Gekko

WITH the absorption, or “merger” of McDonnell Douglas into Boeing, one might well wonder if any defense contractors are still sitting alone at the Pentagon singles bar at closing time. Over the past few years these stocks have done pretty well, considering the crash in the procurement budget. For my part, I can’t imagine what need we could possibly have for most of our armed forces in the foreseeable future, given the diplomatic talents of the Clinton foreign-policy team. Then again, as Trotsky once put it, “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”

Even if most of the defense barflies have already been taken home, an interesting newcomer has just joined the party. Tenneco, a gas-pipeline company, turned itself into a conglomerate during the Sixties and Seventies. It has been deconglomerating in recent years. The idea is that Tenneco’s core company can attract investors interested in the nowhip natural-gas business, whereas these people aren’t so interested in its subsidiary Newport News Shipbuilding, which has a monopoly on building the Navy’s aircraft carriers. So NNS is being spun-off to Tenneco’s energy-oriented shareholders who, in turn, are likely to dump it on the market.