Ford Aerospace Has an Array of Potential Bidders : Sale: Parent company’s board could review bids for the Newport Beach-based defense and communications subsidiary at its July 12 meeting.

Ford Aerospace Corp. has drawn a wide array of potential bidders, including several foreign suitors, as Ford Motor Co. draws closer to a decision on the sale of its defense and communications subsidiary, industry sources said Monday.

Some analysts said that a deadline for submitting bids for Newport Beach-based unit expired over the weekend, but others indicated that bidding will be open for several more months and that the company may ultimately decide to take the unit off the market.

Ford has a scheduled board of directors meeting on July 12, and sources say the board could review bids then for Ford Aerospace, which employs 3,000 people at its Aeroneutronic tactical weapons division here.

Officials of Ford and Goldman Sachs & Co., the New York investment banking firm handling the sale, would not comment on the bids received. Ford, which put the unit on the block in January, is selling the subsidiary to focus resources on its core automotive and financial services businesses.

Industry sources said that several companies have either made bids or reviewed the unit for a possible acquisition. The suitors include Texas Instruments, Dallas; Loral Corp., New York; Hughes Aircraft Co., El Segundo; TRW Inc., Cleveland, and Matra S.A. of France.

Defense News, a defense industry trade journal, reported that other potential bidders include Litton Industries of Beverly Hills, Westinghouse Electric Corp. in Baltimore, Finmeccanica in Italy and the merged commercial satellite divisions of Aerospatiale and Alcatel Espace in Paris.

The U.S.-based suitors have defense operations that would fit well with Ford Aerospace, and the foreign firms may be interested in the unit as a vehicle to enter the U.S. market. Sources also speculated that a management team may put together its own buyout proposal for the unit.

The chairman of Hughes Aircraft, Malcolm Currie, said last month that the company does not want to acquire another major defense contractor, practically ruling out a bid for Ford Aerospace as a whole.

Representatives for Texas Instruments, TRW, Matra and Loral Corp. declined comment on acquisitions as a matter of policy. Other companies named as bidders could not be reached for comment.

Arvid F. Jouppi, an analyst who follows Ford Motor at Keane Securities in Detroit, said he does not think Ford will receive acceptable bids for the division, which has nearly $2 billion in annual revenue but does not measure up to Ford standards for profitability.

Jouppi said the most likely scenario is that Ford will pull the unit off the auction block and sell it at a more opportune time. He also said Ford could sell the unit in parts but it would likely garner less money than a sale of the unit as a whole.

Charles Brady, an analyst for Oppenheimer & Co. in New York, said he also expects Ford to keep the aerospace unit unless it receives a premium bid.

“No matter what results from the bidding, I think it will be a topic at the board meeting,” he said. “But right now isn’t the best time to be selling an aerospace company.”

Jerry Sloan, spokesman for Ford, said the company plans to sell the unit as a whole to an aerospace or defense company that would be strategically a better fit with Ford Aerospace’s operations. Whether or not a decision regarding Ford Aerospace’s fate is made on July 12, Sloan said he did not expect any announcements that day.

Ford Aerospace, headquartered in Newport Beach, has 17,000 employees in four major businesses: the Aeroneutronic Division; Command, Control and Communications in Colorado Springs; the BDM International systems integration unit in McLean, Va., and the company’s Space Missions Group, with operations in Houston, Reston, Va., and Horsham, Pa.

The unit’s products include Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, Chaparral surface-to-air missiles, communications satellites and command, control and communications equipment.