Lockheed Martin is the world's largest defense contractor (by defense revenue).^[1] As of 2005, 95% of Lockheed Martin's revenues came from the U.S. Department of Defense, other U.S. federal government agencies, and foreign military customers.

History

Shortly after the creation of the company Lockheed Martin acquired the majority of Loral Corporation's defense electronics and system integration businesses for $9.1 billion. The remainder of Loral became Loral Space & Communications.

In 1998, Lockheed Martin abandoned plans to merge with Northrop Grumman due to government fears of the potential strength of the new group (Lockheed/Northrop would have had control of 25% of the DoD's procurement budget).

In 2000, Lockheed agreed to pay a $13 million settlement to the US government for breaching the arms export control act. The company passed information to AsiaSat, a major shareholder of which is the Chinese government. In November 2000 Lockheed completed the sale of its Aerospace Electronic Systems business to BAE Systems for $1.67 billion USD.

Lockheed Martin won the contract to build the Joint Strike Fighter in 2001 with its X-35 design. This is the most important fighter aircraft procurement project since the F-16, with an initial order of 3,000 worth $200 billion before export orders.

In 2003, Lockheed Martin benefited from a USAF decision to punish Boeing for conducting industrial espionage against its rival. The USAF revoked $1 billion worth of contracts from Boeing and awarded them to Lockheed Martin. The company sued Boeing in 1998 for stealing documents related to a military contract.

It was recently reported in the Washington Post that when Robert Stevens took control of Lockheed Martin in 2004, that he faced the dilemma that within 10 years 100,000 of the about 130,000 Lockheed Martin employees would be retiring.