Lockheed Martin to Buy Sikorsky

Lockheed Martin has agreed to buy Sikorsky, the maker of the Black Hawk helicopters used by the United States military. The deal, which one person said would be worth 9 billion dollars, could be announced as soon as today. Buying Sikorsky would give Lockheed a major new line of business apart from a number of already hugely popular military equipment, notably the F-35 fighter jet. The company is already the biggest military contractor worldwide, noticeably ahead of Boeing and other major manufacturers. Sikorsky has more than 15,000 employees and net sales of $7.5 billion at the end of last year. A sale of Sikorsky would conclude a month’s long effort by United Technologies to determine what to do with the company after owning it for nearly seven decades. Any combination of Lockheed and Sikorsky would likely be scrutinized by the Defense Department, which has indicated that it wants to preserve competition among military contractors.