LHX · Industrials(search, detection, navigation, guidance, aeronautical sys) · 10 years of annual accounts filed with the SEC · latest fiscal year ended 2026-01-02
Of the $17.9 billion its operations generated over 10 years, 58.4% went to buybacks and 37.4% to acquisitions; the share count rose 51.6%. On the accounting screens, it passes 7 of 7 Piotroski tests and its Altman Z'' of 1.85 is in the grey zone; 1 of the six cross-checks between its statements fires.
Revenue, fiscal 2026—
Operating margin—gross margin —
Return on invested capital5.8%5.3% on average over 5 years
Free cash flow after stock pay2.6B
Net debt ÷ EBITDA2.8×net debt 9.4B
Piotroski F-score7/7tests of improvement passed
Share counts are in today's shares. The SEC's filings restate only recent years after a split, so these jumps were read as splits and the older years scaled to match — otherwise per-share figures would compare different units:
2-for-1 before fiscal 2020.
Is it growing?
Revenue and the operating income it turns into. Growth that does not reach operating income is growth bought with margin.
RevenueOperating income
010.0B20.0B30.0B
2017Revenue 5.9BOperating income 1.1B
2018Revenue 6.2BOperating income 1.1B
2019Revenue 6.8BOperating income 1.4B
2020Revenue 12.9BOperating income 1.7B
2021Revenue 18.2BOperating income 2.2B
2021Revenue 17.8BOperating income 2.1B
2022Revenue 17.1BOperating income 1.1B
2023Revenue 19.4BOperating income 1.4B
2025Revenue 21.3BOperating income 1.9B
2026Operating income 2.1B
2017201820192020202120212022202320252026
Compound growth a year
3 yrs
5 yrs
9 yrs
Operating income
+23.2%
-0.5%
+7.8%
Net income
+14.8%
+7.5%
+12.6%
Earnings per share
+15.8%
+10.5%
+7.5%
Free cash flow per share
+13.1%
+4.9%
+16.4%
Dividend per share
+2.4%
+7.4%
+9.6%
Shares
-0.9%
-2.7%
+4.7%
Falling shares are buybacks: each remaining share owns more of the company.
Does it earn more than its capital costs?
Margins say how much of each sale is kept; return on invested capital says how much the business earns on the money it needs to operate. Growth only creates value when that return is above the cost of the capital.
Needs a cost of capital, which comes from the valuation below.
Return on equity
8.2%
Return on assets
3.9%
Asset turnover
—
Is the profit cash, and where does the cash go?
Net income is an accounting opinion; free cash flow is what was left in the bank after investing. Stock-based pay does not leave the bank — shareholders pay it through dilution — so it is shown taken off as well.
Net incomeFree cash flowAfter stock-based pay
01.0B2.0B3.0B
2017Net income 553.0MFree cash flow 450.0MAfter stock-based pay 408.0M
2018Net income 699.0MFree cash flow 615.0MAfter stock-based pay 564.0M
2019Net income 949.0MFree cash flow 1.0BAfter stock-based pay 966.0M
2020Net income 1.3B
2021Net income 1.1BFree cash flow 2.4BAfter stock-based pay 2.3B
2021Net income 1.8BFree cash flow 2.3BAfter stock-based pay 2.2B
2022Net income 1.1BFree cash flow 1.9BAfter stock-based pay 1.8B
2023Net income 1.2BFree cash flow 1.6BAfter stock-based pay 1.6B
2025Net income 1.5BFree cash flow 2.2BAfter stock-based pay 2.1B
2026Net income 1.6BFree cash flow 2.7BAfter stock-based pay 2.6B
2017201820192020202120212022202320252026
Where 10 years of operating cash went, 2017–2026
17.9B generated by the business. Each band is its share of that total.
Reinvested in the business 15%2.7B
Acquisitions 37%6.7B
Dividends 33%5.9B
Share buybacks 58%10.5B
More than it generated: funded with cash or new debt -44%-7.8B
Over the same years it paid 782.0M in stock. The share count rose 51.6%. 9.7B of the buybacks went beyond offsetting that dilution.
