Lockheed Martin Corp

Martin Marietta Corp. and Lockheed Corp. announced the second tier of corporate staff appointments as a result of the proposed merger of the two giant defense contractors.Included among the 21 vice president who will fill the top posts in the new Lockheed Martin Corp. is William F. Ballhaus Jr., who headed Martin Marietta's Aero & Naval Systems Division in Middle River as recently as two months ago.Mr. Ballhaus, who has been recognized as one of the nation's top aeronautical engineers, will serve as vice president of science and engineering at Lockheed Martin's headquarters in Bethesda.

In The Region Lockheed scuttles $1.66 billion plan to buy Titan Corp. Lockheed Martin Corp. effectively scuttled plans to buy Titan Corp. for $1.66 billion, saying yesterday that it refused to wait for the outcome of a federal probe into alleged overseas bribery. Titan said it didn't expect the Justice Department to finish its probe by today, the deadline the two companies set for Titan to resolve the investigation. Titan asked for an extension but Lockheed refused. The deal ran into trouble shortly after Lockheed said in September that it would buy Titan for $1.8 billion, or $22 a share, in cash and stock.

Lockheed Martin Corp. bestowed a 25 percent pay raise on Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Norman R. Augustine last year, bringing his salary and bonus to more than $2.7 million.Augustine also earned stock options worth about $1.4 million at yesterday's closing price, according to a proxy statement the company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.The next four highest-paid executives at the Bethesda-based defense giant earned combined salaries and bonuses of more than $5.5 million.

Comsat Corp., the satellite communications company that plans to be taken over by Bethesda neighbor Lockheed Martin Corp., said yesterday that its third-quarter earnings and revenue were down from last year.Comsat posted a net loss of $18.4 million, or 35 cents per diluted share, compared with net income of $6.6 million -- 12 cents per share -- in the comparable quarter of 1998. The earnings figures for the quarter that ended Sept. 30 were dragged down by one-time factors, including a $36 million write-off of its direct investment in ICO Global Communications Ltd. and $5.3 million in costs related to the pending acquisition by Lockheed.

It was, Norm Augustine will tell you, a matter of luck that led him to the top job at the world's largest defense and aerospace company.Just luck -- random events, followed impulses, being in the right place at the right time, even being in the wrong place at the right time.Had it not been for a chance conversation on a train, he recalls, he might have followed his boyhood dream. "I always wanted to be a forest ranger," he said. "I love the outdoors. It looked like a good life to me."Instead, the "good life" has been a 40-year career that culminated this year when Norman R. Augustine took over as chief executive of Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin Corp.

A story in yesterday's Sun misidentified the director of Lockheed Martin Corp.'s Catonsville research laboratory. He is David Goldheim.The Sun regrets the error.

Norman R. Augustine pushed himself away from the large mahogany desk, which, as always, was uncluttered except for a pen set, clock and family snapshots. He didn't want to be in the office. It was Saturday, and an uncommonly pleasant one for mid-March - 55 degrees and sunny.But he'd called the emergency meeting, summoning a dozen top lieutenants to his second-floor office in Bethesda. The question: Should Martin Marietta increase its $1.93 billion bid for Grumman Corp.? Two weeks ago, the acquisition had looked assured.

A federal judge in Washington has issued a harshly worded order requiring the Justice Department to explain in detail why it wants to keep secret thousands of documents in its antitrust case against Lockheed Martin Corp.U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan called the department's filing "woefully abysmal" and warned that his demand for a full explanation by 9 a.m. Monday was firm."There will be no extension of time," he said in his ruling, issued late Thursday and made public yesterday. Sullivan noted caustically that the government's explanations "do not comply with precedent of long standing that the government is well aware of."

Lockheed Martin Corp., Boeing Co. and three more of the nation's top aerospace companies have agreed to share laboratories and lab workers to cut costs.If successful, the agreement could open up a whole new arena of cooperation among the five companies, Boeing officials said.The companies that signed the agreement are Boeing, McDonnell Douglas Corp., Lockheed Martin Corp.'s Lockheed Aeronautical Systems unit, Rockwell International Corp. and the B-2 and military aircraft divisions of Northrop Grumman Corp.

Lockheed Martin Corp., a Bethesda-based aerospace contractor, was the only Maryland company to be ranked in the top 50 best performing companies by Business Week.The magazine, in its March 24 issue, uses companies in the S&P 500 and ranks them by criteria including growth in sales, profits and return to shareholders. One- and three-year total returns were considered, as were one- and three-year average annual sales growth, one- and three-year profit growth, net profit margins and return on equity.

