Lockheed Martin to purchase Ultra Maritime in $3.5B deal

WASHINGTON — Lockheed Martin is acquiring Ultra Maritime as part of a $3.45 billion deal, the companies announced today.

Ultra Maritime develops a host of undersea and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capabilities, including sonar technologies, sonobuoys, torpedo defense systems, radar solutions, and autonomous maritime sensing platforms. 

“Undersea superiority belongs to those who move fastest and work together best,” Stephanie Hill, president of Lockheed Martin Rotary and Mission Systems, said in a statement today. “By joining forces with Ultra Maritime, we’re accelerating our commitment to deliver the most advanced undersea and anti-submarine warfare capabilities to our U.S. and allied partners across the globe.”

Lockheed Martin said that Ultra Maritime will fall under the company’s rotary and mission systems division upon closing. 

Private equity investor Advent acquired Ultra Maritime — then part of Cobham Ultra — in 2022. Since then, the private equity fund has committed approximately $170 million in advanced product development and advanced manufacturing capabilities into the undersea company, increasing annual revenue by roughly 17 percent, Ultra Maritime said in a news release today. 

“When we invested in Ultra Maritime in 2022, we saw a business with mission-critical technology and a vital role in protecting allied nations from undersea threats, but one that had been underinvested and was not yet fully delivering for its customers,” Shonnel Malani, managing partner at Advent and chair of the board at Ultra Electronics, said in a statement today. “Over the past four years, we have changed that. Ultra Maritime is now a stronger, more innovative partner to allied navies, with improved execution, greater industrial capacity and next-generation autonomous solutions that position it well for future warfare.”

Last year, Ultra Maritime unveiled several strategic partnerships with other defense firms, including Anduril, to develop next-generation autonomous subsea sensing capability, and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, to advance unmanned airborne detection of adversary submarines. 

The US Navy awarded Ultra Maritime a sole-source contract for low-rate initial production of the AN/SSQ-125B sonobuoy the service employs for ASW operations in April.