Graham Corporation (GHM): History, Ownership, Mission, How It Works & Makes Money

Do you really know what's powering the next generation of US Navy submarines and advanced space systems, or are you just looking at the ticker symbol Graham Corporation (GHM)? This isn't just a legacy industrial company; it's a mission-critical technology provider that finished its 2025 fiscal year with $209.9 million in revenue, a 13% jump from the prior year, and a record-high backlog of over $412 million that gives us great visibility into future performance. Honestly, when a company secures a $136.5 million contract for the Virginia-class submarine program while simultaneously booking approximately $22 million in new orders from leading commercial space customers, you have to dig into the history, ownership, and core business model to understand how they are executing this dual-market dominance.

Graham Corporation (GHM) History

You're looking for the bedrock of Graham Corporation, the story behind the mission-critical equipment they build for the Defense and Space industries. The company's history is a long-haul story of engineering specialization, not a sudden tech boom. It starts in the Great Depression era and evolves into a public company with over $412 million in backlog as of fiscal year 2025.

Given Company's Founding Timeline

Year established

The earliest roots trace back to 1936 with the incorporation of Graham Manufacturing Co., Inc.. The current holding company, Graham Corporation, was formally incorporated in Delaware in 1983, coinciding with its Initial Public Offering (IPO).

Original location

The original manufacturing operations began in Oswego, New York, but the company moved its main campus to Batavia, New York, where its headquarters remain today, becoming operational there in 1942.

Founding team members

The foundation was laid by engineer Harold M. Graham, who incorporated the initial company. He was later joined in partnership in 1941 by Frederick D. Berkeley and Scott Ross, both from Ross Heater & Manufacturing Company, forming the core leadership.

Initial capital/funding

Specific details on the initial capital or funding for the 1936 founding are not readily available. However, the company's long-term stability was cemented by its 1983 IPO, which created the publicly traded entity we analyze today.

Given Company's Evolution Milestones

Given Company's Transformative Moments

The most significant shift for Graham Corporation has been its strategic pivot to become a mission-critical supplier for the Defense and Space sectors, moving beyond its traditional Energy & Process base. That's a defintely smart move to stabilize revenue.

• Defense Market Dominance: The company secured a major $136.5 million contract award for the Virginia-class submarine program, underpinning a stable, long-term revenue stream from the U.S. Navy. Sales to the Defense market grew by 28% in fiscal year 2025.
• Fiscal 2025 Financial Strength: The full-year results for fiscal 2025 (ending March 31) showed a strong inflection point. Revenue grew 13% to $210 million, and Net Income jumped significantly to $12.2 million, compared to $4.6 million in the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA was $22.4 million, reflecting improved operational efficiency.
• Aggressive Capital Investment: Management committed to deploying $19 million in Capital Expenditures (CapEx) during fiscal 2025. This investment is focused on:
  • Automated welding technology to enhance productivity.
  • Expanding the Batavia, NY facility by 30,000 sq ft.
  • A new cryogenic testing facility in Florida to support Space programs.
• Record Backlog: The company's success in securing new orders resulted in a record backlog of $412.3 million as of March 31, 2025, with a healthy Book-to-Bill ratio of 1.1x. This provides clear visibility into future revenue.

These actions show a clear strategy: invest heavily in specialized, high-margin capabilities to serve government-backed, long-cycle markets. If you want to dive deeper into who is driving these investment decisions, you should read Exploring Graham Corporation (GHM) Investor Profile: Who's Buying and Why?

Graham Corporation (GHM) Ownership Structure

Graham Corporation's control is heavily concentrated among institutional investors, which hold nearly four-fifths of the company's stock, giving them significant influence over strategic decisions and governance. This structure means that while it's a public company, its decision-making power rests largely with a few major financial entities, not individual retail shareholders.

Graham Corporation's Current Status

Graham Corporation is a publicly traded entity, listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker symbol GHM. As of November 2025, the company maintains a market capitalization of approximately $648.29 million, reflecting its status as a small-cap player in the industrial machinery sector. Its public status subjects it to rigorous financial reporting and regulatory oversight by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), ensuring transparency for all investors.

The stock price, trading around $59.00 per share as of mid-November 2025, has shown considerable volatility with a rolling one-year beta of 1.43, which is something you defintely need to watch.

