Lockheed Martin To Keep Buying Its Own Stock (LMT)

Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE: LMT) is going to retire more stock.  The defense giant announced this morning that it has approved a new share repurchase program that will allow the repurchase of up to $3 billion in common stock.  This represents more than 10% of the company, actually well above 10%.

The original 2002 buyback plan is being replaced with the new $3 billion plan as the company has already repurchased 169 million shares from the existing share authorization of 178 million shares.

The buyback is on top of a dividend hike last month as well.  At $71.78, this represents more than 41.7 million shares at current share prices.  As of Friday’s closing bell, the market cap of the company was listed as $26 billion.  With approximately 360 million shares of common stock outstanding, this represents nearly 14% of the common shares outstanding.

JON C. OGG