Rapid Fire Jan. 24, 2013: Aerospace Continues to Outperform IT
- In 2012 Lockheed Martin increased its yearly sales by 1.5% to $47.2B. Growth in aeronautics compensated lost ground in information system, confirming a pattern seen for the last two years and across contractors. Total backlog reached a record $82.3B (+$1.6B from a year earlier).
- General Dynamics reported its Q4 and full 2012 results. Revenue for the quarter dropped Y/Y by 11.7% to $8.08B, leading to a $2.1B loss. Revenue for the whole year reached $31.5B, down 3.6% from 2011, at a $332M loss. Combat and Information systems lost about 10% in Y/Y sales, while Aerospace grew by 15%, putting this segment ahead of a slightly decreasing Marine division. In 2011 aerospace was similarly pulling ahead of the company’s other lines of business. Total backlog (i.e. including unfunded IDIQ contracts and options) is at $78.1B, 57% of which is funded. That’s a drop of 8.5% of the total backlog, though its funded part barely budged.
- United Technologies grew its topline by 4% to $57.7B in 2012 thanks to its acquisitions of Goodrich and IAE. Their military aerospace activities have been holding rather well [PDF].
- The GAO notes that the Pentagon’s Militarily Critical Technologies List (MCTL), which is meant to inform export decisions, is still left unattended. Move along, there’s nothing to see here.
- DID finally heard back from the US Air Force’s Public Affairs on the Light Air Support (LAS) recompete. Major Maureen Schumann tells us:
“The LAS contract award is not delayed. The January date in the RFP was an estimate from which to allow offerors to base their proposals. We are taking our time to ensure a deliberate, thorough process and expect a source selection decision in early calendar year 2013.”
Duly noted, and the LAS RFP states that deliveries will not start earlier than July 2013, so there is probably a bit of slack vs. the original January 10 (obviously tentative) award date. But the RFP did state that the delivery order for the 20 aircraft would be issued simultaneously with the underlying IDIQ contract award, suggesting that the date of the award and the subsequent delivery schedule are tied. However the RFP spans a period of 5 years, a long time over which the nature of the relationship between the US and Afghanistan is far from established.
- The US Army’s Contracting Command in Warren, MI, posted its latest Q&A [PDF] on the MRAP Joint Logistics Integrator (JLI) RFP (W56HZV-12-R-0034). They are clarifying that a recent sole source bridge contract (W56HZV-12-C-0432) awarded to SAIC has no impact on the RFP, and they do not intent to use another sole source extension.
- The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) released an outline of its 2012-17 plan for 58 space missions (33 satellite missions and 25 Launch Vehicles missions), including 7 satellites for the future Indian Regional Navigational Satellite System (IRNSS).