Graham Corporation's Ownership Breakdown

The company's ownership is dominated by professional money managers. Institutional investors, including mutual funds and asset managers like BlackRock, Inc. and The Vanguard Group, Inc., collectively own the vast majority of shares. This high institutional ownership-nearly 80%-means their collective trading activity can easily move the stock price.

For a deeper dive into how this ownership structure impacts the balance sheet, you should read Breaking Down Graham Corporation (GHM) Financial Health: Key Insights for Investors.

Graham Corporation's Leadership

The leadership team driving Graham Corporation's strategy is relatively new at the top, a result of a planned succession completed in mid-2025. This transition is crucial for continuity, especially as the company focuses on its defense and aerospace segments.

• Matthew J. Malone, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO): Appointed in June 2025, Malone brings over a decade and a half of engineering and executive experience, having previously led the successful Barber-Nichols subsidiary. His total yearly compensation is approximately $828.02K, and he owns about 0.48% of the company's shares.
• Daniel J. Thoren, Executive Chairman and Strategic Advisor: Transitioned from the CEO role in June 2025 to focus on guiding strategy and business development.
• Christopher J. Thome, Vice President - Finance, Chief Financial Officer (CFO), and Chief Accounting Officer: Has been in the role since April 2022, providing financial stability with nearly 30 years of experience in finance and accounting leadership.
• Mike Dixon, Vice President and General Manager of Barber-Nichols: Promoted in June 2025, he is key to expanding the company's technical capabilities and securing major contracts in the defense and aerospace sectors.

The average tenure for the current management team is short-less than a year-due to the recent succession, but the board of directors has a longer average tenure of 4 years, providing a necessary layer of experience and oversight.

Graham Corporation (GHM) Mission and Values

Graham Corporation's core purpose is to be a global leader in providing mission-critical engineered products, driven by a commitment to superior performance and a culture of continuous improvement, which is defintely a winning combination.

The company's cultural DNA centers on transforming from a cyclical equipment supplier to a diversified, multi-market leader, focusing heavily on the Defense, Space, and advanced Energy sectors. This strategic shift is what allows them to achieve financial metrics like the fiscal 2025 Net Income of $12.2 million, up significantly from the prior year.

Given Company's Core Purpose

Official mission statement

The formal mission statement for Graham Corporation is concise and focused on both internal development and external results. It's a clear mandate: build better companies to deliver superior performance.

• Build Better Companies to Deliver Superior Performance.
• Prioritize teamwork and communication among customers, employees, suppliers, and communities.
• Serve customers' mission-critical needs, spanning from space exploration to advanced energy.

You can see the results of this focus in their operational metrics; for fiscal 2025, their Gross Margin expanded to 25.2%, a 330 basis point increase over the previous year, showing the payoff of better execution and pricing. Here's the quick math: higher-margin opportunities translate directly into better shareholder value.

Vision statement

While not labeled a 'Vision Statement,' the company's long-term aspiration is clearly defined by its cultural and market goals. They want to be the employer and partner of choice in their specialized fields, an ambition backed by a record backlog of $412.3 million as of March 31, 2025.

• Be the preferred place to work and attract the best talent.
• Create a culture that is exciting, creative, fun, and embraces continuous improvement.
• Foster deep relationships with customers, engage and reward employees, and embrace communities.
• Be a critical supplier for next-generation space systems, reinforcing diversification.

This commitment to diversification and growth is why they are investing capital to support organic and inorganic initiatives, like the new CNC machining centers and a liquid nitrogen test stand at the Barber-Nichols facility, which will drive enhanced margins. If you want to dive deeper into how these strategic moves affect the balance sheet, check out Breaking Down Graham Corporation (GHM) Financial Health: Key Insights for Investors.

Given Company slogan/tagline

Graham Corporation doesn't use a single, snappy slogan, but its identity is built around a powerful, action-oriented phrase that defines its market position and value proposition. They are all about high-stakes, high-reliability engineering.

• Mission-Critical Engineered Product Businesses.
• Global Leader in Mission Critical Fluid, Power, Heat Transfer and Vacuum Technologies.

Their focus on mission-critical equipment is the whole story. It's why their Book-to-Bill ratio for fiscal 2025 was 1.1x, marking the fifth consecutive year that orders exceeded revenue, a strong signal of sustained demand in their core Defense and Space markets. That's a great sign of future revenue conversion.

