Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. (HII): History, Ownership, Mission, How It Works & Makes Money

When you look at the U.S. defense industrial base, do you really grasp the sheer scale of a company like Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. (HII)? This isn't just about building boats; it's about being the nation's largest military shipbuilder, holding a massive backlog of $55.7 billion as of September 30, 2025, which gives you clear visibility for years to come. Honestly, that kind of order book is a defintely solid foundation.

In the third quarter of 2025 alone, HII pulled in a record $3.2 billion in revenue, a 16% jump year-over-year, driven by its core segments like Newport News Shipbuilding and Ingalls Shipbuilding, plus the growing Mission Technologies division. How does a company that builds nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and cutting-edge uncrewed systems manage such complex, multi-decade programs, and what does that mean for its future profitability?

The story of HII-its history, ownership structure, and the mechanics behind its $9.0 billion to $9.1 billion shipbuilding revenue guidance for fiscal year 2025-is the story of American defense strategy and a critical piece of the global security puzzle; you need to see the inner workings to understand the investment thesis.

Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. (HII) History

You're looking for the definitive history of America's largest military shipbuilder, Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. (HII), and the story is less about a garage startup and more about a strategic, high-stakes corporate separation. The modern HII entity was born from a major spin-off, immediately becoming a dominant force in the defense sector. This history provides the context for why HII is the only company that builds U.S. Navy nuclear-powered aircraft carriers today.

Given Company's Founding Timeline

Year established

The company was formally established on March 31, 2011, when it was spun off from Northrop Grumman Corporation. This was a deliberate move to create an independent, publicly traded entity focused solely on government and commercial maritime markets.

Original location

The corporate headquarters was, and remains, in Newport News, Virginia, USA. This location is home to the massive Newport News Shipbuilding division, which anchors HII's unique capabilities.

Founding team members

As a spin-off, HII did not have traditional founders; it launched with established leadership from the predecessor company. The first President and CEO was C. Michael Petters, who transitioned from his leadership role within Northrop Grumman's shipbuilding sector. The company's name honors the founders of its legacy shipyards: Collis Potter Huntington and Robert Ingersoll Ingalls Sr.

Initial capital/funding

HII was capitalized by the substantial assets and operations transferred from Northrop Grumman. This included the core Ingalls Shipbuilding and Newport News Shipbuilding divisions. It began trading independently on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker HII.

Given Company's Evolution Milestones

Given Company's Transformative Moments

The most transformative decision was the initial spin-off, which allowed a focused management team to dedicate capital and strategy entirely to defense shipbuilding and adjacent technical services. This focus is what drives the current financial performance.

The pivot to services, culminating in the 2021 Alion Science and Technology acquisition, was crucial. It created the Mission Technologies division, which now stands as a significant growth engine alongside the two legacy shipyards.

Here's the quick math on that diversification:

• The company's total backlog reached a massive $55.7 billion as of September 30, 2025, providing a stable revenue base for years.
• For the full fiscal year 2025, HII projects Shipbuilding revenue between $9.0 billion and $9.1 billion, but Mission Technologies is anticipated to generate a substantial $3.0 billion to $3.1 billion in revenue.
• In the third quarter of 2025, the company reported a strong $3.2 billion in revenue, an increase of 16.1% year-over-year, showing that targeted investments are paying off.

This dual-engine strategy-shipbuilding plus high-tech services-is why HII is defintely more than just a shipyard now. You can see how these priorities map to the company's guiding principles here: Mission Statement, Vision, & Core Values of Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. (HII).

The most recent guidance increase is a clear signal of momentum: HII raised its full-year 2025 free cash flow guidance to between $550 million and $650 million, a significant jump from earlier projections. That's a powerful indicator of operational efficiency and contract performance.

Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. (HII) Ownership Structure

Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. (HII) is governed by a structure typical of a large, publicly traded defense contractor, with its stock heavily concentrated among institutional investors who hold the vast majority of shares. This ownership dynamic means that major asset managers and mutual funds exert significant influence over the company's long-term strategic decisions, including capital allocation and executive oversight.

Given Company's Current Status

Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. operates as a publicly listed company, trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker symbol HII. This public status subjects it to rigorous regulatory oversight by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which mandates regular financial and operational disclosures. As of November 2025, the company's share price was approximately $313.89 per share, reflecting a strong year-over-year increase of over 62% from November 2024.

