AEROSPACE & DEFENSE

LTV Sale to French Clears Hurdle: Deputy Defense Secretary Donald Atwood said he would have no objection to Thomson’s purchase of LTV Corp.’s defense business as long as the foreign ownership is passive and barriers remain on the transfer of U.S. technology overseas. “It has to become a passive ownership or it doesn’t fly,” Atwood told a joint panel of the House Armed Services Committee. Atwood said the Pentagon now remains neutral on the French company’s proposed buy of LTV. However, the Defense Department must approve the purchase for it to go through. Thomson, which is 60% owned by the French government, and its U.S. partner, the investment firm Carlyle Group, submitted a winning $450-million bid for LTV in a bankruptcy court auction earlier this month.