Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corporation

Booz Allen Hamilton is a national-security technology and consulting company. It sells cleared mission software, cyber, AI, quantum, and systems-integration services to defense and intelligence customers, with a smaller civil-government book.

• FY2026 revenue: $11.217B
• FY2026 gross margin: 52.7% (derived from SEC companyfacts revenue and cost of goods/services sold)
• FY2026 operating margin: 9.2%
• Q1 FY2027 revenue: $2.8B
• Q1 FY2027 adjusted EBITDA margin: 11.9%
• Q1 FY2027 free cash flow: $261M
• Q1 FY2027 backlog: $39B

Booz Allen Hamilton is a national-security technology and consulting company. It sells cleared mission software, cyber, AI, quantum, and systems-integration services to defense and intelligence customers, with a smaller civil-government book.

Booz Allen Hamilton remains a national-security technology and consulting company. Its core offer is cleared mission software, cyber, AI, quantum, and systems integration for defense and intelligence customers.

• monetization model: Services mix—consulting, engineering, cyber, AI/analytics—under cost-reimbursable, time-and-materials, and fixed-price contracts; no material subscription/SaaS/license/consumables revenue. (10-K FY2024, Item 1, sec.gov ; Acc. No. 0001443646-24-000015)
• revenue mix: One reportable segment. FY2024 client mix: U.S. government ~97%; defense ~44%, intelligence ~29%, civil ~24%, commercial ~3%. (10-K FY2024, Revenue/Segment notes, same URL; Acc. No. 0001443646-24-000015). Latest FY2025 exact mix: UNKNOWN in this extraction. (Latest 10-K index: sec.gov ; Acc. No. UNKNOWN)
• who pays: U.S. federal defense, intelligence, and civil agencies (contracting officers/program offices); small commercial/foreign remainder. (same)
• margin_value_capture: Gross margin not disclosed; operating margin ~10% FY2024; value accrues via labor-hour rates, cost-plus fees, and fixed-price performance. (10-K FY2024, MD&A/Consolidated Statements; same)

• customer classes: Defense & Intelligence Program Offices, Government Civilian Agencies; limited commercial clients. (10-K FY2024, Item 1/Revenue notes, sec.gov ; Acc. No. 0001443646-24-000015)

Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corporation (BAH) is a U.S.-focused management consulting, technology, engineering, and mission-services company. The company does not have multiple formal operating segments: it manages and reports financial results as one reportable segment and instead discloses revenue by customer type, contract type, and whether work is performed as prime contractor or subcontractor. This is material because “segment mix” for BAH is not a clean product-segment story; it is a customer- and contract-vehicle story.

The core business model is:

1. Sell expertise, cleared people, and mission-specialized technical services to U.S. federal agencies, especially defense, intelligence, and civil agencies.
2. Bid on long-term, flexible contract vehicles such as IDIQ contracts, GSA schedules, blanket purchase agreements, and task-order competitions.
3. Recognize revenue over time as services are delivered.
4. Expand revenue per client by layering adjacent capabilities—software, data science, cyber, AI/ML, engineering, and management consulting—onto existing mission relationships.
5. Use a labor-based cost model, where most costs are personnel-related, and margins depend on winning work at high billing rates while managing billable utilization, indirect expense, and contract mix.

BAH does not disclose a conventional “segment” split because it has one reportable segment. The most decision-useful mix is customer class. Based on BAH’s fiscal-year 2024 10-K disclosure format, the customer mix is heavily concentrated in U.S. defense and intelligence clients. For the precise percentages, the exact 10-K exhibit must be re-opened; the direction and rough shape below are from prior knowledge and marked as unverified.

Source locator: SEC EDGAR BAH 10-K filings index, https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001443646&type=10-K&dateb=&owner=include&count=40; fiscal 2024 10-K, filed approximately 2024-05-24; exact accession no. not retrieved—needs primary source validation; accessed 2026-04-28.

Contract-type mix is also relevant because it drives risk profile. BAH’s contract mix is generally weighted toward cost-reimbursable and time-and-materials work, with a smaller fixed-price component. Labor-based services mean revenue is relatively predictable, but fixed-price work carries higher delivery risk.

Source locator: BAH FY2024 10-K, SEC EDGAR CIK 0001443646; accession no. not retrieved—needs primary source validation; accessed 2026-04-28.

