Lockheed Buys Sub-Hunting Sonar Firm Ultra Maritime
American private equity firm Advent has exited its investment in British subsea acoustic sensing company Ultra Maritime, selling the sonobuoy and sonar maker to Lockheed for $3.45 billion - within the approximate range of the price paid for its purchase and improvement, after accounting for inflation.
In 2022, Advent secured UK government permission to buy Ultra Electronics, acting through Advent's UK-based subsidiary Cobham. The $3.1 million deal gave Advent access to sophisticated sonar technology and a team of experienced anti-submarine warfare engineers. The UK green-lit the proposal, with the understanding that the facilities that supply cutting-edge subsea technology to the Royal Navy would remain in place and under separate governance.
"When we invested in Ultra Maritime in 2022, we saw a business with mission-critical technology . . . but one that had been underinvested and was not yet fully delivering for its customers," said Shonnel Malani, Managing Partner at Advent. "Ultra Maritime is now a stronger, more innovative partner to allied navies."
The sale is meaningful for the U.S. Navy, the Royal Navy and their allied partners, as it puts Lockheed in control of some of the most innovative submarine- and UUV-hunting equipment on the market. Ultra has a portfolio of hull-mounted sonars, towed sonar arrays and advanced sonobuoys, all required equipment for ASW. It is the only maker of G-size sonobuoys, built extra-small for deployment from unmanned aircraft - an affordable way to deliver acoustic sensing capabilities to track opponents' subs. General Atomics is integrating these sonobuoys into the MQ-9B SeaGuardian platform; the combined capability is designed to meet the Royal Navy's requirements for detecting Russian subs in the North Sea.
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It also makes more exotic products, like the Sea Spear UUV-deployable subsea sonar array, which can be installed covertly and can persist on the seabed until recovered. The device is intended for insertion in difficult, demanding environments where traditional means of deployment are impractical. Ultra plans to work with autonomous-tech defense startup Anduril on the concept of operations.
The sale of Ultra Maritime is Advent's latest divestment from its Cobham division, which it bought in 2020 for $4 billion and has been streamlining through spin-offs of individual business units. Previous Cobham divisions sold include Aviation Services, Aerospace Connectivity and Missions Systems, among others, collectively resulting in revenue of more than $7 billion.