Mcdonnell Symbol Included In Logo Of Merged Companies
Boeing Co. unveiled a new logo and board of directors as it completed its $16.3 billion acquisition of McDonnell Douglas Corp. and became the world’s largest aerospace company.
The new logo puts McDonnell Douglas’s old logo, the silhouette of an airplane and rocket circling a globe, in next to the stylized version of Boeing’s name that Boeing has used as its logo since the 1940s.
It “not only captures the spirit of flight and our vision for Boeing, but represents the coming together of two great companies,” Boeing Chairman and Chief Executive Phil Condit said.
The new Boeing board has four of McDonnell Douglas’s directors, including John McDonnell, the former chairman, and Harry Stonecipher, who was McDonnell Douglas’s chief executive and is now Boeing’s president and chief operating officer.
On Thursday, Standard & Poor’s said it raised debt ratings for Boeing and McDonnell Douglas Corp. because of the merger.
Boeing’s corporate credit and senior unsecured debt ratings were raised from “AA” to “AA+”
McDonnell Douglas’s corporate credit rating and senior unsecured debt rating was raised from “A-” to “AA+” Its commercial paper rating was raised from “A-2” to “A-1+”
Condit and Stonecipher will hold a news conference Monday at Washington’s National Air and Space Museum to discuss the new Boeing, which with $48 billion in annual revenue has surpassed Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed Martin Corp. as the top aerospace company.
Condit’s plan has been to remake Boeing into a diversified company that’s not a prisoner of the sometimes volatile commercial airplane business by expanding the company’s military business. McDonnell Douglas is the world’s leading maker of military planes. In August, Boeing agreed to pay $3.2 billion for Rockwell International Corp.’s aerospace and defense businesses, then in December it announced it would buy McDonnell Douglas.
With both those transactions now complete, Boeing has only two competitors to really worry about, analysts said, Lockheed and Europe’s Airbus Industrie consortium.
“They’ve got Airbus on the commercial side, and Lockheed Martin on the space and military side,” said Paul Nisbet, analyst with JSA Research.