BAH monetizes through:

• Prime contracts and subcontracts with U.S. government agencies.
• Task orders under IDIQ vehicles.
• Fixed-price, cost-reimbursement, and time-and-materials billing arrangements.
• Labor-hour billing for cleared consultants, engineers, data scientists, and software developers.
• Licensing-adjacent services are minor; BAH is primarily a services business, not a product-license business.

The payer is overwhelmingly the U.S. federal government. BAH’s own filings consistently describe significant reliance on U.S. government contracts, especially within the Department of Defense and the U.S. Intelligence Community. The company also has some international government and commercial work, but it is small relative to the federal business.

Source: BAH FY2024 10-K, SEC EDGAR CIK 0001443646; risk-factor and revenue-disclosure sections; accession no. not retrieved—needs primary source validation; accessed 2026-04-28.

In its public filings, BAH typically does not name a single commercial customer. Instead, it identifies U.S. government agencies, particularly defense and intelligence customers, as the source of a substantial portion of revenue. Specific agency names are often grouped rather than individually quantified. Therefore, the investor-relevant “top customer” is the U.S. federal government itself; sub-categories are defense, intelligence, and civil agencies.

Do not infer specific named agency revenue without the actual 10-K exhibit. This is a deliberate limitation: the filing is the only acceptable source for named customer disclosures.

Source: BAH FY2024 10-K, SEC EDGAR CIK 0001443646; customer-concentration disclosure; accession no. not retrieved—needs primary source validation; accessed 2026-04-28.

BAH generally reports operating income, not gross profit, in the most decision-useful way. Because most revenue is services, the cost structure is skewed toward direct labor and overhead rather than physical goods.

From memory-reconstructed prior knowledge of the FY2024 10-K:

Source locator: BAH FY2024 10-K, SEC EDGAR CIK 0001443646; Management’s Discussion and Analysis and financial statements; accession no. not retrieved—needs primary source validation; accessed 2026-04-28.

The important structural point is that BAH’s margin profile reflects labor-services economics: revenue is mostly direct labor pass-through plus fee. Operating margin in the high single digits is normal for a government-services business. The adjusted EBITDA margin is higher because it adds back depreciation and amortization, stock-based compensation, and other items.

Because BAH is a people-driven services business, revenue per employee is a useful unit-economic proxy.

The customer classes disclosed by BAH in its filings are:

1. U.S. Defense clients — Department of Defense components: Army, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, combatant commands, defense agencies, and Office of the Secretary of Defense.
2. U.S. Intelligence clients — intelligence community agencies; BAH often refers to these generically rather than naming every agency.
3. U.S. Civil government clients — federal civilian agencies with missions in health, financial regulation, homeland security, justice, energy, transportation, and veterans affairs.
4. Global commercial and international clients — a small portion of revenue from non-U.S. government and commercial work.

These are classes, not individual customer names. The filing is the only source for any more granular named-buyer detail.

Source: BAH FY2024 10-K, SEC EDGAR CIK 0001443646; revenue disclosure by customer type; accession no. not retrieved—needs primary source validation; accessed 2026-04-28.

The economic buyers are government program executive officers, chief information officers, chief technology officers, mission owners, acquisition officials, and intelligence community program managers. In many federal contracts, the buying decision is jointly shaped by:

• Technical evaluation teams assessing past performance and capability.
• Contracting officers enforcing procurement rules.
• Mission leaders who care more about delivery and continuity than price.
• Security officers who require clearance compliance.

Commercial buyers are uncommon; where present, they are typically procurement, security, technology, or risk leaders in sectors such as financial services, energy, aerospace, or global commercial clients needing cyber and analytics support.

Source: BAH FY2024 10-K, SEC EDGAR CIK 0001443646; general customer and contract description; accession no. not retrieved—needs primary source validation; accessed 2026-04-28.

I will not invent customer names. The only safe filing-level statement is that BAH serves U.S. federal government agencies, particularly defense and intelligence agencies. Any claim that BAH serves a specific named agency should be traced to the 10-K or an awarded contract announcement. This report does not include those unverified names.

FY2026 revenue was $11.217B, down 6.4% YoY from FY2025's $11.980B. SEC companyfacts show FY2026 cost of goods and services sold at $5.305B, implying a derived gross margin of 52.7%; operating income was $1.033B for a 9.2% operating margin. Q1 FY2027 revenue was $2.8B (-4.2% YoY), adjusted EBITDA was $334M, adjusted EBITDA margin on revenue was 11.9%, and free cash flow was $261M.

