Raytheon says planned foreign sale unlikely to receive approval from Biden administration

Raytheon Technologies said today it is no longer expecting to complete an anticipated deal with a Middle Eastern country.

Speaking to analysts today, company executives said a planned direct sale for offensive weapon systems to a Middle Eastern country requires a license.

"With the change in administration, it becomes less likely that we're going to be able to get a license for this," Greg Hayes, the company's chief executive, told analysts, declining to identify the specific deal.

"So we appropriately decided that we could no longer support the booking of that contract," he continued. "Not to say it won't ever happen, but we took, I think, a conservative view to say, given the new administration, it's unlikely we're going to get a license for these offensive weapon systems for this Middle Eastern customer."

Going forward, Hayes said, "we'll work with the DOD."

"We'll try and do these through [foreign military sales] as opposed to through direct foreign sales to make sure we've got alignment with DOD and the administration before we book any of these," he added. "It was a big contract, but it's a one-off and there's really not much else out there like this."

Raytheon executives said the company recorded a $516 million "unfavorable impact" related to the deal during the quarter.

Bloomberg reported late last month the State Department notified Congress it was readying to issue a license for Raytheon to sell 7,500 precision-guided, air-to-ground munitions to Saudi Arabia.