Shareholders approve Raytheon-UTC combination

In respective votes held Friday, shareholders at Raytheon and United Technologies Corp. approved the two once UTC sells its non-aerospace and defense businesses.

The creation of Raytheon Technologies Corp. is anticipated for closure in the first half of next year pending UTC’s ongoing moves to spin off its Otis elevator and Carrier climate control segments, plus the transaction needs to clear the lengthy regulatory review process.

Antitrust regulators at the Justice Department made a second request in August to Raytheon and UTC for more information and documents about their merger first announced in June.

Mergers and acquisitions involving other large defense hardware companies over the past two years have taken anywhere between eight months and a full year for regulators to clear given the number of players and their respective market shares.

Transactions among services companies by comparison rarely take more than two months because far more businesses compete in that area of the government market and thus each have smaller market shares, plus lower barriers to entry than platform-focused contractors.

Raytheon and United Technologies are able to at least plan for the integration in the meantime but not carry it out given the antitrust review. The companies announced in September that Raytheon Chief Financial Officer Toby O’Brien will be CFO of the combined company alongside future CEO Greg Hayes and board chairman Tom Kennedy.

More updates on the future Raytheon Technologies organizational structure could come in the week starting Oct. 21 when Raytheon and UTC are expected to report third quarter financial results.