Analysts said the acquisition would give BAE, already the biggest foreign player in the U.S. defense market, an even better chance of winning top Pentagon contracts. “Their whole strategy has really been focused on the U.S.,” said Philip Finnegan, director of corporate analysis for the Teal Group, noting that the company has made several U.S. acquisitions in recent years.

Philip Finnegan, a corporate analyst with the Teal Group, a defense industry research firm in Fairfax, Va., says Northrop has been selling several of its unneeded assets acquired in previous deals. “There were a number of things they acquired and were ultimately not interested in,” Finnegan says. “They’ve been divesting various components.”