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Northrop Grumman’s fourth-quarter profit tops forecasts

By W.J. Hennigan
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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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W.J. Hennigan

W.J. Hennigan covered the Pentagon and national security issues from Washington, D.C., before leaving the Los Angeles Times bureau in November 2017. While there, he reported on war, counter-terrorism, and the lives of American service members from more than two dozen countries and previously covered the aerospace and defense industry from Los Angeles. Hennigan earned awards from the National Press Club, the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation, and was a contributor to the Los Angeles Times coverage of the terror attacks in San Bernardino that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2016.

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