Amentum completed its merger with Jacobs Solutions Inc.'s spun-off critical mission solutions, and cyber and intelligence businesses. The merger of the privately held Amentum and the units of publicly listed Jacobs, completed Friday, has created a new publicly traded Amentum Holdings Inc. (AMTM) that will start trading Sept. 30 on the New York Stock Exchange and be listed on the S&P 500.
With its added muscle, the Chantilly, Virginia-based engineering and technology services company is positioning to expand its market in the intelligence community, the space domain, data analytics, and hypersonic technology, Amentum Chief Executive Officer John Heller said in an interview with Bloomberg Government.
The company— expected to generate an estimated $14 billion in revenue in fiscal 2025— is also looking to widen its global footprint working with US allies in the Indo-Pacific region and Europe, Heller said.
“It’s such a big deal for our industry,” he said. “It will create one of the largest, and what we believe to be the strongest engineering and technology solutions companies.”
The following is a Q&A with Heller, who detailed the merger and company priorities in the wide-ranging interview, edited for clarity and brevity.
BGOV: A big part of this deal is going public. S&P Dow Jones Indices announced you are going to be listed on the S&P 500. What does it mean for Amentum? What is Amentum getting out of this deal?
Heller: Both of our businesses have a long history, nearly a century supporting US government or allies, but really with an engineering background. So where our peers are very IT-services focused, our history has really been grown out of being an engineering [company]. I would say it’s chemical engineering, aerospace engineering, nuclear engineering, data engineering, civil mechanical engineering and computer science. It’s that route in doing science work for the government, research and development, testing, advanced design that gives us a very different background in the level of relationship with the government. Bringing the two together basically rounds out, gives us this end-to-end service capability that allows us to move more from the front-end of the acquisition life cycle—doing research and design and science—and to move along the acquisition life cycle to do more work in integrating the systems of government.
BGOV: Was space an attractive proposition for Amentum in terms of this merger?
Heller: Yes, yes and so given that capability that the two companies have, we’re also aligned with where the marketplace is going today. We talk about it as the space domain, or you know Space Force, the Cyber Command now, all the areas that are the priority of government, really, around data. When you think about commanding the space domain it is really about winning the data battle.
It starts with launching capability into space: having the ability to design the most advanced rocket capability so you can put payloads into space; having the ability to design and integrate unmanned aircraft, so that you can put payloads into space to gather information. As we gather all that information, we’re bringing massive amounts of data together. [It’s] our ability to work in the intelligence space to analyze data, to make it useful to create an advantage from that data, and using AI to really sift through all that data to make it most useful. Finally, it’s also protecting that data. The cybersecurity capabilities to ensure that all that data that we’re managing does not get into the wrong hands, and that we can win the data, the space domain, basically. Amentum has a lot of the data analytic capability. The Jacobs team brings kind of the leadership role in rocket design and also working with the design of payloads for the satellites that we’re putting in space. So it’s having the full end-to-end capability to win the space domain.
BGOV: What do you want to see out of Amentum Holdings going into next year?
Heller: It’s three things. First, combined we now have a really substantial footprint in the intelligence community and doing work around data analytics and cybersecurity and systems integration. That positions us to expand our addressable market in the intelligence community and really pursue larger, more significant mission systems integration work in the intelligence community. That’s kind of at the point of the spear for us strategically.
Second, is in the space domain. The Jacobs team brings great rocket technology, advanced technology, and advanced engineering capability. We bring launch experience. We really see the ability to be the strongest service provider in that space domain to both the US government, but also commercial space and being an option with all that engineering capability that we bring in that commercial space area where we’re going to see a lot more launches in the future.
Third, is on the international government area where the Jacobs team brings a significant footprint internationally with the UK across Europe and on Australia. Amentum has a substantial footprint working in 80 countries around the world, but primarily with the US government. If you go back 20 to 30 years, as you well know, the US government didn’t have a peer. Today, with the rise of China and the investments that China’s making in defense, now they’re the second largest defense budget in the world, you’re starting to see that there is a near-peer out there and that the US needs partnerships with countries like the UK, like Australia, Japan.
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BGOV: Are there any particular programs in the intelligence analytics community that you’re eyeing?
Heller: We don’t normally talk about specific name programs, but we do have a very significant presence in the market, in the intelligence analytics space, and we will look to see how the Jacobs integrated capabilities with Amentum allows us to expand. One area I would point out is designing advanced payloads that are able to collect information in a way that more capable than what the intelligence community or the Air Force has today in space. The two businesses coming together do have an advanced capability at building ISR [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] payload capability. We are working with the intelligence community in that area and we, you know, we believe that we are bringing together a capability there that can be sold to both the Department of Defense and the intelligence community that will improve the ISR capability of those organizations.
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