One of the leading defense contractors, Northrop Grumman Corporation (NOC), won a contract worth $210 million from the U.S. Air Force which continues its sustainment services of E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS) fleet. The present contract is an extension of the previous sustainment contract awarded to Northrop in 2000.
Per the contract, Northrop will be engaged in providing logistics, mission support, training, engineering and supply chain support services for the E-8C Joint STARS fleet. The above mentioned services will be provided at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, and various other forward operating locations.
The E-8C Joint STARS is capable of targeting both mobile and stationery objects and providing all-weather surveillance to the U.S. Air Force. The E-8C platform is used by Warfighters to detect, classify and locate militant ground movements. Joint STARS thus acts as an effective tool for battle management and surveillance operations. It also supports several disaster-relief operations throughout the world.
Northrop has been providing sustainment services on Joint STARS for the past 30 years. It had previously won a $178 million contract for the provision of sustainment services on the E-8C Joint STARS in Nov, 2013. The contract was a continuation of the earlier Total System Support Reliability (TSSR) program contract awarded to Northrop in 2000.
Northrop continues to win contracts from the Pentagon at regular intervals. Last week, Northrop won a whopping $306 million contract from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) for the support of RQ-4 Global Hawk drone. In October, 2014, it won a record $207.3 million modification contract from the DoD for the acquisition of four Ground/Air Task-Oriented Radar (G/ATOR) low-rate initial production systems.
Despite the big ticket wins, threat of sequestration looms large over the company, adversely impacting its top line. Northrop reported revenues of $5.98 billion in the third quarter of 2014, down nearly 2.0% from the year-ago quarter.
Northrop currently holds a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Other well-placed stocks in the same industry include The Boeing Co. (BA), General Dynamics Corp. (GD) and Engility Holdings, Inc. (EGL). All these stocks carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report
To read this article on Zacks.com click here.
Get all Zacks Research Reports and be alerted to fast-breaking buy and sell opportunities every trading day.
Be the first to comment