ASHVILLE, Ohio — Anduril Industries, the defense contractor whose Arsenal-1 plant went into production in Pickaway County this summer, hopes to sell stock to the public within two years, Dow Jones reported Thursday.
Matt Steckman, the company’s chief business officer, said Anduril wants a larger share of Pentagon spending and is pressing the Defense Department to split major weapons orders among competing suppliers instead of awarding them to a single contractor, according to the Dow Jones report. The remarks followed a $1.8 billion Army project involving the company.
That is Anduril’s case, in its own terms. The record, so far, is thinner.
An intention is not an offering. Anduril has filed no registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, named no underwriters and set no date. Companies announce IPO ambitions years before they sell a single share — and some never sell one. Until a filing exists, “within two years” is a hope with a spokesman, not a plan with a paper trail.
In Pickaway County, the paper trail is the part still being written. Arsenal-1, the company’s plant near Rickenbacker International Airport, went into production in July 2026. JobsOhio projects it will employ 4,008 people by 2035. The company said in October that its Ohio workforce had passed 300.
The Anduril effect is already priced into the dirt around the plant. A 75.9-acre farm field at U.S. 23 and state Route 316 in South Bloomfield has sat listed at $13.9 million — about 90 times the value Pickaway County taxes it on — since October 2025, pitched for retail and apartments on land the village zones mostly for houses. The listing never mentions Anduril. It does not have to.
An IPO would change the paperwork, and the paperwork is where Pickaway County’s bet gets graded. A public Anduril would have to report its Pentagon backlog, its production pace and its risks in SEC filings anyone can read. The commitments made to Ohio would stop being company announcements and state projections and start being disclosures, filed under penalty of law.
Until the company files, its Ohio commitments remain what they have been since Arsenal-1 was announced: the company’s own statements, the state’s projections, and a job count the company reports itself.
