00 million, and the six choices that remove 6.60 of a 12.00 earn-out.
CMBS and CRE CLOsWhere the loss actually lands, from appraisal reduction to realised severity, and what the B-piece is really being paid for.
How to Read a Commercial LeaseThe three refinements chapter 19 names and never performs, and the renewal rate below which the mark-to-market is worth nothing.
How to Read a Credit AgreementWhere the default actually comes from, the cure that costs 5.5 times the other, and the capacity nobody adds up.
How to Read a Real Estate Loan AgreementThe cure ratio in closed form, the four-point window in which the cheap cure works, and the cure sized to the wrong threshold.
Office Real EstateA six per cent yield that returns 3.2 per cent once the re-letting cycle is paid for, and the headline-to-net-effective rent arithmetic.
Private Equity Real EstateBoth worked waterfalls to the dollar, the two capital stacks, and the arithmetic of the promote made changeable.
Private Markets PerformanceThirty-one of the thirty-three figures chapter 19 publishes reproduce exactly — and the two that do not are named rather than quietly adopted.
Raising a Real Estate FundThe chapter 17 funnel run on a calendar — when the first close actually lands, and why more travel does not help.
Real Estate FinanceFour people look at one building and reach four numbers; the lender is whole only above 105,109,489, twelve per cent below today’s value rather than forty.
Real Estate Financial ModelingProperty, development and fund models built line by line, and the modelling test worked end to end.
Real Estate Fund ManagementThe waterfall of 6.11, the build-to-core of 8.7 and the proceeds gap, reproduced as live formulas rather than asserted.
REIT Analysis and ValuationFFO of 532.0, AFFO of 381.0, net asset value and dividend safety — every figure a formula you can change.
Retail Real EstateThe occupancy cost of every unit in a centre, the sixteen per cent of the rent roll no tenant can sustain, and the right-size-convert-or-hold decision priced.
Sale and LeasebackA €179.5 million transaction end to end, with rent cover measured on the entity that actually signs the lease.
Self-Storage Real EstateThe cohort engine behind a 590-unit store, and the rate increase on existing customers priced against the move-outs it causes.
The Fund Finance ProfessionalChapter 8 builds the reported-to-eligible NAV bridge; chapter 9 computes every ratio without it. Two points at every state — and what a subscription line does to the IRR.
The Growth Equity InvestorWhat a pro rata cheque really costs, and the band where defending your ownership loses money.
The Private Credit InvestorThe two coverage ratios are not measured on the same thing: the erosion is 47.7 per cent, not the 28.7 the headline implies.
The Private Equity Fund Controller PlaybookThe book defines IRR, DPI, RVPI and TVPI, tells you to update them at the exit, and prints not one value. Computed: a 1.833× deal inside a fund at 0.892 TVPI.
The Venture Capital AssociateWhat defending a position costs, and how many companies a reserve pool actually defends.
Financial Risk ManagementA fund inside every limit that cannot meet a redemption — and the number that decides it is the one with no currency attached.
Business ValuationThree advisers land 26.8 per cent apart on one company, and the whole gap turns out to be 1.96 points of perpetual growth.
Quantitative FinanceThree models agree to a quarter of one per cent about a number that one unobservable input moves a hundred and three times as much.
Asset ManagementFour people quote four returns for one mandate, all correct and 2.7017 points apart — forty-eight times the manager’s net skill.
Alternative InvestmentsA manager reports 13.29 per cent and the endowment earns 6.26 — both correct, and only a third of the advertised advantage arrives.
Credit AnalysisFour defensible EBITDAs on one borrower give leverage from 3.19x to 6.47x — and the add-back argument is fifty times the covenant headroom.
Venture CapitalOne company out of twenty-eight returns 56.7 per cent of the fund, and half the capital goes in after the decision — at half the return.
Machine Learning for FinanceFive people quote the accuracy of one credit model, all five are right, and the number that decides how much money it makes is none of them.
Commercial Real Estate InvestingThe equity earned 8.6647 per cent and the investor received exactly 8.0000 — the preferred return, and nothing above it.
Mergers and AcquisitionsThe board paper says the deal creates 13,436,667 of value. The arithmetic says it destroys 17,530,855. Nobody is lying.
DerivativesThe treasury report says the hedge cost 1,233,698. That is the interest differential, not a cost.
Treasury ManagementFive cash balances for one company, all correct and 145,600,000 apart — and the revolver that is two-thirds of the liquidity leaves at a revenue fall of 8.4127 per cent.
Financial Planning and AnalysisRevenue 3.0190 per cent above budget and operating profit 16.3209 per cent below it, in the same quarter, with every figure correctly stated.
Energy TradingA position report that is 91.7031 per cent hedged and correctly computed, on a book that is short 2,542,000 MWh — and a margin call of 198,400,000 the next morning.
Construction Cost ControlA contract sum of 26,301,102 became a final account of 29,153,363 on the building that was drawn — and 85.8 per cent of what was lost was knowable on the day it was signed.
Pricing StrategyA list price of 148.00, a pocket price of 112.51, and the nine deductions in between — with what one point of price is actually worth.