DALLAS, June 25, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) received a $561.8 million production contract for Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles for the U.S. Army and Foreign Military Sales (FMS) customers.
The two-year effort contract calls for new ATACMS rounds, as well as upgrading several previous-variant ATACMS as part of the Service Life Extension Program (SLEP III).
“The new-build ATACMS rounds under this contract will include sensor technology that provides the recently qualified Height-of-Burst capability,” said Gaylia Campbell, vice president of Precision Fires & Combat Maneuver Systems at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control. “This new feature will allow Soldiers to address area targets at depth on the battlefield.”
Both the SLEP and new ATACMS rounds will be produced at Lockheed Martin’s Precision Fires Production Center of Excellence in Camden, Arkansas. To meet the increased demand for ATACMS, Lockheed Martin is expanding its Camden manufacturing facilities to include the capability to produce ATACMS and other upcoming missiles.
For more than 40 years, Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control has been the leading designer and manufacturer of long-range, surface-to-surface precision strike solutions, providing highly reliable, combat-proven systems like MLRS, HIMARS, ATACMS and Guided MLRS to domestic and international customers.
About Lockheed Martin
Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace company that employs approximately 105,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services.
53rd International Paris Air Show at Le Bourget Airport
PARIS (Reuters) – U.S. arms makers say European demand for fighter jets, missile defenses and other weapons is growing fast amid heightened concerns about Russia and Iran.
The U.S. government sent a group of unusually high-ranking officials including Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to the Paris Airshow this year, where nearly 400 U.S. companies were showcasing equipment as the United States and Iran neared open confrontation in the Persian Gulf.
Lockheed Martin, Boeing and other top weapons makers said they had seen accelerating demand for U.S. weapons at the biennial air show despite escalating trade tensions between the United States and Europe.
“Two Paris air shows ago, there weren’t a lot of orders,” said Rick Edwards, who heads Lockheed’s international division. “Now … our fastest growth market for Lockheed Martin in the world is Europe.”
Many European nations have increased military spending since Russia’s annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine in 2014, bolstering missile defenses and upgrading or replacing ageing fighter jet fleets. NATO members agreed in 2014 to move toward spending 2% of gross domestic product on defence.
Eric Fanning, chief executive of the Aerospace Industries Association, said the NATO pledge and European concerns about Russia were fueling demand. “I do think it reflects the increasing provocations of Russia,” he said.
Industry executives and government officials say growing concern about Iran’s missile development program is another key factor. Tehran’s downing of a U.S. drone came late in the air show, but executives said it would support further demand.
“Iran is our best business development partner. Every time they do something like this, it heightens awareness of the threat,” said one senior defence industry executive, who asked not to be named.
Edwards said Lockheed’s F-35 stealth fighter, selected by Belgium, is poised to win another new order from Poland, while Bulgaria, Slovakia and Romania are also working to replace Soviet-era equipment.
Edwards and other executives say they see no impact from the ongoing trade disputes between U.S. President Donald Trump and the European Union.
U.S. Army Lieutenant General Charles Hooper, director of the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), said Europe accounted for nearly a quarter of the $55.7 billion in foreign arms sales his agency handled in fiscal 2018.
Hooper said the U.S. government was making concerted efforts to speed arms sales approvals and boost sales to help arm allies with U.S. weapons.
Ralph Acaba, president of Raytheon Co’s’s Integrated Defense Systems business, said the company was boosting automation and working to deliver the Patriot missile system and other weapons in half the five-year period previously typical.
“Europe is really big for us now, and that’s a big change in just the last few years and even the last 18 months,” he said.
In addition to wooing new Patriot customers, Raytheon is upgrading existing systems for customers like Germany, which is likely to finalize a contract worth potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to the company in coming months.
Thomas Breckenridge, head of international sales for Boeing’s strike, surveillance and mobility programs, is eyeing contracts wins for Boeing’s F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets in Germany, Switzerland and Finland.
“There’s a huge appetite in Europe for defence as a whole,” he said.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Jan Harvey)
United Technologies, Raytheon to create $120 billion aerospace and defence giant
(Reuters) – United Technologies Corp agreed on Sunday to combine its aerospace business with U.S. contractor Raytheon Co and create a new company worth about $121 billion, in what would be the sector’s biggest ever merger.
The deal would reshape the competitive landscape by forming a conglomerate which spans commercial aviation and defense procurement. United Technologies provides primarily commercial plane makers with electronics, communications and other equipment, whereas Raytheon mainly supplies the U.S. government with military aircraft and missile equipment.
While United Technologies and Raytheon have some common customers, their business overlap is limited, an argument the companies plan to make once U.S. antitrust regulators start scrutinizing the merger.
