Raytheon shares jumped to an eight-month high Monday
after the maker of Patriot missiles said it intends to merge
with United Technologies to form a weapons contracting
giant with $74 billion in annual sales.
The newly created “Raytheon
Technologies” will be larger than
Lockheed Martin and Northrop
Grumman, and trail only Boeing
among military contractors.
The company will push to develop
new technologies with combined
R&D spending of $8 billion annually and more than
60,000 engineers. Raytheon Technologies will focus on
hypersonics — vehicles or weapons which can fly five
times faster than the speed of sound — as well as
intelligence and surveillance
systems, artificial intelligence for
commercial aviation and cybersecurity
for connected planes.
Waltham, Massachusetts’
Raytheon closed up 0.7% and United
Technologies fell 3.1%.