From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishwar chestˈwar chest noun [countable] informal 1 BFPMthe money that a government has available to spend on war2 the money that a politician or organization has available to spend on achieving something The government’s huge war chest could be used to improve transport.
Examples from the Corpus
war chest• The dairymen accumulated a war chest of $ 1 million, and spread half of it in congressional elections.• It has a war chest of $ 40 million to spend each year on advertising.• And he still has a war chest of $ 263,417.• Martin's campaign war chest enjoys strong support from industry, including mine managers and safety officers.• Clinton has a full war chest and no Democratic opponent to worry about.• Much of that money already was in the Clinton-Gore war chest.From Longman Business Dictionarywar chestˈwar chest noun [countable usually singular] journalism FINANCE a large amount of money that a company has in its RESERVES (=profits from earlier periods of time not paid out to shareholders, or cash from the sale of assets) that it can use to buy other companiesWe have heard a lot about their multi-billion pound war chest for acquisitions. 