Weekly Roundup Oct 26 – Oct 30 2015: Northrop Records Double Victory w/ 3Q Earnings, Bomber Win & more

Jim Garrettson October 30, 2015 News, Weekly Round-up

Weekly Roundup
Oct 26 – Oct 30 2015

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A Note From Our President & Founder Jim Garrettson

The world’s fifth-largest defense contractor received a double-billing of good news this week via third quarter financial results that beat The Street and a landmark contract win to set its course for decades.

On Wednesday, Northrop Grumman reported third quarter earnings and sales figures that exceeded Wall Street analyst expectations and said year-over-year revenue numbers grew in three of its four business segments.

Chairman and CEO Wes Bush subsequently updated investors on the company’s plan to consolidate from four segments to three on Jan. 1 and sought to halt speculation the company could spin off or sell the future technology services sector.

“It is not… over the years, we have deemphasized commodity-based services and focused our TS sector on lifecycle support and modernization of systems and platforms as well as advanced training.”

Nearly 14 hours earlier Tuesday, Northrop scored what noted defense analyst Loren Thompson termed a “stunning upset” when the Air Force awarded the company a much-anticipated and much-coveted contract to build at least 80 Long Range Strike Bombers.

Northrop will take in up to $21.4 billion during the engineering phase and could receive up to $80 billion over decades if the Air Force purchases the maximum 100 bombers.

Bush did not have much to tell investors on the bomber’s specifics but offered this perspective on its implications for the defense industrial base in light of sector consolidation in the 1990s and again in the present time.

“I do not believe that we are in a situation that perhaps we were in in the 1990s where single program decisions can cause precipitous actions by any of the players in the industrial base. We are today in a very different configuration because of the consolidation that occurred through the 1990s and the early part of the last decade.”

Northrop’s stock has spiked 5 percent since the award and Executive Mosaic’s GovCon Index in turn hit an all-time high this week on other earnings reports that beat The Street from General Dynamics, Booz Allen Hamilton, CACI, Leidos and Orbital ATK.

Please bookmark and visit GovCon Wire for the latest financial figures from contractors, as well as the GovCon Index to follow their stock market performance.

Continue reading below for some of the other major GovCon developments from the week.

MORE TOP STORIES FROM THIS WEEK

2-Year Budget Plan Heads to Obama’s Desk After Senate Approval
Senators cleared the bill in an early Friday morning vote and overall defense and nondefense spending will rise $80 billion over two years.

L-3 CEO Michael Strianese Updates Investors on Nat’l Security Segment Separation
The company is pursuing a sale or spinoff of its cyber-focused unit that recorded $1.2 billion in fiscal year 2014 sales.

Chris Kubasik Joins L-3 as President, COO
Kubasik previously led professional services firm Seabury Advisory Group as president and CEO and is also a former Lockheed Martin president and COO.

Nick Urick Joins Palo Alto Networks as Federal Sales VP
Urick held the same role at FireEye prior to his appointment at Palo Alto Networks, a Silicon Valley-based provider of network security technologies.

CRN: Raytheon Cyber JV Inks Deal for McAfee Firewall Businesses
This reported transaction represents the first major acquisition by the Raytheon|Websense organization that was formed in June.

United Launch Alliance Names John Keenan CIO, John Neary CFO
Keenan joins the Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture from Newport Mining and Neary formerly held a director role at Boeing.

Raytheon Awarded $393M to Maintain Air Force Ground Intell System; Dave Wajsgras Comments
The company will continue its sustainment support for the branch’s Distributed Common Ground System for intelligence data collection from the air.

Greg Resutek on ASRC Federal’s Space Market Aims, His ‘Situational Leadership’ Approach
The engineering contractor’s COO also discusses his initial work as acting CFO when he joined the company last year in this Q&A with ExecutiveBiz.

HHS Unveils New Tools on HealthCare.gov; Tom Romeo Comments
Maximus’ federal services president says HHS wants to give website users a similar experience to that of Amazon.com as they shop for insurance.

AWS’ Max Peterson: Cloud Tech Demand Presents Employment, Economic Opportunities
Amazon Web Services’ public sector capture lead offers a Singapore audience his outlook on potential new jobs cloud computing can help make.

Keith Alexander: IronNet Secures $32.5M in Funds for Cyber Defense Platform
Alexander, the former NSA director, started the company in 2014 in partnership with other former government and military technology leaders.

Senate OKs Bill to Encourage Govt-Industry Cyber Threat Data Sharing
A congressional conference committee will meet to reconcile the legislation with versions put forward by the House.

Frank Kelley Named Navy’s First Unmanned Systems Deputy Assistant Secretary
Kelley is a former two-star general from the Marine Corps whose last military role was head of the branch’s Systems Command organization.

NIST Releases IT Security Mgmt Guidance for Financial Services Industry
The agency worked with 10 technology vendors to develop the instructions on how to roll separate data systems into a single asset management setup.

Senate Subcommittee Asks OFPP to Submit Bridge Contract Oversight Plan
Lawmakers want the White House procurement office to add rules for when and how to issue bridge contracts in Federal Acquisition Regulations.