To understand the forces driving this performance, you should look deeper into the stakeholder landscape. Exploring Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. (HII) Investor Profile: Who's Buying and Why? provides a good starting point.

Given Company's Ownership Breakdown

The company's ownership structure is overwhelmingly dominated by institutional investors, which is common for a defense industry leader with stable, long-term government contracts. This high concentration of institutional holdings-nearly 93%-suggests a strong, long-term confidence from major financial players like Vanguard Group Inc., BlackRock, Inc., and Fmr LLC.

Here's the quick math on who owns the shares as of the most recent filings for the 2025 fiscal year:

Given Company's Leadership

The leadership team at Huntington Ingalls Industries is comprised of seasoned defense and shipbuilding veterans, ensuring continuity and deep domain expertise across its core divisions. They are the ones steering the strategy behind the company's colossal backlog, which exceeded $48 billion in early 2024.

The senior leadership team, responsible for the overall direction of the company and its three main divisions-Newport News Shipbuilding, Ingalls Shipbuilding, and Mission Technologies-includes:

• Christopher D. Kastner: President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO). He also serves on the Board of Directors.
• Kari Wilkinson: Executive Vice President and President, Newport News Shipbuilding. She took this critical role, overseeing the sole builder of U.S. Navy aircraft carriers, in January 2025.
• Brian Blanchette: Executive Vice President and President, Ingalls Shipbuilding. He stepped into this role, managing the construction of surface combatants, in January 2025.
• Andy Green: Executive Vice President and President, Mission Technologies. This division focuses on C5ISR (Command, Control, Computers, Communications, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) and unmanned systems, a key growth area.
• Chad Boudreaux: Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer.

The company's governance is defintely focused on aligning its shipbuilding and technology capabilities with evolving national security priorities, which is the main job of this executive group.

Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. (HII) Mission and Values

Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. (HII)'s core purpose extends beyond its $3.1 billion in Q2 2025 revenue, focusing instead on national security and global stability, which is the ultimate, long-term value proposition for its investors and the nation. The company's mission and values are the cultural blueprint for delivering complex, high-stakes defense solutions, which is defintely a high-bar business.

Given Company's Core Purpose

You're investing in a company that sees itself as a cornerstone of the U.S. defense industrial base, not just a contractor, so its cultural DNA is built on a service-first mentality. This is a critical factor when assessing long-term contract stability and performance. For a deeper dive into the numbers, you should check out Breaking Down Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. (HII) Financial Health: Key Insights for Investors.

Official Mission Statement

HII's mission is a direct commitment to national defense capabilities, linking their industrial output to geopolitical outcomes. It's about creating an undeniable advantage for U.S. and allied forces to maintain global peace and freedom.

• Deliver the world's most powerful ships and all-domain solutions in service of the nation.
• Create the advantage for customers to protect peace and freedom around the world.

Vision Statement

The vision statement maps the mission to a clear business goal: to be the premier provider of solutions while driving sustained value for all stakeholders-employees, shareholders, and communities. This is how they tie their defense work to your portfolio's performance.

• Be the global leader in advancing national security.
• Drive sustained value and opportunity for customers, employees, shareholders, communities, and suppliers.

Given Company Core Values

HII's six core values are the daily operating principles for their 44,000 employees, underpinning the quality of their work on everything from nuclear carriers to unmanned systems. You see this commitment reflected in their massive $56.9 billion backlog as of Q2 2025, which shows customer trust.

• Integrity: Upholding the highest ethical standards, exemplified by the 2025 Compass Award for Compliance.
• Safety: Paramount importance on a secure and healthy work environment, including an exemplary nuclear safety record.
• Respect: Valuing people and ensuring fairness and equal treatment for all employees.
• Engagement: Fostering a culture where employees are motivated and connected to the mission.
• Responsibility: Being personally accountable for decisions and actions.
• Performance: Dedicated to superior quality and continuous improvement, which drives the anticipated 13.99 EPS for FY 2025.

Given Company Slogan/Tagline

While not a traditional slogan, the company's 2025 nationwide campaign, 'Build It,' functions as its primary public-facing motto, emphasizing the crucial role of American manufacturing in national defense. This campaign is a direct call to action, reinforcing the company's commitment to the U.S. workforce and industrial base.

• The core message is: Build It: In America, For America.

Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. (HII) How It Works

Huntington Ingalls Industries operates as the foundational pillar of the U.S. Navy's fleet, essentially functioning as a massive, highly specialized defense industrial base. The company makes money by securing long-term, multi-billion-dollar contracts from the U.S. government to design, build, and maintain the most complex warships on the planet, plus a growing portfolio of high-tech defense services.

Honestly, HII is more than a shipbuilder; it's a national security asset, which is why its Q3 2025 revenue hit a record $3.2 billion, up 16 percent year-over-year.

Given Company's Product/Service Portfolio

Given Company's Operational Framework

The operational framework is a long-cycle, high-capital process driven by government contracts that span decades, not years. Value creation hinges on managing massive, complex supply chains and a highly skilled, unionized workforce of tens of thousands of shipbuilders.

Here's the quick math: HII is guiding for FY25 shipbuilding revenue between $9.0 and $9.1 billion, and Mission Technologies revenue between $3.0 and $3.1 billion. Converting that massive order book into cash flow requires relentless efficiency improvements, especially in the shipyards.

• Digital Shipbuilding Integration: Implementing a strategic AI partnership with C3 AI to optimize workflows, predict delays, and accelerate shipbuilding throughput by an estimated 15 percent in 2025.
• Workforce Expansion: Onboarding over 4,600 new shipbuilders in 2025 to stabilize the workforce and improve retention, directly addressing labor constraints that have historically slowed production.
• Long-Term Contract Execution: Managing a record-high backlog of approximately $56.9 billion as of mid-2025, which provides exceptional revenue visibility and stability well into the 2030s.

If you want to dig into the numbers, you should check out Breaking Down Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. (HII) Financial Health: Key Insights for Investors.

Given Company's Strategic Advantages

HII's primary strategic advantage is a near-monopoly position in the most critical, capital-intensive segments of U.S. defense shipbuilding-a moat that is defintely hard to cross.

• Unmatched Infrastructure and Expertise: The company is the only U.S. builder of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships, and one of only two for nuclear submarines.
• Barrier to Entry: The cost, regulatory hurdles, and decades-long learning curve to establish a competing shipyard capable of building nuclear-powered vessels are virtually insurmountable.
• Government Entrenchment: Long-cycle, cost-plus contracts with the U.S. Navy offer predictable revenue streams and insulate the company from much of the commercial market volatility.
• Technology Diversification: The Mission Technologies segment, with its focus on unmanned systems and cyber, positions HII to capture growth in the rapidly evolving, high-margin defense technology sector.

What this estimate hides is the persistent operational challenge at Newport News Shipbuilding, where the complexity of nuclear work still creates margin pressure, but the long-term contracts mitigate the immediate financial risk. The competitive edge is simply the fact that no one else can build what they build.

Next step: Analyze the Mission Technologies segment's contract mix to gauge its margin expansion potential for the rest of FY25.

Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. (HII) How It Makes Money

Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. (HII) generates the vast majority of its revenue-nearly all of it-by designing, building, and maintaining the most complex ships for the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard, plus a growing stream from providing high-tech defense and government services.

The company operates on a long-cycle, high-barrier-to-entry model, meaning new contracts are huge, multi-year commitments that create a massive, stable backlog of work. As of September 30, 2025, that backlog stood at a robust $55.7 billion, which is a great indicator of future revenue stability.

Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. (HII)'s Revenue Breakdown

HII's business is split into three core segments, with the two shipbuilding divisions dominating the top line. Looking at the third quarter of fiscal year 2025 (Q3 FY25), the total revenue hit a record $3.2 billion, showing strong growth across the board.

The Newport News Shipbuilding segment, which brought in $1.62 billion in Q3 FY25, is the sole builder of U.S. Navy aircraft carriers and one of only two companies building nuclear-powered submarines, making it a truly unique asset. Ingalls Shipbuilding, with $828 million in Q3 FY25 revenue, specializes in non-nuclear surface combatants like destroyers and amphibious assault ships, and their 24.7% year-over-year growth shows high demand for these vessels. Mission Technologies, at $787 million for the quarter, is the future-facing part of the business, focusing on all-domain solutions.

Business Economics

The economics of HII are fundamentally driven by U.S. defense spending and long-term government procurement cycles. Honestly, this is a wide moat business, meaning competition is extremely limited.

