United Technologies Corp. and Raytheon Co. announced Monday they will close this week on their merger, creating Raytheon Technologies Corp. headquartered in Waltham, Mass.
UTC, an aviation giant based in Farmington, and Raytheon, a major defense contractor, say they expect to close the deal before the start of trading on the New York Stock Exchange Friday morning. Raytheon will stop trading Thursday and shares of the new company will trade under the ticker symbol RTX.
The news was anti-climactic: The chief executives of the two companies stunned investors and industry analysts when they announced June 9 they had struck a deal to create a $121 billion company.
The merger brings together aerospace functions such as propulsion systems, air traffic management and avionics with defense systems such as missiles and surveillance systems. UTC negotiated the deal a year after bulking up its aerospace business with a $30 billion acquisition of aerospace parts maker Rockwell Collins Inc.
UTC dates to 1975 when then-CEO Harry Gray added significantly to the company known then as United Aircraft.
Two other pieces of the corporate puzzle also move into place Friday as one-time UTC subsidiaries Otis Elevator and Carrier heating and cooling become independent publicly-traded companies.
UTC plans to shift fewer than 100 corporate jobs to Waltham from Farmington, but no move is in the works as the coronavirus continues to spread. The creation of Raytheon Technologies does not affect the jet engine manufacturing subsidiary, Pratt & Whitney, and its 19,000 employees and manufacturing facilities in East Hartford and Middletown.
The deal has been promoted as a merger, but UTC has the upper hand. Gregory Hayes, chief executive officer of UTC, will hold the top job at Raytheon Technologies. UTC shareholders will own 57% of Raytheon Technologies and UTC will control eight of the 15 board seats.
The last regulatory hurdle was cleared Thursday when the U.S. Department of Justice announced it will approve the merger, but stipulated that Raytheon must divest its military airborne radios business and UTC must sell its military global positioning systems and large space-based optical systems businesses.
Stephen Singer can be reached at [email protected].
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