Litton Industries was originally established as an
electronics company building
navigation,
communications and
electronic warfare equipment. They diversified and became a much larger business, with major
shipyards, and manufacturing
microwave ovens. and subsequently adopted its name. Although Litton Industries lacked capital in the beginning, Thornton thought that the
U.S. Department of Defense would need more sophisticated weapons and that the demand for another large electronics company would increase. During the years, Litton Industries acquired several other smaller companies and had merged with
Monroe Calculating Machine. Monroe used Litton's technological assets and Litton required Monroe's sales and service outlets. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, 50% of Litton's business was with the U.S. Government; besides calculators, it was also producing inertial
guidance systems for aircraft,
potentiometers,
duplexers, etc. and subsequently ventured into the production of submarines and oil-drilling equipment. In December 1964, Litton acquired Royal McBee. In 1968, Litton acquired the
D. Van Nostrand Company and Chapman-Reinhold and merged them to form the publisher Van Nostrand-Reinhold. In 1969, the company acquired
Triumph-Adler, a major typewriter manufacturer based in Germany and the sixth-largest European office equipment manufacturer at the time. In 1973, after several years of disappointing sales, Thornton replaced Ash with Fred O'Green as president of the company. With the new strategy, Litton sold some of its profit-losing subsidiaries and focused on the profitable ones. The company also succeeded to make a $1.6 billion deal with the
Saudi Arabian Air Force. The profits of the company increased from $44 million in 1979 to $78 million in 1983. In 2000, TASC sold three stand-alone commercial operations: Adesso Software, WSI (Weather Services International) Corporation and Emerge. The company reported sales of $5.6 billion and a net income of $218 million for the 2000 fiscal year. On December 21, 2000, in a joint statement, Litton Industries and
Northrop Grumman announced that the latter will acquire Litton Industries shares in a transaction worth $5.1 billion. The transaction was completed on May 31, 2001, and Northrop Grumman officially acquired Litton Industries. ==Divisions==