Graham Corporation (GHM) How It Works

Graham Corporation doesn't just sell equipment; it engineers and manufactures mission-critical fluid, power, heat transfer, and vacuum systems that are essential for high-stakes operations in defense, space, and energy. Think of them as the specialized plumbing and thermal management experts for the world's most demanding applications, generating net sales of $209.9 million in fiscal year 2025.

Graham Corporation's Product/Service Portfolio

Graham Corporation's Operational Framework

The company's operational strength comes from a two-pronged approach: optimizing its legacy heat transfer business and rapidly scaling its new fluid and power technologies segment. This is a classic playbook for managing different business cycle stages. You're seeing the results in their fiscal 2025 gross profit of $52.9 million, a 330 basis point margin increase over the prior year.

The core process is full product lifecycle support, which means they design, develop, manufacture, and then service the equipment. Aftermarket sales are defintely important, remaining strong at $12.1 million in fiscal 2025 across the Energy & Process and Defense markets.

• Capacity Investment: Capital expenditures for fiscal 2025 were expected to be between $13.0 million and $18.0 million to boost throughput.
• New Facilities: Building a new 30,000 square foot advanced manufacturing facility in Batavia, New York, for key Navy defense programs.
• Strategic Expansion: Constructing a new liquid hydrogen and oxygen cryogenic test facility in Florida to support the high-growth Space and emerging energy markets.

If you want to dig into the capital structure that funds this growth, you should check out Exploring Graham Corporation (GHM) Investor Profile: Who's Buying and Why?

Graham Corporation's Strategic Advantages

Graham Corporation's market success hinges on its deep engineering expertise and its ability to secure long-duration, high-value contracts in regulated industries. They aren't selling commodities; they are selling highly customized, mission-critical solutions that few competitors can replicate.

• Record Backlog: The company's backlog hit a record $500.1 million as of the most recent reporting, up 23% year-over-year.
• Defense Stability: The majority of the long-term backlog is tied to multi-year U.S. Navy contracts, providing stable, predictable revenue conversion.
• Diversified Growth: Strong sales growth in Defense (23% increase in FY2025) is complemented by momentum in Space (11% increase in FY2025), insulating the business from cyclical swings in the traditional Energy & Process market.
• Technology Acquisition: The November 2025 acquisition of Xdot Bearing Technologies strategically strengthens their competitive position in high-performance rotating equipment for aerospace and defense.

Graham Corporation (GHM) How It Makes Money

Graham Corporation makes money by designing, manufacturing, and servicing highly specialized, mission-critical heat transfer and vacuum equipment for complex, long-lifecycle projects in the Defense, Space, and Energy & Process industries. Their revenue is generated from large, custom-engineered product sales and recurring aftermarket services.

Graham Corporation's Revenue Breakdown

The company's shift toward the high-margin, long-duration Defense and Space sectors is the core driver of revenue and margin expansion, as seen in the fiscal year 2025 (FY2025) results. This is a defintely a stronger, more predictable revenue mix than in years past.

Business Economics

Graham Corporation's business model is built on deep engineering expertise in vacuum and heat transfer technologies, which translates into a high barrier to entry and strong pricing power. You're not buying a commodity; you're buying a custom-engineered solution for a nuclear submarine or a petrochemical plant, so the pricing is value-based, not cost-plus.

• Backlog Visibility: The most critical metric here is the backlog, which hit a record $412.3 million at the end of FY2025, and grew to $500.1 million by the end of Q2 Fiscal Year 2026 (September 30, 2025). This record backlog provides clear revenue visibility for the next several years, with an estimated 35% to 45% expected to convert to sales in the next 12 months.
• Book-to-Bill Ratio: For FY2025, the Book-to-Bill ratio was 1.1x, meaning the company received $231.1 million in new orders against $209.9 million in sales. A ratio over 1.0 is a clear sign that future revenue is growing faster than current execution capacity.
• Aftermarket Revenue: Aftermarket sales-maintenance, repair, and parts-to the Energy & Process and Defense markets were $12.1 million in FY2025, up 3.3% from the prior year. This is a smaller but higher-margin, recurring revenue stream that helps smooth out the lumpiness of large capital equipment orders.

