Defense contractors

[Saluki]

Is anyone familiar with French defense contractor Exail?  I just stumbled across it.  It makes imaging maritime stuff like Kraken Robotics or MIND, but I can't find a lot of info about it. Seems to be priced reasonably on an price/EBITDA multiple, but it's not profitable which is usually a hard pass for me on small companies with cool tech. It was formed via merger of two other companies in 2022.  Any idea how their imaging stuff compares to KRKNF or MIND?  And they also have stuff in photonics and aerospace, which is surprising considering how small the market cap is. 

[rogermunibond]

Anyone have thoughts on why HII is down?

 

IIRC they are mostly a naval shipbuilder and with the lack of active USN surface vessels shouldn't HII be getting a bid?

[Hektor]

https://www.washingtontechnology.com/companies/2025/02/trump-administration-asks-agencies-cull-consultants/403348/

 

Trump administration asks agencies to cull consultants

 

The Trump administration is asking agencies to review their consulting contracts with at least 10 large companies, including some global firms, as part of an effort to cut “non-essential consulting contracts.”

 

The acting head of the General Services Administration, Stephen Ehikian, asked “agency senior procurement executive[s]” to review their consulting contracts with the 10 companies the administration deemed the highest paid using procurement data — Deloitte, Accenture Federal Services, Booz Allen Hamilton, General Dynamics, Leidos, Guidehouse, Hill Mission Technologies Corp., Science Applications International Corporation, CGI Federal and International Business Machines Corporation — in a memo dated Feb. 26 obtained by Nextgov/FCW. 

[lnofeisone]

I was just about to pull the trigger on CACI. I think I'll hold back until this review is over. 

[Hektor]

That's prudent, I think. Interestingly, CACI is not in the top 10 targeted

[tnathan]

19 hours ago, rogermunibond said:

Anyone have thoughts on why HII is down?

 

IIRC they are mostly a naval shipbuilder and with the lack of active USN surface vessels shouldn't HII be getting a bid?

Also very interested in perspectives here ... I know some have a negative view of the company but it seems cheap even considering some bad news (and the backlog is huge)

[lnofeisone]

18 minutes ago, Hektor said:

That's prudent, I think. Interestingly, CACI is not in the top 10 targeted

SAIC and CACI are comparable in size (CACI is a tad bigger) but SAIC is mostly services. This latest development introduces a bit of uncertainty. I'm convinced that whoever is running the top 10 filter doesn't understand Gov't contracting and just picked "services" NAICS without knowledge that you can bundle services under non-service NAICS and there are nuances that come with every contract vehicle.