However, the two major commercial aircraft makers, Boeing Co and Airbus SE, as well as the Pentagon, have been known to use their significant purchasing power to seek concessions from their suppliers and may not welcome a potential lessening in competition among them.
When United Technologies rebuffed an acquisition offer from Honeywell International Inc in 2016, United Technologies chief executive Greg Hayes justified the decision partly by predicting that Boeing and Airbus would never accept having a supplier that would “build the plane from tip to tail.”
United Technologies has said it is on track to separate its Carrier air conditioning and Otis elevator businesses, leaving the company focused on its aerospace business through its $23 billion acquisition of Rockwell Collins, which was completed in 2018, and the Pratt & Whitney engines business.
Chinese authorities scrutinized the acquisition of airplane parts maker Rockwell Collins closely, given the companies’ footprint in that country’s market. This resulted in the deal closing in November 2018, as opposed to the targeted third quarter.
Trade tensions between the United States and China were blamed at least partly by analysts for that delay, but a source close to the deal said the companies did not expect this to be repeated because Raytheon does not do business in China.
Under the deal announced on Sunday, Raytheon shareholders will receive 2.3348 shares in the combined company for each Raytheon share. The merger is expected to result in more than $1 billion in cost synergies by the end of the fourth year, the companies said.
United Technologies shareholders will own about 57% of the combined business, called Raytheon Technologies Corporation, which will be led by Hayes. Raytheon shareholders will own the remaining stake, and Raytheon CEO Tom Kennedy will be named executive chairman. The companies negotiated the terms over several months, according to the source, who requested anonymity discussing the confidential deliberations.
The deal has been structured so that no shareholder of either company will receive a premium. United Technologies and Raytheon have market capitalizations of $114 billion and $52 billion, respectively.
The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2020.
The newly created company is expected to return between $18 billion and $20 billion of capital to shareholders in the first three years after the deal’s completion, the companies said. The new company will also assume about $26 billion in net debt, they added.
DEFENSE SPENDING RISE
Raytheon, maker of the Tomahawk and the Patriot missile systems, and other U.S. military contractors are expected to benefit from strong global demand for fighter jets and munitions as well as higher U.S. defense spending in fiscal 2020, much of it driven by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.
However, Pentagon spending is projected to slow down after an initial boost under Trump. A deal with United Technologies would allow Raytheon to expand into commercial aviation.
Conversely, United Technologies could benefit from reducing its exposure to commercial aerospace clients amid concerns that the rise of international trade protectionism will suppress economic growth and weigh on the flow of goods through air traffic.
The International Air Transport Association, which represents about 290 carriers accounting for more than 80% of global air traffic, cited these concerns earlier this month, when it said the industry is expected to post a $28 billion profit in 2019, down from a December forecast of $35.5 billion.
The deal with Raytheon could put pressure on General Electric Co, which competes with United Technologies for commercial aerospace clients, to seek scale. It could also push other defense contractors, such as Lockheed Martin Corp, to explore expanding their commercial businesses.
Last year, military communication equipment providers Harris Corp and L3 Technologies Inc announced an all-stock merger that, once completed, will create the sixth-largest U.S. defence contractor.
Morgan Stanley, Evercore Inc and Goldman Sachs Group Inc were financial advisers to United Technologies, while Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz was its legal adviser. Citigroup Inc was financial adviser to Raytheon, and RBC Capital Markets LLC provided a fairness opinion. Shearman & Sterling LLP was legal adviser to Raytheon.
(Reporting by Harry Brumpton and Kate Duguid in New York; Additional reporting by Mike Stone in Washington and Rama Venkat in Bengaluru; Editing by Richard Chang and Rosalba O’Brien)
ANKARA, May 31 (Reuters) – The delivery schedule for Russia’s S-400 missile defence systems to Turkey is continuing as planned, Turkish Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hami Aksoy said on Friday, dismissing reports of delay.
The U.S. and Turkey have been at odds over Ankara’s decision to purchase the S-400’s, which Washington says are not compatible with NATO systems and poses a threat to the F-35 stealth fighter jets. Ankara has proposed to form a working group to assess the U.S. concerns, but has not received a response yet.
On Monday, broadcaster Haberturk quoted Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar as saying that the delivery of the S-400’s may not happen in June, when Turkey previously said the missiles were due to arrive, but added the agreement was a done deal.
“Reports in some media outlets about Turkey evaluating delaying the S-400 procurement upon the request of the United States do not reflect the truth,” Aksoy said in a statement, adding that Ankara’s offer for a joint working group with Washington was still valid.
KWAJALEIN ATOLL, Marshall Islands, May 22, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — The U.S. Air Force Space Fence system detected the breakup field from an anti-satellite test conducted by India during a scheduled endurance exercise of the new space surveillance radar.
