[A] merger that has formed one of the nation’s largest aerospace and military contractors includes a company that employs 900 people in Vergennes.
United Technologies Corp., or UTC, agreed over the weekend to acquire the Waltham, Massachusetts-based defense and aviation conglomerate Raytheon Co. UTC, based in Farmington, Connecticut, acquired Goodrich Aerospace last year, and with it that company’s one Vermont plant.
Robert Edilson, a spokesman for Collins Aerospace in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, declined to say if there would be any impact from the merger on the Vergennes plant, referring all questions to a company press release. Collins Aerospace says on its website that it has 70,000 employees at 300 sites around the world, and reported net sales last year of $23 billion.
Marketwatch reported that the two publicly traded companies, UTC and Raytheon, have a combined market value of $166 billion, which would make the product of the merger the world’s second-largest aerospace-and-defense company by sales behind Boeing Co., with annual revenue of more than $70 billion last year. The deal must be approved by regulators.
Marketwatch reported that the combined entity would be evenly divided between commercial and military aircraft sales.
The Vermont Chamber of Commerce has worked hard to establish the state as a regional aerospace hub, and Vermont is home to several companies in the sector, including GE Aviation in the Rutland area. The Boston-based, publicly traded conglomerate GE reported 2018 revenues of $105 billion and said it expects to see continued growth in its aviation division, the area that employs about 1,200 people at two plants in Vermont.
The Vermont Chamber says aerospace manufacturing and civil aviation are a $2 billion industry in the state. This session, lawmakers passed an economic development marketing plan that includes the marketing of state-owned airports.
