Lockheed Martin spin-off to create new IT services firm with giant Defence, ATO contracts

0

blog From The Wall St Journal earlier this month comes confirmation that military equipment specialist Lockheed Martin still expects to sell or spin off the IT services business which the company has long had tacked on to its manufacturing operations. The newspaper reports (we recommend you click here for the full article):

“A sale or spinoff decision had been expected by the end of the month, but Chief Financial Officer Bruce Tanner said the high level of interest from potential buyers would push any move to next year.

Lockheed has been the largest supplier of IT services to the U.S. government for two decades. It started reviewing the business last year because of stiff competition and sluggish growth prospects.”

The news is of particular interest in Australia because Lockheed Martin holds several major IT services contracts with the Federal Government. For example, in 2010 the company signed a $283 million desktop services contract with the Australian Taxation Office. Lockheed Martin beat out a number of traditional IT services firms to win the deal, including big names such as CSC — which was a finalist, incumbent HP Enter-prise Services, KAZ (now part of Fujitsu) and Unisys.

And Lockheed Martin also holds an $800 million deal with the Department of Defence for centralised processing services. That deal was inked in September 2014. Those deals would likely continue to be held by a spinoff firm from Lockheed Martin — or by any company which acquired its IT services division.

Image credit: Forsvarsdepartementet, Creative Commons