As MICROSAT-R was expected to pass through the un-cued surveillance fence, Space Fence automatically issued a “breakup alert” indicating there were multiple objects within close proximity. Space Fence observed a significant amount of debris tracks surrounding the time of the event crossing labeled as uncorrelated targets. Long-arc tracking was initiated within the orbital debris cloud to form accurate initial orbit determinations. With this information, the system was able to automatically predict and correlate the next crossing time.
Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) system operators then prepared for the next crossing by setting up an enhanced sensitivity task volume ahead of the normal un-cued surveillance fence to increase the low altitude track duration. Although the Space Fence is currently in its test phase and not yet operational, the Space Fence un-cued surveillance coverage showed its unique ability to observe these events unfolding at different altitudes in real time. Although the anti-satellite test was conducted at approximately 300 kilometers, the debris cloud extended beyond the original parent object orbit.
“Although the Space Fence system is still under test, it continues to demonstrate its advanced capabilities providing operationally-relevant information in all orbital regimes from Low Earth Orbit through Geosynchronous Earth Orbit,” said Dr. Rob Smith, vice president and general manager of Radar and Sensor Systems for Lockheed Martin. “The criticality of space assets to both national defense and the world economy cannot be understated. As multiple new mega constellations consisting of thousands of satellites become a reality and the space domain continues to become more congested, the demand for more accurate and timely space situational awareness data will be of the utmost importance to the warfighter.”
The Space Fence system continues to track objects from the anti-satellite event through the government-led testing phase which began in early April.
Colonel Stephen Purdy, Director of the Space Superiority Systems Directorate, Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base, who oversees the Space Fence program said, “Space Fence is already proving itself as a capable system even before becoming operational. The Indian test showcased Space Fence’s capabilities in a real-world event. The system was able to quickly respond to a highly dynamic situation providing critical data. Space Fence is the latest in a long line of capabilities we are collectively bringing to the warfighter as we continue to build out space capabilities for the United States.”
About Lockheed Martin Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace company that employs approximately 105,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services.
Aerial view of Space Fence facility in Kwajalein Atoll. Lockheed Martin photo
PARIS (Reuters) – European missile maker MBDA’s chief executive is returning to Airbus as head of strategy as the planemaker seeks to modernise its factory system and explores future options in defence, two people familiar with the matter said.
Antoine Bouvier, 59, replaces Patrick de Castelbajac who becomes head of Airbus Asia-Pacific, the sources said. Castelbajac’s responsibility for Airbus international operations had already been transferred to sales chief Christian Scherer.
At Airbus, Bouvier will be embarking on a battle of wits with a new strategy head at arch-rival Boeing CO.
Chris Raymond, until recently head of Boeing’s Autonomous Systems business, recently became vice-president for enterprise strategy under finance director Greg Smith, sources said. Raymond’s appointment has not been officially announced.
Airbus and MBDA declined to comment on Bouvier’s appointment, which was first reported by AeroDefenseNews. It is the latest step in a management reshuffle accelerated by the recent official appointment of Guillaume Faury as Airbus CEO.
Bouvier, a former civil servant who narrowly missed out on running France’s DGA defence procurement agency two years ago, brings experience in forging defence partnerships to Airbus, which is embroiled in a row with Germany over arms controls.
He is expected to be replaced at MBDA by former OneWeb chief Eric Beranger.
Although there is fierce day-to-day competition, with Taiwan’s China Airlines opting last week to switch to Airbus, the European planemaker is not expected to exploit the grounding of Boeing’s 737 MAX jetliner for now, industry sources said.
NEXT GENERATION
The future of the Airbus A320neo and Boeing 737 MAX – the industry’s most successful models – is seen as strategically entwined and insiders say Airbus is also worried about the impact of the grounding on global certification..
But the planemakers are crafting crucial strategies for the next generation of single-aisle jets from about 2030 – both likely to define the aircraft industry well beyond mid-century.
Insiders say Faury wants Airbus to focus more on industrial strategy and closing a perceived gap with Boeing in production technology, as well as responding to the threat of increased environmental regulation of air travel, as well as new products.
Airbus must also assess how to respond to rising defence spending after its failure to merge with Britain’s BAE Systems in 2012 left it heavily skewed towards commercial markets that are now approaching the end of an extended upcycle.
It is involved on the German side of a nascent Franco-German fighter project along with French partner Dassault Aviation but faces competition for valuable systems work and a growing spat with the German government over export controls.
At MBDA, Bouvier helped forge an Anglo-French agreement on the use of shared missile technology.
Bouvier followed the classic path of a French mandarin from the prestigious Polytechnique engineering school to France’s ENA civil service academy. He had been linked with a number of top aerospace posts such as Safran and Thales.
