Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMT) has obtained the rights to compete for the new IT contract of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The contract, valued at about $5 billion, will extend for 10 years.
 
This new contract is named CDC Information Management Services (CIMS). Under the contract, Lockheed will provide a full range of IT solutions across the CDC and its affiliated groups, serving about 16,000 of CDC’s workforce. As part of the contract, Lockheed can bid for orders in all three of the CDC CIMS domain areas: Management Consulting Services, IT Infrastructure, and Information Management. The contract includes a two-year base period followed by four, two-year option periods.
 
Lockheed has been a long-term partner for CDC. Lockheed already provides IT services to CDC under the CDC Information Technology Support Contract (CITS). These services include applications development and maintenance; architectural consultation; business process analysis; administrative and public health subject matter expertise; systems engineering; cyber security; and infrastructure support.
 
Lockheed also supports the CDC’s Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response (OPHPR) and helps manage its emergency stock of medications and medical supplies. It also provides similar services for CDC’s Emergency Operations Center.
 
Lockheed Martin is the largest defense contractor in the world. The company’s customer base includes the U.S. government, foreign governments and other commercial buyers.
 
Apart from providing defense solutions to the Department of Defense and other federal agencies, Lockheed, through its Information Systems & Global Services segment, provides information technology solutions, software and systems engineering support services, logistics, mission operations support, peacekeeping and nation-building services for the various U.S. defense and civil government agencies.
 
The future prospects of Lockheed Martin to a large extent depend upon defense spending. We believe the company stands well positioned to benefit from higher defense outlays. In addition, the company’s focus on debt repayment and share buyback is encouraging, and will continue to improve shareholder return.
 
Lockheed currently has a short term Zacks #3 Rank (Hold), supporting our long term Neutral rating for the stock.
 
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