Northrop Grumman’s fourth-quarter profit tops forecasts
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Northrop Grumman Corp. reported a better-than-expected fourth-quarter profit but acknowledged that its effort to win a $35-billion government contract may ultimately fail.
The Century City aerospace giant posted a profit of $413 million, or $1.31 a share, compared with a loss of $2.5 billion, or $7.75, in the same period in 2008, when the company was weighed down by a $3.1-billion write-off from a goodwill impairment charge.
Quarterly revenue for the nation’s second-largest defense contractor rose to $8.9 billion from $8.8 billion.
In his first earnings call as Northrop’s chief executive, Wesley G. Bush said the company was well-positioned amid prospects that the Pentagon would begin to rein in spending.
Bush was less optimistic about Northrop’s prospects of winning a contract for 415 Air Force refueling tankers. As written, Bush said, the proposal for the $35-billion contract, one of the largest in U.S. military history, appears to favor the company’s competition, Boeing Co.
william.hennigan
@latimes.com
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