Top 20 Defense Contractors in 2014

January 10, 2015 | OVERSEAS INTEL

The following is a list of the Top 20 U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Prime Contractors in Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 ranked by total contract funds awarded. In FY 2014, the DoD has awarded a total of $239.02 billion in defense contracts.

In FY 2014, top awardee Lockheed Martin has received $22.03 billion in contracts (prime contracts) or 9.2% of total contract funds awarded by the DoD. Runner-up is Boeing with $15.70 billion (6.6%) followed by General Dynamics in third place with $12.46 billion (5.2%). Raytheon has received $10.51 billion (4.4%) followed by Northrop Grumman, United Technologies, L-3 Communications, BAE Systems, Huntington Ingalls, and Humana. BAE Systems, #8 on the list, is the largest foreign DoD defense contractor in FY 2014 to date.

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20. Hewlett-Packard Company — $1.5 billion, Hewlett-Packard's aerospace and defense manufacturers today face challenges of an increasingly global workforce and adjusting to business model changes. Aerospace and defense companies must quickly bring new products and processes to market with innovative technology and capabilities to remain competitive.

19. Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp. — $1.76 billion, Booz Allen Hamilton has been at the forefront of strategy and technology consulting for 100 years. Today, Booz Allen is a leading provider of management consulting, technology, and engineering services to the US government in defense, intelligence, and civil markets, and to major corporations, institutions, and not-for-profit organizations. The firm is a well-known, trusted, and long-term partner to our clients, who seek our expertise and objective advice to address their most important and complex problems.

18. Exelis Inc. — $1.77 billion, Exelis is a diversified, top-tier global aerospace, defense and information solutions company that leverages a 50-year legacy of deep customer knowledge and technical expertise to deliver affordable, mission-critical solutions for global customers. We are a leader in positioning and navigation, sensors, air traffic management solutions, image processing and distribution, communications and information systems, and focused on strategic growth in the areas of critical networks, ISR and analytics, electronic warfare and composite aerostructures.

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17. Bell-Boeing Joint Project Office — $1.9 billion, Bell Boeing joint program is a subsidiary of Textron, Inc., is a $1.6 billion, producer of commercial and military helicopters, including the tiltrotor aircraft. Bell’s global workforce of over 8,000 employees serves customers in over 120 countries. A unit of The Boeing Company, Boeing Integrated Defense Systems provides network-centric system solutions to military, government, and commercial customers. It provides intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems and launch services and manufactures military aircraft and satellites.

16. General Electric Company — $2.11 billion, GE is heritage business, Industrial Solutions' story starts 130 years ago with GE's founder, Thomas Edison. Today, Industrial Solutions' engineers and employees embody his entrepreneurial spirit to create innovative, end-to-end product and service solutions. We enable customers in more than 60 countries, across various industries, to overcome their electrical distribution and power challenges.

15. United Launch Alliance, LLC — $2.14 billion, United Launch Alliance was formed in December 2006 and is a 50-50 joint venture owned by Lockheed Martin and The Boeing Company. ULA brings together two of the launch industry’s most experienced and successful teams – Atlas and Delta – to provide reliable, cost-efficient space launch services for the U.S. government. U.S. government launch customers include the Department of Defense, NASA, the National Reconnaissance Office and other organizations.

14. Bechtel Group Inc. — $ 2.4 billion, Bechtel is one of the most respected global engineering, project management, and construction companies, and a cornerstone of innovation in the industry. Together with our customers, we deliver landmark projects—the modern marvels of the world—that foster sustainable progress and grow economies. Only Bechtel has the resources and reach to guarantee certainty of outcome.

13. Unitedhealth Group Inc. — $2.71 billion, UnitedHealth Group is the most diversified health care company in the United States and a leader worldwide in helping people live healthier lives and helping to make the health system work better for everyone.

12. Health Net Inc. — $2.75 billion, Health Net, Inc. is a publicly traded managed care organization that delivers managed health care services through health plans and government-sponsored managed care plans. Its mission is to help people be healthy, secure and comfortable. Health Net provides and administers health benefits to approximately 5.9 million individuals across the country through group, individual, Medicare, Medicaid, U.S. Department of Defense, including TRICARE, and Veterans Affairs programs.

11. SAIC Inc. (Leidos) — $2.9 billion, Leidos is a science and technology solutions leader working to address some of the world’s toughest challenges in national security, health, and engineering. The Company’s 22,000 employees support vital missions for our government and the commercial sector, develop innovative solutions to drive better outcomes, and defend our Nation’s digital and physical infrastructure from ‘new world’ threats.

10. Humana Inc. — $3.4 billion, For more than 50 years Humana Inc., has been a proven leader and innovator in the health and wellness industry. A passionate emphasis on people, choice, well-being, and innovation guide our business practices and culture. We’re not just a health insurance company. Our diverse lines of business position us to serve millions of people with a wide range of needs, including seniors, military members, and self-employed individuals.

9. Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc. — $3.8 billion, Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) designs, builds and maintains nuclear and non-nuclear ships for the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard and provides after-market services for military ships around the globe. For more than a century, HII has built more ships in more ship classes than any other U.S. naval shipbuilder at its Newport News Shipbuilding and Ingalls Shipbuilding divisions. Employing more than 38,000 in Virginia, Mississippi, Louisiana and California, HII also provides a wide variety of products and services to the commercial energy industry and other government customers, including the Department of Energy.

8. BAE Systems — $3.9 billion, BAE Systems is a global defence, aerospace and security company employing around 88,200 people worldwide. Our wide-ranging products and services cover air, land and naval forces, as well as advanced electronics, security, information technology, and support services. We serve the needs of our customers by delivering a wide range of advanced defence, aerospace and security solutions that provide a technological and performance edge. We work together with local partners to engineer, manufacture, and develop the innovations that sustain economies, increase defence sovereignty and safeguard commercial interests.

7. L-3 Communications — $4.7 billion, Headquartered in New York City, L-3 employs approximately 48,000 people worldwide and is a prime contractor in aerospace systems and national security solutions. L-3 is also a leading provider of a broad range of communication and electronic systems and products used on military and commercial platforms. The company reported 2013 (revised) sales of $12.6 billion.

6. United Technologies Corporation — $5.5 billion, United Technologies Corporation (UTC) provides a broad range of high-technology products and services for the aerospace and commercial building industries. Our aerospace businesses include Sikorsky helicopters, Pratt & Whitney aircraft engines, and UTC Aerospace Systems. In 2013, we combined our commercial businesses to form UTC Building & Industrial Systems, the world's largest provider of building technologies.

5. Northrop Grumman Corporation — $8.1 billion, Northrop Grumman is a leading global security company providing innovative systems, products and solutions in unmanned systems, cybersecurity, C4ISR, and logistics and modernization to government and commercial customers worldwide. On the Northrop Grumman team, your job is to secure the world. We don't work here just for the advanced technology and equipment: we work here because we know what - and who - we're protecting. From families to the intelligence community, from our climate to our men and women in uniform, we're making the world a safer place.

4. Raytheon Company — $10.5 billion, Raytheon Company is a technology and innovation leader specializing in defense, security and civil markets throughout the world. With a history of innovation spanning 91 years, Raytheon provides state-of-the-art electronics, mission systems integration and other capabilities in the areas of sensing; effects; and command, control, communications and intelligence systems; as well as a broad range of mission support services.

3. General Dynamics Corp. — $12.4 billion, General Dynamics focuses on creating shareholder value while delivering superior products and services to military, other government and commercial customers. The company emphasizes excellence in program management and continual improvement in all of its operations. General Dynamics values ethical behavior and promotes a culture of integrity throughout all aspects of its business. This culture is evident in how the company deals with shareholders, employees, customers, partners and the communities in which it operates.

2. The Boeing Company — $15 billion, Boeing headquartered in Chicago, is the world’s largest aerospace company and leading manufacturer of commercial jetliners and defense, space and security systems. Our over 170,000 professionals design and manufacture rotorcraft, electronic and defense systems, launch systems, advanced information and communication systems, and performance-based logistics and training for airlines and U.S. and allied government customers in more than 90 countries.

1. Lockheed Martin Corp. — $22 billion, Our employees are the core of our business here at Lockheed Martin. As the leading global security & aerospace company—and the #1 IT provider to the U.S. government—Lockheed Martin is a 113,000 person-strong team working to support the U.S. and its allies in the research, development and sustainment of advanced technology systems & services worldwide.

Source: Aerospace & Defense Intel Report

Lockheed Contractor Must Repay $27.5M for Overcharging Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan

January 10, 2015 | Justice Abroad

A defense contractor producing products and services for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan agreed to repay the government $27.5 million to settle overbilling charges brought under the False Claims Act.

“Contractors that knowingly bill the government in violation of contract terms will face serious consequences,” said acting Assistant Attorney General Joyce Branda. “The department will ensure that those who do business with the government, and seek taxpayer funds, do so fairly and in accordance with the applicable rules.”

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Blackwater founder Erik Prince: Combative, secretive and expanding in Africa

January 9, 2015 | The Danger Zone

Seven years ago, Blackwater Worldwide founder Erik Prince was on Capitol Hill, defending the company he founded as it faced allegations that his employees had shot up a square in Baghdad a few weeks prior on Sept. 16, 2007, killing 14 civilians and wounding 17 others.

Prince insisted that day that all of his employees had acted appropriately, and that a series of baseless allegations of wrongdoing” had been made against his business, which he’d built from the ground up in the 1990s. He bristled at the notion that his firm was a band of hired mercenaries, saying he and his employees “are Americans, working for Americans, protecting Americans.”

