NEWPORT NEWS, Va., March 31, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. (NYSE:HII) has begun operating as a new, independent and publicly traded company as trading of its shares will commence this morning. Huntington Ingalls Industries, America's largest military shipbuilder, was previously a business sector of Northrop Grumman until effectively separating on March 31, 2011, in a spinoff.
"Our strategy," said Mike Petters, president and CEO of Huntington Ingalls Industries, "is to better align our business with the U.S. Navy's priorities and to continue improving our shipbuilding performance while meeting our customer commitments. Operating as an independent company will allow us greater focus and agility to accomplish these important objectives, which should create significant value for our shareholders."
The Huntington Ingalls Industries name reflects the long-standing legacies of the two shipbuilding business divisions of the new entity: Newport News Shipbuilding and Ingalls Shipbuilding. Collis P. Huntington founded Newport News Shipbuilding in 1886, and Ingalls Shipbuilding was established in 1938 by the Ingalls Iron Works of Birmingham, Ala., a company founded by the Ingalls family.
"Incorporating the names of our founding families and legacy companies into our new enterprise will build upon our 125-year tradition of demonstrated commitment to quality, customer focus and building the best military ships in the world," Petters said. "I am very excited about our future, about the strength and depth of our leadership team, and the skill and dedication of our shipbuilders."
Work today at Huntington Ingalls includes the construction of the Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers, the refueling and complex overhaul of Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, construction of Virginia-class submarines, submarine design and life-cycle management, as well as fleet services for naval ships all over the world. The company is also constructing San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ships and an America-class multipurpose amphibious assault ship and has built 28 of 62 Arleigh Burke-class destroyers with long-lead materials awarded on the first two ships in the continuation of the program. Recently, the company was awarded a fourth National Security Cutter construction contract for the U.S. Coast Guard, with the third ship expected to be complete by year's end.
Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) designs, builds and maintains nuclear and non-nuclear ships for the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard and provides after-market services for military ships around the globe. For more than a century, HII has built more ships in more ship classes than any other U.S. naval shipbuilder. Employing nearly 38,000 in Virginia, Mississippi, Louisiana and California, its primary business divisions are Newport News Shipbuilding and Ingalls Shipbuilding. For more information, please visit www.huntingtoningalls.com.
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Statements in this release, other than statements of historical fact, constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed in these statements. Factors that may cause such differences include: changes in government and customer priorities and requirements (including government budgetary constraints, shifts in defense spending, and changes in customer short-range and long-range plans); our ability to obtain new contracts, estimate our costs and perform effectively; risks related to our spin-off from Northrop Grumman (including our increased costs and leverage); our ability to realize the expected benefits from consolidation of our Gulf Coast facilities; natural disasters; adverse economic conditions in the United States and globally; and other risk factors discussed in our filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. There may be other risks and uncertainties that we are unable to predict at this time or that we currently do not expect to have a material adverse effect on our business, and we undertake no obligations to update any forward-looking statements.