• Government Dependency: Roughly 94% of HII's revenue historically comes from U.S. government contracts, mostly with the Department of Defense (DoD). This means revenue is less susceptible to commercial market swings but is tightly linked to the federal budget and geopolitical stability.
• Contract Mix: Shipbuilding contracts are typically structured as fixed-price incentive (firm-target) or cost-plus-fixed-fee. Cost-plus contracts, common for complex, high-risk work like nuclear carriers, reduce HII's financial risk by reimbursing costs plus a fixed fee, while fixed-price incentive contracts reward efficient execution but also expose the company to cost overruns, which has been a challenge on some older contracts.
• Mission Technologies Growth: This segment is designed to capture higher-margin, faster-growth work in areas like Cyber, Electronic Warfare & Space (CEW&S), and Uncrewed Systems (UUVs and USVs). This diversification helps balance the capital-intensive, lower-margin nature of core shipbuilding. Strong performance in CEW&S and uncrewed systems drove operating income growth in Q1 2025.

The long lead times and sole-source nature of their work-like being the only builder of nuclear aircraft carriers-gives HII significant pricing power and revenue visibility for decades. If you want to dive deeper into the ownership structure behind this stability, you should consider Exploring Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. (HII) Investor Profile: Who's Buying and Why?

Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. (HII)'s Financial Performance

The company's recent performance, especially in Q3 2025, shows operational improvements are starting to pay off, even as they navigate supply chain and labor challenges inherent to shipbuilding. For the full fiscal year 2025, management has provided a clear outlook on what to expect.

• FY25 Revenue Guidance: HII projects full-year 2025 Shipbuilding revenue to be between $9.0 and $9.1 billion, and Mission Technologies revenue between $3.0 and $3.1 billion. Here's the quick math: that puts total expected revenue for FY25 at around $12.1 billion, a strong top-line number.
• Profitability Metrics: Q3 2025 reported net earnings of $145 million, translating to diluted earnings per share (EPS) of $3.68, a significant jump from the prior year. Segment operating margin for the quarter was 5.6%, driven by more favorable results at both Newport News and Ingalls.
• Cash Flow Strength: Management raised its full-year 2025 free cash flow (FCF) guidance to a range of $550 million to $650 million. This FCF is defintely a key metric for investors, as it represents cash available for dividends, share repurchases, and future investments in the business.
• Margin Targets: The company is working toward a mid-to-long-term shipbuilding operating margin target of 5.5% to 6.5%, and a Mission Technologies segment operating margin of approximately 4.5% for FY25, indicating a focus on operational efficiency and throughput improvement.

Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. (HII) Market Position & Future Outlook

Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. (HII) holds an irreplaceable position as the largest military shipbuilder in the U.S., securing a record $56.9 billion backlog as of Q2 2025 that provides exceptional revenue visibility for the next decade. Management is defintely focused on operational execution, aiming to translate this massive pipeline into improved margins and sustained free cash flow.

Competitive Landscape

In the U.S. naval defense sector, HII operates in a highly specialized duopoly for major combatants. While other companies compete in specific segments, HII's core strength lies in its unique, high-barrier-to-entry programs.

Opportunities & Challenges

The company's near-term outlook hinges on its ability to execute on existing contracts while capitalizing on the U.S. Navy's modernization push. Here's the quick map of what's ahead.

Industry Position

HII's industry standing is defined by its critical, non-replicable role in national security. You simply can't build a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier anywhere else in the U.S.

The company is positioned for a strong finish to the year, with full-year 2025 shipbuilding revenue guidance narrowed to between $9.0 billion and $9.1 billion. This financial stability is underpinned by the massive backlog, which shields HII from immediate market volatility.

• Dominance in Capital Ships: HII is the sole U.S. builder of nuclear aircraft carriers and a co-builder of nuclear submarines, making it an essential industrial partner to the U.S. Navy.
• Cash Flow Improvement: S&P Global Ratings revised HII's outlook to stable in late 2025, citing improved throughput and favorable tax rule changes that are expected to boost free cash flow guidance to between $550 million and $650 million.
• Technology Diversification: The Mission Technologies segment, while smaller, provides necessary diversification into higher-growth areas like unmanned systems (e.g., the ROMULUS unmanned surface vessel line) and AI-driven efficiency tools.

Still, the market remains cautious about margin expansion, as the complexity of the projects and the long timelines mean execution risk is always present. For a deeper dive into the numbers, you should check out Breaking Down Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. (HII) Financial Health: Key Insights for Investors.

Next Step: Portfolio Managers should model HII's 2026 cash flow, factoring in the high end of the 2025 FCF guidance and the potential for new submarine contract awards.