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Five Blackwater guards — all military veterans — have been convicted in the September 2007 shooting, including four last week in a high-profile case in Washington. But while Prince continues to question whether politics tainted the case, he says he has never interacted with the former employees who were involved.

“I’ve never met the guys,” he said in an interview with Checkpoint. “I may have met them in a large event, but I don’t specifically remember ever shaking hands with them.”

Prince agreed to do interviews as his bestselling book, “Civilian Warriors: The Inside Story of Blackwater and the Unsung Heroes of the War on Terror,” came out on paperback this week. The release date was planned for some time, but it comes just days after the convictions of the former Blackwater guards put the company back in the headlines.

“Heck of a good timing, huh?” Prince noted wryly.

Nicholas A. Slatten, 30, of Sparta, Tenn., faces a mandatory minimum life sentence for murder. Paul A. Slough, 35, of Keller, Tex., Evan S. Liberty, 32, of Rochester, N.H., and Heard, 33, of Knoxville, Tenn., each face a mandatory minimum sentence for manslaughter and other crimes. A fifth guard, Jeremy Ridgeway, pleaded guilty to manslaughter previously, and testified in the trials that concluded last week.

Prince’s career is still humming, though. A former Navy SEAL and son of a manufacturing tycoon, he sold Blackwater in 2010, reportedly for about $200 million. It had been rebranded by then as Xe Services, and was later renamed Academi. Prince has steered clear since the sale, visiting its Moyock, N.C., compound only once in January 2014 for a visit to a gun range while on a hunting trip on property he had kept, he said.

“I’ve never met the management team there, I don’t talk to anyone there,” he said. “Nada.”

Instead, Prince became the chairman of another security firm, Frontier Services Group. It focuses heavily on providing logistics and aviation support to companies in Africa, he said. The firm was incorporated in Bermuda and is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, with numerous Chinese investors.

In the last year, Frontier has sunk money into two aviation firms with headquarters in Kenya, Kijipwa Aviation Limited and Phoenix, according to the company’s last earnings report. The deal for Phoenix, announced in July, cost $14 million and puts Frontier in charge of a company that flies regularly out of not only Kenya, but Angola, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda and Puntland, a semi-autonomous region of Somalia.

Why Phoenix? The company has a fleet of Cessna aircraft and “holds important customer approvals from the United Nations, the British government and the U.S. government,” according to Frontier’s earnings statement. Buying the company will allow Frontier to “immediately and substantially expand the size and reach” of Frontier’s operations and compete for the business of construction, mineral and hydrocarbon firms, it said.

Frontier bought a 49 percent stake in Kijipwa. The Kenya Gazette, an official newspaper for the government in Mombasa, reported that its aviation license renewal was rejected this month, raising questions whether Phoenix will face similar problems.

Prince is hesitant to discuss the expansion, although he noted that medical evacuation is one role for Frontier.

“It’s a public company,” he said. “We have plenty of disclosures you can read on our website.”

Prince also deflected questions about his current residences. He spends about one-third of his time in the United States, he said, adding that it’s “not as much as he should be” considering he still has children in school. He owns homes in Virginia and Abu Dhabi, according to his book, but asked about them he dodged the question with sarcasm.

“C’mon now, I’m not going to make it easy for the terrorists to get me,” he said. “I’m still on the al-Qaeda hit list.”

Prince made news in September by criticizing the Obama administration’s strategy to take on the Islamic State militant group in Iraq and Syria in comments published by the Daily Beast. He followed up by penning a blog post along the same lines on Frontier’s website. The remarks picked up by the Daily Beast came at a conservative Maverick Political Action Group dinner in Washington, and were not supposed to be publicized, he said.

“That was the political event I did as a favor to a couple of guys from West Michigan, and it was supposed to be off the record,” he said, alluding to the section of the country in which he grew up. “You know those reporters. They don’t follow the rules so well.”

Prince said he wrote his book to set the record straight on Blackwater’s legacy — “to diffuse the notion that we have horns growing out of our heads.” He also wants it to warn others about the politics of Washington. Blackwater lost 41 men in combat and had three of its 73 aircraft shot down, but is still villified, he said.

“I wrote all these things as a cautionary tale to say that the political winds can shift quickly in Washington, and the hot air in Washington can quickly blow towards your business,” he said.

Prince said he knows a lot of bright people in the private sector who could offer advice to policy makers on how to handle the militants in Iraq, but he doubts he’ll be the one getting involved.

“Look, right now I’m the chairman of a Hong Kong publicly traded company, OK?” he said. “I would think that the U.S. government would not be hiring that to help sort out [the Islamic State] in Iraq.”

By: Dan Lamothe covers national security for The Washington Post and anchors its military blog, Checkpoint.