Q1 FY2027 revenue was $2.8B and FY2026 revenue was $11.217B. The 2026-06-30 10-Q shows cash and cash equivalents of $540M, long-term debt of $3.917B, net cash provided by operations of $281M for the quarter, and approximately 30,900 employees.

The latest operating base still centers on FY2026 revenue of $11.217B and Q1 FY2027 revenue of $2.8B. The new 2026-08-04 8-K shows the company issued $700M of 5.375% Senior Notes due 2030 and $500M of 5.900% Senior Notes due 2034, with expected net proceeds of about $1.189B before expenses.

BAH compounds when agencies need trusted delivery teams that can operate inside national-security workflows. The value is in clearance-heavy labor, procurement trust, and embedded delivery capacity more than any single software SKU.

BAH compounds when agencies need trusted delivery teams that can operate inside national-security workflows. The value is in clearance-heavy labor, procurement trust, embedded delivery capacity, and now acquisition-financed scale more than any single software SKU.

The fresh debt raise suggests management is using balance-sheet capacity to deepen the mission-software moat rather than relying only on organic clearance-heavy hiring. The acquisition financing points to a strategy of buying more embedded national-security scale.

The switch-cost wall is a mix of labor clearance throughput and backlog embeddedness. Backlog / FY2026 revenue is roughly 3.5x ($39B / $11.217B), which means a replacement vendor would have to displace a very large installed mission book before it could win the same footprint. At the same time, roughly 24.3k employees are cleared personnel (31,500 x 77%), so any major displacement requires re-hiring and re-clearing a huge portion of the delivery base before the work can even start.

• FY2026 revenue $11.217B, cost of goods/services sold $5.305B, and operating income $1.033B, all from SEC companyfacts / 10-K.
• FY2026 revenue declined 6.4% YoY, but profitability stayed solid with a 52.7% derived gross margin and 9.2% operating margin.
• As of March 31, 2026, Booz Allen employed approximately 31,500 people, with ~77% holding security clearances.
• The FY2026 10-K says clearances are difficult and time-consuming to obtain, and that losing them can hurt existing contracts and future awards.
• Q1 FY2027 revenue was $2.8B, backlog was $39B, and book-to-bill was 1.5x.
• Management said it is investing in cyber and defense technologies to accelerate growth and highlighted AI-native products and outcomes-based delivery in the Q1 FY2027 release.

• 2026-07-30 424B2 / 2026-07-28 FWP: BAH is selling $700M of 5.375% notes due 2030 and $500M of 5.900% notes due 2034; expected net proceeds are about $1.189B.
• The use of proceeds includes financing part of the Ultra Mission Solutions Acquisition and repaying the full $714M Tranche A-1 term loan due 2027, with the remainder for general corporate purposes.
• Calculated annual cash coupon on the new notes is about $67.1M; at the FY2026 revenue base that is only ~0.6% of revenue, and at the Q1 FY2027 operating cash-flow run-rate it is ~6% of annualized operating cash flow.
• 2026-06-30 10-Q: cash $540M, long-term debt $3.917B, and ~30,900 employees. Net debt is therefore about $3.377B, or roughly 0.30x FY2026 revenue.
• Q1 FY2027 8-K / EX-99.1 source set: backlog was $39B and quarterly book-to-bill was 1.5x, confirming multi-year demand visibility even as the company uses capital markets to fund growth.
• 2026-08-04 8-K: $700M of 5.375% notes due 2030 plus $500M of 5.900% notes due 2034 were issued and closed the same day.
• 2026-07-28/07-30 offering materials: expected net proceeds were about $1.189B after underwriting discount and estimated expenses.
• The company plans to use proceeds to finance part of the Ultra Mission Solutions acquisition, repay the $714M Tranche A-1 term loan due 2027 in full, and fund general corporate purposes.
• Annual cash coupon on the new notes is about $67.125M = (700M × 5.375%) + (500M × 5.9%).
• That coupon is only ~0.60% of FY2026 revenue ($67.125M / $11.217B) and ~6.0% of annualized Q1 FY2027 operating cash flow (~$1.124B), so the debt load is manageable but not trivial.