The Defense segment is the key growth engine, with sales up 23% in FY2025, driven by major programs like the U.S. Navy's Virginia Class Submarine program. They are also making strategic capital investments, deploying $19 million in CapEx in FY2025 for new facilities and automated welding, targeting a return on investment (ROIC) exceeding 20%. This is smart money, focused on driving future margin expansion.

Graham Corporation's Financial Performance

The full-year results for fiscal year 2025 (ending March 31, 2025) show a significant operational turnaround, validating the focus on higher-margin Defense and Space work. The numbers speak to a business that has successfully executed its strategic plan, moving from a lower-margin energy focus to a higher-margin, government-backed one. You can read more about the long-term strategic direction in their Mission Statement, Vision, & Core Values of Graham Corporation (GHM).

• Total Revenue (Sales): $209.9 million for FY2025, a 13% increase over the prior fiscal year.
• Net Income: $12.2 million in FY2025, a substantial increase from $4.6 million in the prior year.
• Adjusted EBITDA: $22.4 million for FY2025, representing a 69% jump year-over-year, with an Adjusted EBITDA margin of 10.7%. This margin expansion is a direct result of the favorable product mix change.
• Gross Margin: Expanded by 330 basis points to 25.2% for the full fiscal year 2025. Here's the quick math: higher-value, custom-engineered products are paying off.
• Earnings Per Share (EPS): GAAP EPS was $1.11 per share, and Adjusted EPS was $1.24 per share for FY2025, nearly doubling the prior year's performance.
• Operating Cash Flow: Cash provided by operating activities totaled $24.3 million for FY2025, a strong indicator of the quality of earnings and efficient working capital management.

What this estimate hides is the potential for project delays, which are common in Defense and large capital equipment, but the record backlog and strong cash flow provide a significant buffer. The company's goal to reach low-to-mid-teen Adjusted EBITDA margins by fiscal 2027 shows they are not done improving profitability.

Graham Corporation (GHM) Market Position & Future Outlook

Graham Corporation is successfully pivoting from cyclical energy markets to become a critical, high-growth supplier in the Defense and Space sectors, underpinned by a record backlog that provides exceptional revenue visibility. This strategic shift, coupled with significant capital investments, positions the company for sustained organic growth and margin expansion, targeting low to mid-teen adjusted EBITDA margins by fiscal 2027.

Competitive Landscape

In the highly specialized markets Graham Corporation serves, competition is less about volume and more about technical accreditation and reliability. The company competes with much larger, diversified industrial firms, but maintains a strong position in its core niches by providing custom-engineered, mission-critical components that have extremely high barriers to entry.

Opportunities & Challenges

You need to map the next few years to clear actions, so let's look at where the money is and what could slow it down.

The $412.3 million record backlog is the biggest opportunity, with a high portion expected to convert to revenue in the near term, giving great visibility. The acquisition of Xdot Bearing Technologies also adds proprietary foil-bearing capabilities, which is defintely a strategic win across aerospace and energy applications.

Industry Position

Graham Corporation is no longer just a cyclical heat exchanger supplier; it's a specialized industrial technology player focused on high-margin, mission-critical applications. The shift is clear: Defense and Space are the growth engines, insulating the company from the volatility of its legacy Energy & Process markets.

• Defense Dominance: The Defense segment is the primary growth driver, benefiting from a $136.5 million contract for the Virginia Class Submarine Program and a new 30,000 square foot Batavia facility dedicated to Navy work.
• Capital Investment: Management is deploying $19 million in fiscal 2025 capital expenditures on high-return projects like automated welding and a new Florida cryogenic testing facility, all targeting a greater than 20% Return on Invested Capital (ROIC).
• New Markets: Entry into the advanced energy segments, specifically hydrogen and Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), provides long-term secular tailwinds for the Energy & Process division.
• Financial Health: The company ended fiscal 2025 with $21.6 million in cash and no debt, giving it flexibility to manage the estimated $2 million to $4 million tariff impact expected in fiscal 2026.

If you want a deeper dive into the numbers, especially the margin trends, you should read Breaking Down Graham Corporation (GHM) Financial Health: Key Insights for Investors. The key takeaway for investors and strategists is that while the stock trades at a high P/E ratio (around 47.3x as of October 2025), that valuation reflects the market's belief in the long-term margin story driven by the massive Defense backlog and the pivot to Space and Advanced Energy.