Lockheed Martin: Diving deep into underwater warfare sensing, but at a price

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Lockheed Martin: Diving deep into underwater warfare sensing, but at a price

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Lockheed Martin

Diving deep into underwater warfare

sensing, but at a price

Maintain Rating: NEUTRAL | PO: 600.00 USD | Price: 538.00 USD

Expanding undersea sensing offerings, at a price 07 July 2026

On Monday, July 6, 2026, Lockheed Martin (LMT) announced it would acquire Ultra Equity

Maritime, a leading provider of autonomous and modular undersea sensing systems.

Ronald J. Epstein

Ultra Maritime is a division of Advent International’s Cobham Ultra business specializing Research Analyst

in anti-submarine warfare technologies, such as sonobuoys, sonar and torpedo defense BofAS r.epstein@bofa.com

systems. Ultra has grown its topline in the high teens since being acquired in 2022 and

Mariana Perez Mora

is on track to generate £587mn in 2026 revenue, per the Financial Times (FT). The Research Analyst

transaction values Ultra Maritime at approximately $3.45bn, reflecting a 5.9x revenue BofAS mariana.perezmora@bofa.com

multiple based on 2026 estimates reported by FT. In our view, the 5.9x multiple seems

Alexander Preston

expensive relative to LMT’s 1.6x, but benchmarking the multiple to Thales’ acquisition of Research Analyst

Exail (low-20s growth and ~7x 2026 revenue) it may to be in the right ballpark, albeit it BofASalexander.preston@bofa.com

pricy. Further, we have to wonder why Advent didn’t take the asset public as opposed to

selling it to a strategic? As we know, there has been a bull market for defense related

IPOs. Are strategics paying more for assets than public markets now? If so, that’s a big

Stock Datachange and could be a crest in the wave of defense IPOs?

Strategic or political? PricePrice Objective 538.00600.00 USDUSD

This is LMT’s fourth acquisition in 2026.