Lockheed Martin to divest Aust govt IT operations

United States aerospace and defence technology giant Lockheed Martin will exit the Australian government IT market as part of a strategic review to be concluded by the end of this year.

Lockheed Martin Samurai UAV.

Lockheed Martin Australia and New Zealand spokesperson Michelle Scully confirmed the Australian operations would be divested along with the global government IT business.

"Our information systems and global solutions business in Australia, including our work with Defence and Australian Taxation Office, is included in the strategic review, which is expected to result in a spin-off or sale of this portion of our business," Scully said.

"We know our customers’ programs require the utmost security and we will continue to provide the world’s most advanced cyber security solutions to them."

Scully would not be drawn on whether or not the impending sale might result in redundancies locally.

"At the current time there is no impact on staffing in the region and, until the outcome is known, we will not speculate on future business structure," she said.

The company employs over 750 staff throughout Australia, centred in Melbourne, Adelaide and its Canberra headquarters. Globally, the IT solutions business has over 17,000 staff.

Lockheed Martin has won sizeable government IT supply contracts over the past few years, using local partners to help deliver the work.

The Australian Tax Office picked Lockheed Martin as its preferred supplier for desktop outsourcing services in 2010, a contract estimated to be worth around $60 million a year, with Datacom as its support partner.

Four years later, Lockheed Martin won a Defence contract for centralised processing and data centre consolidation, believed to be worth over $800 million. It chose NEC as the main subcontractor while also handing ASG a large amount of the work.