Honeywell on 1 March withdrew a public and controversial bid to acquire rival aerospace engines and systems supplier United Technologies.

The proposed $90.7 billion acquisition had drawn criticism from UTC and major customers, such as Airbus and Embraer.

But Honeywell says the decision to drop the bid was “due to [UTC’s] unwillingness to engage in negotiations”.

Further, Honeywell also “strongly disagrees” with UTC executives' claim that international antitrust regulators would destroy the value of any deal by requiring spin-offs of over-lapping technologies.

Honeywell also claims that UTC had made two separate attempts to form a combination of the two companies in May 2011 and April 2015. After approaching UTC on 19 February, Honeywell says the company “had hoped to continue amicable and quiet discussions”.

“In fact, we were told by them during the meeting that such a combination would be fabulous, they would take it very seriously, and they would get back to us with questions within a week in anticipation of their upcoming Board meeting,” Honeywell says.

But UTC released a statement in response calling Honeywell’s withdrawal the “appropriate outcome”.

Both Airbus and Embraer executives also raised concerns that a Honeywell-UTC combination would result in a concentration of too much market power in a single supplier.

Source: Cirium Dashboard