Byron Callan, a defense industry investment analyst with Capital-Alpha Partners, said any merger of United Technologies' defense assets would face an uphill battle in a defense industry where resources are already concentrated at the top.

“You’ve already had this battle raging with Boeing and consolidation among its suppliers, and United Technologies has been a part of that,” said Byron Callan, a defense industry investment analyst with Capital-Alpha Partners. “Regulators would probably look very closely at this new [United Technologies] company if it were to combine with another major defense company.”

Byron Callan, a defense analyst with Capital Alpha Partners investment bank, said that despite the uproar over the apparent killing of a journalist, business will proceed uninterrupted.

“We continue to believe that the death of Jamal Khashoggi will not lead to a major break in U.S. or European defense sales to Saudi Arabia, but the issue could linger in 2019-2020 and the war in Yemen,” he wrote Thursday in a note to investors. “We believe it is implausible that Trump would cut off sales to [Saudi Arabia].”