A Note From Our President & Founder Jim Garrettson
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One of the world’s two largest airplane manufacturers is mulling acquisitions in the defense services arena that would continue a trend among prime contractors toward capability-based deals.
Leanne Caret, CEO of Boeing’s $30.4 billion defense segment, told a group of journalists at the U.K. Farnborough International Airshow Sunday the company wants any acquired company to act as a “bolt on” and contribute additional revenue, per a Bloomberg report.
Hardly any acquisition by a prime contractor would be able to top either Lockheed Martin’s $9 billion buy of the helicopter maker Sikorsky announced around this time last year or Harris’ $4.7 billion purchase of Exelis in May to significantly alter the landscape.
The more significant trend among larger and middle-tier primes within the last two years has been to pursue targeted deals with twin goals to add new technologies and also gain access to new agency customers.
Raytheon has given us two examples of those types of buys via the missile maker’s $425 million acquisition of cyber and special operations contractor Blackbird in November 2014, plus network defense company Foreground Security for an undisclosed sum almost one year later.
The C4ISR arena has been active as San Diego-based Cubic Corp. invested $386 million to purchase of three defense technology makers during 2014 and 2015, while L-3 Communications bought Nashville-based ForceX in October 2015 for new surveillance and geospatial tools as part of its larger reposition toward the defense technology arena.
Additionally, General Dynamics snapped up the underwater drone maker Bluefin Robotics earlier this year to add new unmanned manufacturing work for the Navy and bring in 50 skilled workers with experience in the field.
How the big primes are repositioning themselves in a ever-changing global security and government spending environment will surely be on the minds of Wall Street analysts starting next week when Lockheed officially kicks off GovCon’s second quarter earnings season Tuesday.
Rear Adm. Scott Jerabek Named DTRA Deputy Director
Jerabek will help oversee an agency responsible for collaborations with military service branches and combatant commanders to counter and destroy WMDs.
The National Institutes of Health Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center has extended for another six months the Chief Information Officer-Solutions and Partners 3 contract as the agency works to take corrective action following protests to a recompete of its procurement vehicle for IT products and services. “In the meantime, the CIO-SP3 programs currently expire
The Government Accountability Office has moved to sustain 28 bid protests filed against the National Institutes of Health’s potential 10-year, $50 billion Chief Information Officer-Solutions and Partners recompete contract for information technology products and services. Those sustained protests were filed by 27 vendors whose offers were eliminated from the CIO-SP4 contract competition after failing to
The Government Accountability Office has decided to sustain 98 bid protests filed against the National Institutes of Health Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center’s potential 10-year, $50 billion Chief Information Officer-Solutions and Partners follow-on contract for IT products and services. CIO-SP4 is a governmentwide acquisition contract with a five-year base term and five option years
