Lockheed Hunts for CFO After Ken Possenriede’s Sudden Exit

Pentagon’s biggest defense contractor Lockheed Martin stated on Tuesday main economical officer Ken Possenriede is retiring straight away “due to personalized reasons” and named a business veteran as an interim substitute.

Ken Possenriede

What Occurred: The maker of F-35 fighter jets named John Mollard, the existing vice president and treasurer, to fill in quickly as a substitute for Ken Possenriede, a different business veteran who was main the CFO job at Lockheed given that February 2019. 

Possenriede, sixty, has used in excess of 3 a long time with Lockheed in different roles which include as vice president and treasurer. His unexpected exit will come two times ahead of the company’s scheduled investor working day on Thursday and soon after a exceptional miss out on on quarterly earnings previous week.

Possenriede’s unexpected exit was not similar to any “financial or accounting difficulty or any disagreement with the business or any make a difference relating to the company’s functions, insurance policies, or procedures,” Lockheed stated in a Securities and Trade Fee filing on Tuesday.

Why It Matters: The hunt for a new CFO will come soon after a yr Lockheed navigated by means of the world wide pandemic that strike the defense marketplace hard with shutdowns, shortages, and months of delays. 

A draft of the 2022 defense spending plan signifies the U.S. defense marketplace could get a shelling out strengthen of $25 billion under President Joe Biden as the Pentagon appears to be like to retire older weapons packages in favor of more recent engineering.

Price Action: Lockheed shares shut .31% higher at $369.forty five on Tuesday and were being down .8% in prolonged hrs. 

This story originally appeared on Benzinga. © 2021 Benzinga.com.

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