BIW owner’s earnings jump 16% in 1st quarter

FALLS CHURCH, Virginia – Defense contractor General Dynamics Corp. on Wednesday said its first-quarter profit rose 16 percent on higher sales in its private jet, information technology and military vehicle units.

The company, which owns Bath Iron Works shipbuilding company in Maine, reported net earnings of $434 million, or $1.06 per share, up from the $374 million, or 92 cents per share, it earned in the year-ago quarter.

Earnings from continuing operations, which exclude results such as the company’s coal-mining business that is up for sale, were up 13.7 percent to $440 million, or $1.07 per share.

Revenue rose to $6.3 billion from $5.5 billion last year.

Analysts polled by Thomson Financial, on average, expected a quarterly profit from continuing operations of $1.05 per share on sales of $6.20 billion.

The company, along with the rest of the defense industry, had benefited from a rapid expansion in government spending on military hardware and repairs to equipment as the U.S. wages wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

General Dynamics’ combat systems division, which makes tanks and armored personnel used by the Army, reported sales growth of 14 percent to $1.5 billion. The aerospace segment, which consists primarily of the corporate jet builder Gulfstream, posted a nearly 18 percent gain in sales to roughly $1 billion.

Information technology, the company’s largest unit by revenue, saw sales rise more than 20 percent to $2.4 billion. Sales in the marine systems division, which makes warships and submarines, dipped 1.4 percent to $1.3 billion.