Carter Sees Defense Company Mergers, Spinoffs Within Limits

The Pentagon expects U.S. defense contractors to acquire others or divest units and will welcome such moves provided the top five or six suppliers don’t consolidate, the Defense Department’s top weapons buyer said.

“Far from being discouraging” to mergers and acquisitions, “we are actually quite welcome to that because we expect industry to make adjustments,” in response to a slowdown in U.S. defense spending, Ashton Carter, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics told Bloomberg Television.