Rapid Fire: 2010-08-20 | US Shipbuilding
- CRS (Congressional Research Service) analyst Ronald O’Rourke, who has often been right about shipbuilding programs when the US Navy was wrong, releases his August 2010 report on Navy shipbuilding plans [PDF].
- Meanwhile, Maritime Professional delivers an equally hard-hitting analysis of the fast-dwindling US Merchant Marine, and MARAD: “The Emperor Has No Clothes.” Taken together, these analyses are not encouraging.
- PricewaterhouseCoopers: The value of mergers and acquisitions in the aerospace and defense sector dropped to $2.2 billion in the second quarter of 2010 from $5 billion in the same quarter last year, despite significant M&A activity in the middle-market segment.
- Show Me the Money: A slew of private equity firms line up to buy McKechnie Aerospace, an Irvine, CA-based supplier of aerospace components for commercial and military customers, for around $1.2 billion. This is part of a broader PE trend.
- Turkey plans to keep on spending on major equipment buys. Its 2010 budget is 1.8% of GDP rather than the 2% commitment for NATO members – but that’s almost double the level for many European NATO countries.
- Rent-a-Cop: Private contractors will take up much of the security work in Iraq as US troops pull out, the New York Times reports.
- Cardinal Health in Dublin, OH snags DoD contracts worth a total of $206.6 million for medical supplies and services.
- US Customs and Border Patrol takes delivery of 3 Huey-IIs, upgraded from Bell UH-1Hs by ARINC. Meanwhile, 14 USCBP P-3 Orion maritime surveillance aircraft will keep flying, thanks to Lockheed Martin’s re-winging service.
- ManTech in Fairfax, VA gets a $23 million contract to provide security and operations management support to a new Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) facility at Fort Meade, MD, to accommodate the BRAC-mandated closure of DISA’s Arlington, VA facility.
- Former US Representatives from Virgina Davis and Pickett to head commission set up to assess the impact of defense budget cuts on the state.
Categories: Alliances, Bases & Infrastructure, Budgets, Contracts - Awards, Daily Rapid Fire, Force Structure, Issues - Political, Medical, Mergers & Acquisitions, Middle East - Other, MPs & Justice, Official Reports, Other Corporation, Submarines, Support Functions - Other, Surface Ships - Combat, Surface Ships - Other, USA
