When Putin Talks Tough, Lockheed Benefits

By Paul Ausick Updated Apr 28, 10:03AM EDT · Published Sep 29, 8:35AM EDT

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Lockheed Martin Corp. (NYSE: LMT) may be adding Russian President Vladimir Putin to its Christmas card list this year. Putin’s tough talk and muscle-flexing have ratcheted up fears of what the Russian bear might do next, and that is driving sales of a Lockheed missile system.

Earlier this month, the company announced a contract to supply Poland’s Air Force with the company’s Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM), a stealthy precision-guided cruise missile that can be mounted on the country’s non-stealthy F-16 fighter planes. The sale of the 40 missiles is valued at $500 million, and Poland’s wariness of Putin certainly played a significant role in the country’s decision.

Another Lockheed customer for the missile is Finland, and according to Breaking Defense, Sweden has expressed interest in acquiring Lockheed-made Long-Range Anti-Ship Missiles (LRASM), a cruise missile design leveraged from the extended-range version of the JASSM.

Lockheed also has a joint-venture program with Turkey to develop a cruise missile especially for Lockheed’s F-35. Turkey already has a so-called stand-off missile, but it is too large to fit inside the weapons bay of the F-35. The stealthy F-35 combined with a stealthy cruise missile would enable Turkey to enter a no-fly zone (more accurately an anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) area) and then launch the missiles, giving the weapons a much longer range.

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The United States has contracted for 1,946 JASSMs and 160 of the extended-range versions of the missile. The U.S. Air Force is expected to acquire 110 of the LRASMs this year and ramp that to 300 next year.

A retired U.S. Navy strategist, currently a Senior Fellow with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments told Breaking Defense, said:

The Russian and Chinese threats are definitely driving standoff weapons sales internationally. We are seeing a similar dynamic play out in missile defense, where countries are pursuing larger capacity air defense systems … .

Other weapons systems where we are seeing the impact of Russian and Chinese A2/AD are new, LACM [land-attack cruise-missile]-capable submarines, which are being considered or purchased by Poland and Germany as well as Australia and Vietnam in the Pacific.

Lockheed’s stock closed down 1.8% on Monday, at $200.22 in a 52-week range of $166.28 to $213.34. Shares were inactive in Tuesday’s premarket session. The consensus price target on the stock is $222.29.

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About the Author Paul Ausick →

Paul Ausick has been writing for a673b.bigscoots-temp.com for more than a decade. He has written extensively on investing in the energy, defense, and technology sectors. In a previous life, he wrote technical documentation and managed a marketing communications group in Silicon Valley.

He has a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Chicago and now lives in Montana, where he fishes for trout in the summer and stays inside during the winter.