Raytheon Gets Ok To Purchase Hughes

Defense giant Raytheon Co. will be able to buy Hughes Aircraft Co. from General Motors under an antitrust agreement reached Thursday with the Justice Department.

Under the agreement, Raytheon must sell two defense electronics businesses and establish business “firewalls” to preserve competition for a new Army antitank missile.

The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division announced the agreement after the stock market closed. The deal allows Raytheon, a defense electronics and missile firm based in Lexington, Mass., to buy GM’s Hughes subsidiary, based in Arlington, Va., for $5.1 billion.

The key part of the settlement obligates Raytheon to sell off a Dallas-based infrared sensors business it recently bought from Texas Instruments and an electro-optical systems business with operations in El Segundo, Calif., and La Grange, Ga., that would have been part of the Hughes deal.