A federal judge in Washington has issued a harshly worded order requiring the Justice Department to explain in detail why it wants to keep secret thousands of documents in its antitrust case against Lockheed Martin Corp.U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan called the department's filing "woefully abysmal" and warned that his demand for a full explanation by 9 a.m. Monday was firm."There will be no extension of time," he said in his ruling, issued late Thursday and made public yesterday. Sullivan noted caustically that the government's explanations "do not comply with precedent of long standing that the government is well aware of."

Don't be surprised if Ivy League schools start going on a merger binge. Norman R. Augustine, who has put together 22 companies to create Lockheed Martin Corp., steps down today as chief executive officer to teach at Princeton.Augustine led the reshaping of the defense industry in the wake of the Cold War, crusading for unprecedented consolidations that left only three major corporate players.He capped his career and the wave of acquisitions with the surprise announcement July 3 that Lockheed Martin would buy Northrop Grumman, the last major purchase likely on the American military market.

THE PARIS Air Show is where everybody who's anybody in the defense industry goes to show off for the international marketplace.Jet-lagged aerospace executives spent the past week recovering from the June 15-22 dose of Paris in springtime. The huge bazaar of winged muscle is staged every other year at Le Bourget airport.While giants like Lockheed Martin Corp. and British Aerospace get most of the attention with daredevil flight demonstrations, and Boeing Co. and Airbus Industrie slug it out over contract announcements, swarms of smaller companies make the scene as well.

Lockheed Martin Corp. bestowed a 25 percent pay raise on Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Norman R. Augustine last year, bringing his salary and bonus to more than $2.7 million.Augustine also earned stock options worth about $1.4 million at yesterday's closing price, according to a proxy statement the company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.The next four highest-paid executives at the Bethesda-based defense giant earned combined salaries and bonuses of more than $5.5 million.

Lockheed Martin Corp., a Bethesda-based aerospace contractor, was the only Maryland company to be ranked in the top 50 best performing companies by Business Week.The magazine, in its March 24 issue, uses companies in the S&P 500 and ranks them by criteria including growth in sales, profits and return to shareholders. One- and three-year total returns were considered, as were one- and three-year average annual sales growth, one- and three-year profit growth, net profit margins and return on equity.

Wall Street describes it as a "dream" deal: Raytheon Co. splits itself into pieces, and investors walk away with billions of dollars in proceeds.Such a break-up could enable Raytheon to get stronger by merging with another defense company, and would also unlock hidden value in its commercial assets, which include engineering and construction services, business jets and appliances.Under some analysts' dream scenario, Raytheon would merge its defense business with Hughes Aircraft Co. or another defense contractor, spin off part of its Engineers & Constructors division to shareholders, conduct a public stock offering for its Beech Aircraft unit and sell its Amana appliance line to a competitor.

AT&T Corp. and Lockheed Martin Corp. have settled opposing lawsuits filed after a satellite AT&T purchased from Martin Marietta Corp. exploded, the companies announced yesterday.Financial details of the settlement were not disclosed.AT&T filed a suit in March seeking more than $250 million and punitive damages from Martin Marietta, which merged with Lockheed Corp. that month. The suit claimed the spacecraft maker failed "to correct known defects in the propulsion system used" in the broadcast satellite, called Telstar 402, which blew up in September.

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon's inspector general is investigating the "reasonableness" of Lockheed Martin Corp. using $31 million in taxpayer money to help fund $92 million in bonuses top executives gave themselves in a merger that created the nation's largest defense contractor.As part of the probe by Eleanor Hill, the new Defense Department inspector general, Pentagon auditors will inspect Lockheed Martin books next month."The audit by the Defense Contract Audit Agency will determine if the amounts claimed by the Lockheed Martin Corp.

NEW YORK -- U.S. stocks prolonged a six-day advance, sending the Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor's 500 and Nasdaq composite indexes all to records yesterday.Prices gained strength from the opening bell and never flagged, as shares of Eastman Kodak Co. reached a high and semiconductor manufacturers soared. Philip Morris Cos. benefited from a pension fund endorsement.The Dow industrials rallied 35.78 to 6,255.60, extending a climb that's seen the 30-stock average gain 3.9 percent since Nov. 1. Photographic film maker Kodak notched the biggest gain, sprinting $1.625 to $82.625 and pushing up the Dow by 5 points.

With a healthy boost in its defense electronics business from the acquisition of the bulk of Loral Corp. earlier this year, Lockheed Martin Corp. yesterday reported higher-than-expected second-quarter earnings.Net income totaled $299 million for the three months ended June 30, up 10 percent from the $273 million in the same period last year. The year-earlier number excludes a $525 million pretax charge for merger-related expenses.On a per share basis, that was equal to $1.33, compared with $1.22 a year ago."