General Dynamics is in the spotlight after the Financial Timessaid this morning the $14 billion US defence company has dropped the idea of a transatlantic merger with Britain's BAE Systems after exploratory talks.
Although BAE has acknowledged talking to all five prime US defence contractors about a merger, the discussions with General Dynamics were the most advanced and its decision to drop out puts BAE's efforts to complete a transatlantic deal back to square one.
The break-off in talks comes after similar cooling of interest from Boeing earlier this year and before that a pass by Lockheed-Martin.
A BAE official would only say that the company remained committed to expansion in the US, where it now generates almost a quarter of its revenues, either through continued internal growth or a large merger.