“His appointment will be very credible with the French government,” a person familiar with the appointment said. France and Germany own 11 percent each of Airbus.
(Reporting by Tim Hepher; Editing by Luke Baker and Alexander Smith)
ABU
DHABI, Feb 18 (Reuters) – The United Arab Emirates on Monday awarded
Raytheon Co. a 5.7 billion dirhams ($1.55 billion) contract to supply
its air force with platform systems to launch missiles, a UAE military
spokesman said.
The
agreement was signed at the week-long IDEX military exhibition in Abu
Dhabi and followed the award on Sunday of a 1.3 billion dirhams contract
to Raytheon to supply the UAE with patriot missiles.
The
UAE armed forces signed a total of 7.2 billion dirhams in contracts on
Monday, including 5.8 billion dirhams with international companies,
Brigadier General Mohammed al-Hassani said, speaking through a
translator.
The UAE has signed a total of 12 billion dirhams in contracts since the IDEX exhibition started on Sunday, he said.
Lockheed
Martin, Germany’s Diehl Defence, and Sweden’s Saab on Monday launched
at IDEX the Falcon air defence weapon system, billed as a replacement to
the Hawk system used by countries in the Middle East.
Falcon
was developed in response to a UAE request for a replacement for the
Hawk system and talks are underway to sell it to the Gulf state, Scott
Arnold, Lockheed Martin’s vice-president and deputy head of Integrated
Air and Missile Defense said.
Weapons
sales to the UAE have come under scrutiny over the past year due to the
country’s involvement in the Yemen war that has killed tens of
thousands of people and pushed the country to the brink of starvation.
The UAE and Saudi Arabia are leading a military coalition, which includes local forces drawn from Yemeni factions, that is trying to restore the internationally recognised government ousted from power in 2014 by the Iran-aligned Houthi movement.
($1 US = 3.6728 UAE dirham)
(Writing by Alexander Cornwell. Editing by Jane Merriman)
Oct 24 (Reuters) – U.S. aerospace and defense company General Dynamics Corp beat analysts’ estimates for quarterly profit on Wednesday, helped by higher demand for its IT services by U.S. government agencies.
The company closed its $9.7 billion purchase of IT services-heavy CSRA Inc in the middle of the year. This was the first full quarter for General Dynamics to report the results of that business as the U.S. government is in the midst of a broad modernization effort.
Revenue rose at all of the company’s businesses, with its information technology unit recording the biggest jump.
Revenue from the IT business more than doubled to $2.31 billion, as integration of the unit continued and the business won several contracts during the quarter. Major wins during the quarter for the unit included a $330 million contract from the U.S. Census Bureau and a $210 million contract from the Centers Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Profit margins at the IT services business slipped from 9.5 percent to 6.8 percent compared to the same period a year ago. Total operating margins for General Dynamics were 12.5 percent, down from 14 percent in the same period last year.
Revenue from the company’s aerospace division, which makes business jets, rose 1.8 percent. Total new Gulfstream deliveries, a key metric for investors, fell to 27 from 30 compared with the third quarter last year. But compared with the second quarter, deliveries rose by one jet and large-cabin Gulfstream deliveries rose to 21 from 18 in the second quarter.
Net earnings rose 11 percent to $851 million in the third quarter ended Sept. 30.
On an adjusted basis, the company earned $2.89 per share, beating Refinitiv estimates of $2.76.
Total revenue rose 20 percent to $9.09 billion, but fell short of estimates of $9.38 billion.
The company’s total backlog at the end of third-quarter 2018 was $69.5 billion, up 4.9 percent from second-quarter 2018. The biggest backlog contributor came from a $3.9 billion contract from the U.S. Navy for the construction of four (DDG-51) guided-missile destroyers.
(Reporting by Mike Stone in Washington and Sanjana Shivdas in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta and Susan Thomas)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. State Department on Thursday said it supported the sale of six Boeing Co P-8A Poseidon patrol aircraft to South Korea for an estimated $2.10 billion and had notified Congress of its decision.
South Korea’s military said in June it had picked Boeing to supply the country with maritime patrol aircraft.
South Korea said in February that it would procure from overseas new maritime patrol aircraft with stronger anti-submarine capabilities to better respond to the threat of North Korea’s submarine-launched ballistic missiles.
(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
A P-8A Poseidon assigned to Patrol Squadron (VP) 16 is seen in flight over Jacksonville, Fla. (U.S Navy photo by Personnel Specialist 1st Class Anthony Petry)
Falls Church-based Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC) on Wednesday, as expected, completed its $7.8 billion acquisition of Dulles-based Orbital and immediately changed its name to Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems, a fourth business sector for the defense contracting giant.
