Big Defense Firms Post Mixed Results

United Technologies Corp.’s first-quarter profit rose, while earnings for rival defense contractors Boeing Co. and General Dynamics Corp. declined.

United Technologies, the maker of Pratt & Whitney jet engines, Sikorsky helicopters and Hamilton Sundstrand aerospace controls, said profit rose 6.1% because of cost cutting.

Net income increased to $467million, or 92 cents a share, from $440million, or 86 cents, a year earlier. Sales were below some analyst estimates, dropping 4.5% to $6.37billion.

Chief Executive George David has cut jobs and condensed plants as sales dropped at all of the company’s units, led by a 9.1% decline at its Carrier unit. A $100-million gain from an environmental settlement was used to mostly fund the cost cutting at Carrier, the world’s largest maker of air conditioners.

Shares of United Technologies fell $3.28 to $69.80. They had risen 13% this year as investors bet military suppliers would get more government business.

Boeing, the world’s largest aerospace company and the No. 2 U.S. defense contractor, posted its first quarterly loss in more than four years and said it may cut several thousand jobs because of cost overruns at a satellite unit.

The company lost $1.25billion, or $1.54 a share, in the first quarter, contrasted with profit of $1.24billion, or $1.45, a year earlier. Excluding a $1.8-billion write-down of purchases required by an accounting change, profit fell a greater-than-expected 21%. Sales rose 4% to $13.8billion.

Earnings declined 50% at Boeing’s space unit, mainly because of higher production costs in a satellite business it bought from Hughes Electronics Corp. Shares of the Chicago-based company fell $3.33 to $45.37. They had climbed 26% this year, the second- largest increase for a Dow Jones industrial average component.

Profit in the military aircraft and missiles unit helped offset the space slump, jumping 48% to $363million. The unit’s sales rose 22% to almost $3billion, helped by rising deliveries of its F/A-18 Hornet jet fighter, C-17 Globemaster transport plane and AH-64 Apache attack helicopter.

Earnings at General Dynamics, maker of the M-1A1 tank, fell 4.6% because it had a tax-related gain in the year-earlier period. Net income dropped to $229million, or $1.13 a share, from $240million, or $1.19, a year earlier. Sales rose 17% to $3.12billion.

Excluding a gain of $28million, or 14 cents, in the year-earlier quarter from a research and development tax settlement with the government, profit then would have been $212million, or $1.05.

Shares of Falls Church, Va.-based General Dynamics rose 46 cents to $93.01. They’ve risen 37% in the last year.