Orbital Plunges Most in Almost a Year After Accounting Error
The Space Launch System’s booster is seen after the second and final qualification motor (QM-2) test, Tuesday, June 28, 2016, at Orbital ATK Propulsion Systems test facilities in Promontory, Utah. During the Space Launch System flight the boosters will provide more than 75 percent of the thrust needed to escape the gravitational pull of the Earth, the first step on NASA’s Journey to Mars. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
Photographer: Bill Ingalls/NASA/Getty ImagesOrbital ATK Inc. posted its sharpest drop in almost a year after the weapon and space-systems manufacturer delayed its second-quarter earnings filing to regulators because of previous accounting mistakes.
A loss provision for a U.S. Army contract will reduce previously reported pretax operating income by $400 million to $450 million and “result in a net loss over its 10-year term,” Dulles, Virginia-based Orbital said in a statement Wednesday. It expects that restatements regarding the long-term, $2.3 billion contract to supply small-caliber ammunition at an Army plant in Lake City, Missouri, will include several periods through the first quarter of this year.