EADS Continues Efforts To Gain Support Of Tanker

It has been reported that EADS spent almost $200,000.00 last quarter on just tanker related lobbying. It is not uncommon for larger companies of all sorts to spend time in Congress working to support their programs and proposals.

The KC-X contract being so important this effort will be even more concentrated. EADS work with its supportive Congressional members has already worked out well especially with the delegation from Alabama. Support like this will be key as the RFP goes final, proposals are submitted and the source selection works its course. The next quarter reports should show similar numbers.

DRS reports

DRS Technologies reported that sales were a record high for the last quarter. See an article here. DRS also reported a 40% increase in profits and a record backlog of over $1 B dollars. As discussed here, Finmeccanica has agreed to buy the American company. This would be one of the largest foreign acquisitions of an American defense company.

ManTech reports well

July 30, 2008 by Matthew Potter · Comment
Filed under: Earnings, IT 

ManTech is a second tier defense contractor that provides services and support to the US military. For the quarter ending in June ManTech reported income of $21.9 M. See a press release here. This was a substantial improvement over the same quarter in 2007. Much of the increase came from large IT support contracts for various services. There was also substantial business with classified contracts. Many of the defense contractors that have reported to date have done well over the last quarter.

Continued conflict good for US defense contractors

CNNMoney has a preview of the upcoming earnings report for a variety of US defense contractors. See this for more. Not surprisingly the outlook is good. The US defense budget remains large and will probably not see any downturn until 2010 at the earliest depending on the US election. Rockwell Collins reported yesterday and they came in with 24% improvement over last quarter. See the press release here.

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