Conference Transcript - HONA 2026-09-09

Sheila Kayalu, Analyst — Jefferies

All right. Well, kick it off. Thank you so much, everyone, for being here. For those on the webcast, I'm Sheila Kayalu with the Jefferies Aerospace Defense and Airlines Equity Research Team. We have the entire Honeywell Aerospace team here, but Jim Currier on stage, who's president and CEO, Josh Jepsen, who's CFO, Sean Mecham, who I won't forget, Investor Relations, and Mike Ritzer, who's also on the IR team. Jim has a few slides for us, and then we'll go into Q&A.

Jim Currier, CEO

That'd be perfect. Thank you so much. I figured to take an opportunity here in the first couple of minutes of our fireside chat just to get a little bit of background and context, particularly what's transpired here over the last month or so as we've been transitioning and obviously becoming an independent publicly traded company as of the 29th of June. So with that a little bit, I think a little bit of context, again, to kind of level set about Honeywell Aerospace for a moment. So as we've noted here, we are a critical mission system provider of high value content across the entire aerospace and defense ecosystem, both in commercial and defense applications, whether that's commercial or transport, business aviation, and or defense, both domestically and internationally. Last year, over $17.5 billion in sales. We've secured over $105 billion worth of lifetime contract wins over the last couple of years. Backlog is sitting at over $18 billion. 90% of all the aircraft flying in the free world today have Honeywell content on board. The point being is that with the demand that we are seeing and the framework that is set up here, It really does create, in combination with being a standalone, independent, totally focused on the A&D industry and what we do to support that going forward, a really compelling value proposition long-term for all of our stakeholders. So the landscape and the framework is set up to be able to enable that to happen for us on a go forward. and if you think about a little bit about you know the demand aspect and where we're sitting here today i mean one of the things that we look at in terms of the value of a business and what brings a lot of intrinsic value is your demand that you are seeing across the industry and we are seeing unprecedented demand you know for our products and our services and our technologies and what i would make mention of is that you know we kind of look at this in terms of short cycle long cycle orders. The order book itself backlog is up, you know, over 9% year on year. Our book to bill is over 1.1 across the portfolio. We're not seeing any erosion to our demand going forward. So essentially, fundamentally, the issue that we are experiencing, and we've been very vocal about this, is our ability to execute out of the supply base to deliver on said demand. And essentially, it's just deferring the sales revenue for us because we're not seeing any erosion in terms of our products and our portfolios and the order book itself specifically. But then you have to kind of ask yourself, well, how did you end up, you know, in this position that you're in right now? And I tend to look at how Honeywell was operated in, Honeywell Aerospace was operated in as part of the conglomerate from 2010 to 2019. And we really maximize the supply base to be running at a highly efficient type of an operation going forward. And what does that mean? We moved away from multiple sources to single sources of supply. We got into a move where we were outsourcing a lot of the core competencies. And so therefore, the setup was such that we were very, very single sourced in many regards across the supply base and in an environment that really demand was not very strong within the A&D community over that period of time. If you pivot to 2020 and above, you can see where the demand has increased substantially within the A&D industry. And that's not just across commercial or transport. It's across business aviation, defense and space. Again, the three end markets that we serve that are all growing exceptionally well. And then you think about where are we as part of that. We were obviously very single sourced, lacked vertical integration because of the outsourcing that we were doing. And also there was limited investments that were made in terms of tooling and CapEx over that period of time. We were a little late, I'll be very honest with you, in pivoting the organization as part of the conglomerate to be able to capture that demand that we were seeing coming out of the pandemic. The point there being is that when I came in in August of 2023, we pivoted that. We started investing very heavily back into the supply base. We had put in over a billion dollars into the supply base. Our situation at the time was constraints across the electronics portfolio, the mechanical portfolio. And what we see now is that our electronics portions of our business, which represents 40% of the portfolio, has recovered. We're doing fine relative to that. Mechanical side, we fixed a lot of issues that existed there, and now we're focusing on the critical few that remain to go get addressed. And that sort of translates into the sort of pseudo scorecard that we would share with you. Over 3,000 of our suppliers are actually performing exceptionally well. They're meeting our plan. They're growing year on year. We have no issues with them whatsoever. We're down to, out of that 3,000, we're down to about 70 that we would categorize as either being critical and or constrained. The definition between the two being as follows. Critical are those suppliers that are not performing in terms of consistency in terms of their output and their deliveries to us. They have the capability to hit the output demand that is necessary, but they're just not doing it consistently. So they're on a watch list for us and have a lot of senior management engagement with them directly as a result. Of that 70, there's about 10 that we would call constrained suppliers within the supply base. These are the 10 that are not delivering to our plan, not growing year on year to the levels that are necessary and hence become the bottleneck in the organization to be able to unlock fully our supply base. And they really fall under four specific commodity categories that we would look at. It's going to be either complex machining, castings, forgings, and bearings. And you can see the pie chart on the right-hand side. What that represents is the amount of spend that we have within those commodities and the proportionate impact that those four commodity categories therefore then have within the portfolio. And this is where I personally am spending most of my time working directly with those most critically constrained suppliers, visiting them face-to-face at their sites, going through the issues, going through the problems, going through the action plans that are necessary to resolve what they're incurring and what they're exhibiting in terms of not demonstrating the performance that is required for the business. And that includes a follow-up every single week, sitting with them as we're trying to unlock that portion of the supply base. Then when you double click a little bit into that, it's kind of get a better view of those four commodities and how they are performing relative to are they delivering to our plan and or are they delivering to a growth algorithm associated with their particular business. And you'll see that the most constrained areas in the bearings at the moment, not delivering to plan, not delivering to the growth that is expected. We're seeing growth in castings and forgings, just not to the plan that is necessitated to drive the output that we are desiring across Honeywell Aerospace on a go-forward basis, and then similarly in complex machining. Now, what I will tell you is that you can look at that, and as you double-clicked into it, we really truly understand what are the critical root causes of the issues that these individual companies are experiencing, whether it's skilled labor, tooling, CapEx, just constrained supply, as it may be, and we've got the action plans in place to go address those on an individual basis. And we'll talk a little bit about what we're doing relative to that as a point. So when we look at this particular chart, the point that I would make on this one here is that we truly now, with the plans in place and the execution that we're seeing across these constrained providers, we're very confident in our ability to demonstrate improved output growth in 2027 and beyond going forward for us. We're building off the foundation of what we have done in terms of our investments from 23 to 25. We're doing additional investments in 2026. We're accelerating capital expenditures into 2026 for improvements on tooling and the like, which drives significant improvements on quality and yield for the products that are going through these particular factories and those continued investments that we'll make in the coming years as well in driving the output growth of the business, which gives us that level of confidence that we have across the portfolio. And then ultimately, at the end, what matters are the proof points from all of the efforts that we are embarking upon here. And again, this has been a journey that we've been on for some time. And I would give you three proof points around this, specifically around the four commodity categories that we are specifically referring to, bearings being one of those as an example. So what we have seen over the last three months in particular is that 35% of the total yearly output that is necessitated for us across our bearing portfolio for high-volume bearings that are proliferated across most of our products within Honeywell Aerospace, we have seen 35% of the yearly demand actually delivered in the last three months, and primarily in the last six weeks, to be very honest with you. So what we're seeing is that second source of supply kicking in and now starting to deliver to our necessitated needs, and we're going to see the continued burndown of our past due that will continue to unlock revenue growth for us on a go-forward basis. You pivot to castings and forgings a little bit. The proof points around there is we are locking up additional capacity. We're providing long-term stable demand profiles to the supply base. We've invested in tooling that is coming online now that is improving quality and yield for those said products going forward, which gives you an immediate output and boost. And therefore, as we see the plans going forward, very confident as we look at the past due burndown that is occurring across that commodity group as well. And then lastly, the final proof point would be around complex machining. We have two very critical complex machining facilities within the supply base that are highly constrained, primarily from a skilled labor standpoint. And what we have done over the last 30 to 45 days is that we've inserted dozens of our own skilled labor into those operations across the board as well as bringing in additional skilled labor outside of Honeywell and basically taking over some of those factories in terms of those operations that they have with our skilled labor in place. The result that we're seeing here over the last 30 days is about a 20 percent year-on-year improvement in output growth and the committed capital plans that we are seeing as well, along with the burndown of past due across those particular suppliers as well. So we're definitely seeing the fruits of these efforts that we are embarking upon. And the last thing I would say is that for me and my management team, we know the impact that we have caused our investors as a result of adjusting our guide. We've taken the feedback very seriously. We've adjusted our operational plans going forward. And I will tell you, I'm very confident in what we're seeing in these early stages of the changes that we have been making and the details that we're digging into in terms of what we're going to be able to deliver in terms of improved output growth for 2027 and beyond.

Sheila Kayalu, Analyst — Jefferies

Thank you, Jim. That was so comprehensive. Last time, I have about 35 questions that all seem irrelevant, given all the info you put out there. So I may change the questions I have set up here, if that's okay. You head on address the elephant in the room. You said you had some really great color. As we think about the 70 critical or constrained suppliers, you know, how are you managing them? Is there like a head of supply chain you put in? Is it you and Josh, you know, just reaching out to them? How are you thinking about, you know, holding them accountable and what happens from there?

Jim Currier, CEO

So every single leader of my management team owns a certain subset of these suppliers. So even my business leaders, my presidents and CEOs of the three businesses within Honeywell Aerospace, if there is a supplier that is constrained, that is impacting their business directly, they own that supply base. So it's a combination of Kathy, who owns the entire supply chain organization, but across the management team, and this is the reflection and understanding of the criticality of this singular issue that is affecting our ability to grow at levels that we desire to grow at and expect to grow at. They are all intimately engaged to the point that every single day, seven days a week, there's a sunrise meeting that looks at the tactical execution of the business and then a sunset meeting, which is focused on the strategic aspects of how we're going to continue to unlock the supply base. For me personally, I am literally flying to every single one of these suppliers and spending time with the CEOs and owners of those businesses looking at the details of their plan, challenging the details of their plan, and then coming away with a high level of confidence that we do have the right actions. And some of that is actually self-reflecting a little bit as well as an organization. We have not been the best customer to our suppliers over the years. And so it's truly developing a framework and a partnership with our suppliers where we have misstepped that are impacting them and addressing those real time for them as well.

Sheila Kayalu, Analyst — Jefferies

Maybe to follow up on that, how do we think about what's required, whether you have to invest in them with your employee base being at their sites and helping them manage or investing in them from a working capital perspective?

Jim Currier, CEO

How do you think about that? we actually address all facets of that depending upon where the root cause of the issue is so if it's a tooling issue we'll go in and we'll fund the tooling to drive improved quality improved yield and or an additional sets of tools that as a tool wears down you have resiliency of a new tool coming in place where there's capital expansion requirements necessary as well if there's an unwillingness on their part or an affordability on their part to be able to do that we will do the capital expansion projects for them as well and also it means inserting the skilled labor and not just touch labor is how do you run your factories more efficiently how do you run your factories with higher productivity to drive more output as well then the receptiveness that we're seeing from the supply base to all of these things that we are doing is truly being demonstrative of the partnership that we are developing with them as a result of embarking upon this endeavor and they've been very receptive to this ultimately and that we're seeing the benefits of that playing out so whether it's capex needs people needs skill set needs factory productivity needs across the board additional tooling and by the way it's also looking inside our own four walls as well because as the supply base continues to expand and drive growth we're staying ahead of that with our own four walls and investing as necessary to ensure that we don't become a bottleneck with our own four walls as well. So we look at that entire end-to-end value chain.

Sheila Kayalu, Analyst — Jefferies

Maybe if you don't mind, can I go back to that slide where you mentioned the 10 critical suppliers or the constrained suppliers? How do you think about what the size of them are, how you manage them? If you could dive a little bit more into those buckets, if you don't mind.

Jim Currier, CEO

Yeah. I mean, so the size of them will vary. If you're talking about a complex machining operation and you think about how Honeywell aerospace, you know, maximize the efficiency of the supply base, we actually have a tremendous amount of small suppliers in the complex machining part of the portfolio. Family-owned business, 50-person operation, 100-person operation. So it's a very different level of engagement in terms of how we have it with them. That's direct one-on-one where they have the needs going forward, where again it's primarily skilled labor and tool sets that are necessary for them if you start moving up that value chain a little bit into like bearings as an example there's kind of a bifurcation in terms of the supply base that we work with in bearings some of them are smaller operations some of them much larger that we brought on board and so we're seeing that investment that they're doing on their own without us necessitating to do that and setting up dedicated production lines for Honeywell Aerospace products within their facilities as well. And then as you move into castings and forgings, you know, it's highly concentrated amongst, you know, a top four or five casting and forging providers. And it's, again, it's working directly with them and understanding where the capacity constraints are and how we can help unlock them as well.

Sheila Kayalu, Analyst — Jefferies

Just on that last bucket, obviously news in the last 10 days from both SpaceX and GE buying CPP. How do you think about the castings and forgings market and how you're watching that maybe a little bit more closely?

Jim Currier, CEO

So we've always watched it very closely in terms of what's happening in terms of vertical integration and the like. This latest acquisition announcement regarding GE and CPP, the one thing that I would tell you is where our business is with CPP today does not overlap anything that GE does with them as well. So we're kind of separated in that context. And the investments that we're making into CPP to drive more output across the board, again, tooling and the like and improvements on yield and quality. You know, I don't see the impact or the concern, although we stay very close to what's transpiring there, and we look at our long-term contracts that we have with CPP in place. I'm convinced, you know, that, you know, as that transaction goes through, that that GE acquiring CPP is going to be a great benefit to the industry and to ourselves.

Sheila Kayalu, Analyst — Jefferies

You mentioned a billion dollars of investment since you took over in August 23. How do we think about what that investment was spent on, and how do you think about it going forward?

Jim Currier, CEO

Yeah, so on a go-forward basis, I would tell you it's going to be equal in dollar amount probably over the next couple of years, but on an accelerated timeline. So we're moving some of those investments forward into 2026 and from 2028 into 2027 as we continue along that journey. The billion dollars that has been done thus far has covered across the portfolio completely, whether it's in the electronics portion of the business or the mechanical portion of the business. It's been within our own four walls of expansion that we have done. I think we had announced a year or two ago about expanding our production capabilities in our electronics business by putting a dedicated circuit card assembly line in our Olathe facility for $100 million as part of that investment that we've done. to again, to kind of insource some of that work going forward. So it has been within and it has been external as well. I would say it's probably more of a 70% of that has gone externally and 30% of it has been internal investments that we've done to continue to drive capacity ability.

Sheila Kayalu, Analyst — Jefferies

We're halfway through the fireside, so I'll get to my first original question. I guess, how do we think about the 6% to 8% framework you laid out in the different buckets as we think about commercial OE, aftermarket, and defense? Yeah.

Jim Currier, CEO

So I'll break apart those three end market segments for a moment. So I think about commercial aftermarket. I think it's important to also realize in our commercial aftermarket business, 60% of that business is commercial or transport, 40% of that business is business aviation. And what we are seeing is still strong, resilient demand for flight hour traffic across those portfolios and for where we're positioned with our products. And so we're seeing that continued growth that is occurring there as well, and particularly in business aviation, where the certain segments of business aviation that are growing significantly are in that super midsize category all the way up to ultra long range. And that's the sweet spot for which we're Honeywell Aerospace plays with our products and technologies, whether it's engines, APUs, or avionics systems as well. You pivot over to the commercial OEM market for a second. I mean, it's very clear and well understood that both in commercial or transport and in commercial business aviation, there are record backlog levels at all of the OEMs in both of those end market segments within commercial OE. You're seeing the ramps that are occurring across the board. What I would tell you relative to that is obviously where you are standard equipment on board and aircraft, you will rise with that production ramp. But there's also selectables that occur on those platforms, and that becomes a differentiator for you in terms of can you grow faster than how that production rate is growing. and selectables being things like on commercial or transport, auxiliary power units, and avionics systems as an example of products within Honeywell Aerospace. And again, the backlog that we're seeing in high growth in business aviation, again, in those market segments is a strong tailwind for us going forward. And if you pivot to defense, you know, for a moment, clearly the high growth areas of defense that are occurring, Whether it's production, fighter aircraft production, missiles, munitions, rearmament, sustainment, electronic warfare capabilities, all places where Honeywell Aerospace plays considerably are all growing substantially given budget increases that are happening not just domestically but internationally as well. And so we see the tailwinds of that demand remaining very strong and remaining strong for years to come.

Sheila Kayalu, Analyst — Jefferies

You mentioned that you became a standalone company on June 29th. How do we think about, you know, the supply chain from 2010 to 2019 was very different on how it was managed. How else is Honeywell as a standalone company different today versus, you know, three months ago?

Jim Currier, CEO

It's a very good question. So, you know, not being part of the conglomerate, it allows us to be hyper focused on everything that we do is specifically for the Honeywell Aerospace business as a pure play company going forward. So whether it is the management team, the strategy, the incentives for our team on a go-forward basis, it's all built around what is necessitated to drive the growth of the business and for the betterment of Honeywell Aerospace without having to consider all of the other businesses within Honeywell. The other added dimension is that with that laser focus and a laser focus on strategy and execution and a singular operating system that is purpose-built for Honeywell Aerospace instead of being purpose-built for a conglomerate, the speed at which we can make decisions is accelerated as being a standalone and being very focused on the business itself. You know, when it comes to, you know, making decisions on cap backs, when we decide, you know what, we're going to accelerate $50 million of cap backs from 27 to 26 to drive the business, we make those decisions very quickly. Everyone on the management team is a very exceptional and experienced. They understand the market. They understand the business. They understand the dynamics, the revenue models, business models. So those decisions happen at a cadence and at a speed that never could have happened as part of the conglomerate going forward. So those are two very, very unique differences happening. And then the third element would be the board. No, it's a purpose-built board that is built for the needs of Honeywell Aerospace, not for the needs of a conglomerate with multiple businesses within.

Sheila Kayalu, Analyst — Jefferies

Maybe I'll follow up to that later if I have time, but I don't think I will. Maybe two more on top line, and I'll go back to supply chain. How do we think about your top line growth in commercial OE? as you mentioned, lots of selectable products, whether it's APUs and avionics, and your market share is pretty high there. You had the 800 aircraft A320 order, the Indigo Win. How do we think about your commercial OE outlook as you try to balance that with supply chain at the same time?

Jim Currier, CEO

It's a very good question. And so clearly, as the OE market is growing, if our supply output is not growing in excess of how the OE market is growing, it does put pressure on our ability to support and move product over into the aftermarket, which is the highly profitable portion of the portfolio. And we've had to do that a little bit here. It's focused more. I mean, our commitment is to OE production. Our commitment is to address any aircraft that are on ground at airlines. Those are two top, top priorities for us on a go-forward basis. But you mentioned a very interesting thing here about the landmark win that we had with Indigo on 800 aircraft for selectables. I think it's really important to understand that in the commercial or transport space, There's standard equipment and selectables. And where you differentiate on selectables to outgrow the OE market is very important. And so if you think and you look back on historically how much value selectables represent in terms of the competitions that have happened over the years, our win rate in terms of capturing that value historically has been around 40%. So if you had $100 worth of value that you could secure as part of a selectable, Honeywell Aerospace was winning about $40 of the $100. That has pivoted. We are now, over the last 4,000 aircraft wins that we've had, 60% of the value we are capturing now. Indigo is a great example of that. So it is the largest win at 800 aircraft. Second behind that was a United win from a couple of years ago of 600 aircraft. But over the last few years, over 4,000 aircraft and 60% of the value that is out there to be competed on commercial or transport, Honeywell Aerospace has been able to secure. So it is an important part of the growth algorithm.

Sheila Kayalu, Analyst — Jefferies

Commercial aftermarket represents over 40% of your sales. How do you think about commercial aftermarket progressing from here, given the muted growth, given the supply chain constraints that you had in the second quarter?

Jim Currier, CEO

So I think for us, it's a sort of a transitional period here as we're trying to get, and we will get our supply-based output to the levels that is necessary. It actually provides a couple of benefits by doing that. I mean, obviously, serving the aftermarket, it is 40 percent of the business that we have. And being able to drive more output allows us to allocate more into the aftermarket. And we still see very strong demand across the product and the portfolios. We mentioned beforehand, flight hour growth is growing in business aviation, where we are positioned very, very well on those platforms. And we continue to see the same sort of, you know, robustness. And we look at it in terms of entitlement. Like, what is your entitlement in terms of the aftermarket? And that really is highly dependent upon flight hour growth. So the more you fly, the more that breaks, the more that needs to come in for repair and overhaul. There are options within airline customers and business aviation customers to have their aircraft serviced with our parts. But we look at flight hours. We know exactly which airlines are flying, how many hours, where our equipment is on board, and what the meantime between repair is for that equipment. You can easily discern from that exactly what is your entitlement relative to the aftermarket space. And what we're seeing is that we're seeing our entitlement coming through in demand and more on top of that. The recognition of the value of bringing your products into an OEM in order to have your parts serviced. And the last piece that I would say relative to that is our retrofit mods and upgrades. You know, the fact that we have over 90% of the aircraft flying, have our equipment on board, is that fertile ground for retrofit mods and upgrades for us. And it's about 10% of the business growing at double digit. And this is really that opportunity where we bring new enhancements, new features, new capability, reliability improvements into the market as these aircraft need to fly for 20 and 30 years. And how do you introduce new technologies as part of that? That's one of our growth algorithms within the commercial aftermarket. are those retrofit mods and upgrades.

Sheila Kayalu, Analyst — Jefferies

Outside of that 10% that's mods and upgrades, how do we think about your aftermarket business growing on a cycle basis or hourly basis? Because it's a little bit different than an engine OEM might be.

Jim Currier, CEO

It is slightly different than an engine OEM would be. I mean, so a lot of our contracts are under Powered by the Hour programs, particularly in the business aviation space. So the more you fly, the more you recover in terms of revenue. There are some of that happening in the commercial air transport space as well. But a lot of this work is also being done on time and material or on a quoted basis, fixed price quote. And so again, it's one of these things that you have coupled revenue, which is that revenue that's tied to flight hour growth. And then you have that decoupled revenue, which are those retrofit mods and upgrades that is over on top of that. So we expect and we will see our commercial aftermarket business growing in excess of what you see in terms of flight hours because of those dynamics.

Sheila Kayalu, Analyst — Jefferies

Can I ask one on margins? I know you're trying to look at EBIT growth rather than EBIT margins going forward. How do we think about EBIT margins, though? What's the right level to start off at? And as you think about the investment that you have to make in the supply base and some of the duplicity that you have to put in place, how do we think about that impacting profitability?

Jim Currier, CEO

It's a really good question. And what I would tell you is that getting more output from the supply base solves a lot of issues in terms of margin and profitability across the board. A, it drives more productivity and more efficiency and more fixed cost absorption, you know, within the operation itself. So that is a lever that will get unlocked as a result of doing that. Also, more of the supply base delivering force allows us to allocate more over into the aftermarket, which is a very, very much a profitable portion of the portfolio as well. And so as we look at it, yes, you know, we are incurring more costs by going multi-sourcing across the board in many regards in those highly constrained areas and the investments that we're making as a result. But the unlock in productivity, the unlock in efficiency, the unlock in absorbing more of that fixed cost within the business and not having to spend as much on expedite fees and the labor that we've had in the supply base, as the supply base becomes more healthy, some of those people come back. and the amount of oversight and surveillance and all of those costs start to reduce accordingly. So then it kind of goes back to at the very onset of our conversation, you know, our issue is not demand. Our issue is not orders. It's really focused 100% on unlocking the supply base because that fixes many of these issues, growth issues, margin expansion opportunities for us on a go forward. So as 26 becomes a reset year, how do we, can we quantify some of those buckets as we think about the 27 margins what are those buckets because you have ob mix that's unfavorable you have investment that's unfavorable you should have volume leverage next year you know or is it another you know how long does the investment take place i guess yeah i mean so i look at i look at across three three levels right i think of expansion being around volume i think it about around mix and i think about price as well as part of that on a go forward for us if if you think about where the higher percentage of expansion would occur on a percentage basis, it's going to be out of the volume growth that we're going to see for the reasons that I mentioned a moment ago. The secondary benefit of that being now you're allocating more to the aftermarket versus allocating what we have to do today to the OE to keep the production lines running. That becomes an unlock in terms of margin expansion. And then there's always price opportunities that present themselves. So as we continue to go through our long-term agreements and our negotiations around long-term agreements with multiple OEMs across the industry. It's those opportunities to reset price in concert with where the cost basis is and becomes a margin expansion opportunity.

Sheila Kayalu, Analyst — Jefferies

I'll have two more questions left with three minutes on the clock. So I guess, you know, one of the benefits, and I know maybe, you know, in the second quarter, this wasn't a focal point of the discussion clearly, but one of the benefits of having a standalone Honeywell is probably your own capital allocation flexibility and understanding of the aerospace business is better. So I guess how do we think about organic investments going forward, supply chain, M&A, debt reduction and dividends and share repurchases with about $16 billion of debt following the separation?

Jim Currier, CEO

Yeah, I say the priorities would be as follows. You know, first and foremost is unlocking more organic growth in the business. So those are those investments that we are making in the supply base and those investments that we're making in innovation on a go-forward basis as well as new products, new services for the future, where we invest about north of on a percent RD&E investment or a percent of revenue north of 4%, which is somewhat best in class, not including the funding that we get from customers as well, which puts us at over 10 percent of revenue is what we invest back into the business and new products and technology. So that's the number one priority, is unlocking the supply base, continuing to invest there, because that's where we're going to see the best benefit for the organization going forward. Secondarily, on top of that, would be dividends in line with what we see in our peer group in the A&D community. Third priority would be bolt-on M&A into the business, similar to what you saw us do with CASE and Civitanavi back in 2023. When those opportunities present themselves, that would be on the list of something we would want to do. Again, three on the list. And the fourth on the list in terms of capital deployment would be opportunistic share repurchases on a go forward. But first and foremost, we know and we recognize that the best return on any investment that we make from a capital allocation is going to be unlocking the output of the organization, the output of the supply base.

Sheila Kayalu, Analyst — Jefferies

I'm sure a lot of your discussions today will be around the supply chain. But as you think about the next three years, what do you hope people look to in 2029 and say, this is the Honeywell story going forward?

Jim Currier, CEO

I think I'd say three things that I would say. One would be that the demand that we are seeing is enduring on a go-forward basis. There's a lot of concern that we're losing demand, losing growth opportunities, losing orders, and that is just not true. And being able to demonstrate that is important. Second thing that I would say is our supply-based transformation. This is going to be a lasting capability within the business. This is not a fix. This is going to be something that we're doing end-to-end across the portfolio. And when you sit here three years from now, you're going to see an industrial supply base within Honeywell Aerospace that is going to be able to double the size of our business within the next 10 years, just off of the capacity that we're building within the supply base and the growth accordingly. So this is going to be a lasting and enduring change that we're making, not just a temporary fix. And the third thing that I would say is that truly the unlock that happens as a standalone independent company not part of a conglomerate and the and the ability that that enables and the capability to be able to do the things that we're saying that truly there is value in that occurring

Sheila Kayalu, Analyst — Jefferies

that's great well thank you so much jim thanks for the honeywell team and everybody listening in thank you jim