Per share
Earnings per shareFree cash flow per shareDividend per share
$0.00$5.00$10.00$15.00
2017Earnings per share $4.45Free cash flow per share $3.62Dividend per share $2.11
2018Earnings per share $5.77Free cash flow per share $5.08Dividend per share $2.25
2019Earnings per share $7.88Free cash flow per share $8.50Dividend per share $2.70
2020Earnings per share $7.89
2021Earnings per share $5.18Free cash flow per share $11.22Dividend per share $3.36
2021Earnings per share $9.08Free cash flow per share $11.54Dividend per share $4.02
2022Earnings per share $5.49Free cash flow per share $9.85Dividend per share $4.47
2023Earnings per share $6.44Free cash flow per share $8.64Dividend per share $4.55
2025Earnings per share $7.88Free cash flow per share $11.28Dividend per share $4.65
2026Earnings per share $8.52Free cash flow per share $14.24Dividend per share $4.79
2017201820192020202120212022202320252026
Shares outstanding
Diluted shares
100.0M125.0M150.0M175.0M200.0M225.0M
2017Diluted shares 124.3M
2018Diluted shares 121.1M
2019Diluted shares 120.5M
2020Diluted shares 169.0M
2021Diluted shares 215.9M
2021Diluted shares 203.2M
2022Diluted shares 193.5M
2023Diluted shares 190.6M
2025Diluted shares 190.7M
2026Diluted shares 188.4M
2017201820192020202120212022202320252026
How strong is the balance sheet?
Debt is not bad in itself; debt the business cannot service in a bad year is. Net debt is debt minus cash, and below zero the company holds more cash than it owes.
Net debt
05.0B10.0B15.0B
2017Net debt 3.5B
2018Net debt 3.2B
2019Net debt 2.3B
2020Net debt 5.9B
2021Net debt 5.7B
2021Net debt 6.1B
2022Net debt 5.3B
2023Net debt 12.2B
2025Net debt 11.0B
2026Net debt 9.4B
2017201820192020202120212022202320252026
Net debt ÷ EBITDA
2.8×
Interest coverage
— operating income ÷ interest
Current ratio
1.19 current assets ÷ current liabilities
Cash conversion cycle
—
Three classic screens of the accounts
Each asks a different question of the same statements — is it improving, does it look like a company heading for distress, do the accounts resemble ones that were manipulated. None is a verdict; each shows what moves it.
Piotroski F-score
Is the business improving? Nine yes-or-no tests, this year against last.
7of 7 tests passed
✓ProfitableReturn on assets above zeropassed
✓Cash from operationsOperating cash flow above zeropassed
✓Profitability improvedReturn on assets higher than a year beforepassed
✓Profit backed by cashOperating cash flow above net income (low accruals)passed
✓Less long-term debtLong-term debt as a share of assets fellpassed
✓More liquidCurrent ratio higher than a year beforepassed
✓No new sharesShare count did not growpassed
–Better gross marginGross margin higher than a year before — not reportedno data
–Sells more per assetAsset turnover higher than a year before — not reportedno data
Where it misleads: it measures change, not level. An excellent business that stood still for a year scores low; a poor one recovering from a disaster scores high.
Altman Z''-score
Does the balance sheet look like those of companies that went bankrupt?
1.85grey zone
1.12.6
Working capital ÷ assets 0.03 × 6.56+0.22
Retained earnings ÷ assets 0.10 × 3.26+0.33
Operating income ÷ assets 0.05 × 6.72+0.34
Equity ÷ liabilities 0.91 × 1.05+0.96
Where it misleads: buybacks. A company that returns so much cash that its equity turns small or negative sinks the last two ratios without being anywhere near bankruptcy. Banks and insurers do not fit the model at all.
Beneish M-score
Do the accounts resemble those of companies that manipulated their earnings?
The accounts lack too many of the lines it needs.
Where the statements disagree
Cross-checks between the income statement, the balance sheet and the cash flow for the latest year, each with the benign reading and the worrying one.
Capital spending (424M) is well below depreciation (1,224M).
Benign
Mature assets, or a business that has become less capital-intensive.
Worrying
Under-investing: today's profit is being held up by consuming tomorrow's capacity.
What is it worth, under which assumptions?
A company is worth the cash it will generate, brought back to today. This model projects revenue with growth that fades over the years, applies a free cash flow margin, and discounts the result at the cost of capital. Every assumption says where it came from, and all of them can be changed.
The SEC accounts lack the lines needed for revenue, free cash flow or the share count, so there is no DCF for this company.
What it has filed lately
The last twelve months at the SEC, most important first: annual and quarterly reports, events, large holders and insiders.
Accounts from the company's own SEC filings; lines some companies do not report are shown as a dash rather than estimated. The risk-free rate is the 10-year US Treasury yield. A DCF is a way of making assumptions explicit, not a forecast: it states what the company would be worth if the assumptions held. The scores are screens that point where to look, not verdicts. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell.