Honeywell announces planned portfolio changes

Honeywell (HON) announced the results of its comprehensive portfolio review, including its intention to separately spin off its Homes product portfolio and ADI global distribution business, as well as its Transportation Systems business, into two stand-alone, publicly-traded companies.

The planned separation transactions are intended to be tax-free spins to Honeywell shareowners for U.S. federal income tax purposes and are expected to be completed by the end of 2018.

“Today’s announcement marks the culmination of a rigorous portfolio review involving a detailed assessment of every Honeywell business. As part of that review, we analyzed numerous criteria, including growth outlook, financial performance, market dynamics, potential for disruption, and, most importantly, assessment of fit as a Honeywell business,” said Honeywell President and CEO Darius Adamczyk.

“The remaining Honeywell portfolio will consist of high-growth businesses in six attractive industrial end markets, each aligned to global mega trends including energy efficiency, infrastructure investment, urbanization and safety.

These businesses are best positioned to leverage Honeywell synergies from our technologies, financial and business models, and talent. Our simplified portfolio will offer multiple platforms for organic growth and margin expansion through further deployment of our world-class HOS Gold operating system and the Honeywell Sentience Platform.

Honeywell will also have multiple levers for continuing to execute an aggressive capital deployment strategy, including a vigorous and disciplined M&A program.

“The spun businesses will be better positioned to maximize shareowner value through focused strategic decision making and capital allocation tailored for their end markets,” Adamczyk said.

“At Honeywell, we will continue our track record of execution, delivering growth, margin expansion, and aggressive capital allocation for our shareowners.”

The new Homes and Global Distribution business will be a leader in the home heating, ventilation and air conditioning, or HVAC, controls and security markets, and a leading global distributor of security and fire protection products. The business is expected to have annualized revenue of approximately $4.5B, a high-yield credit rating, approximately 13,000 employees, and financial responsibility for certain Honeywell legacy liabilities.

The new Transportation Systems business will be a global leader in turbocharger technologies with best-in-class engineering capabilities for a broad range of engine types across global automobile, truck and other vehicle markets.

The business is expected to have annualized revenue of approximately $3B, a high-yield credit rating, approximately 6,500 employees and financial responsibility for Honeywell legacy automotive segment liabilities in an amount equal to our Bendix legacy asbestos liability.

The planned separations will not require a shareowner vote.

Each spin-off will be subject to finalization of the contours of the spun-off business, assurance that the separation will be tax-free to Honeywell shareowners for U.S. federal income tax purposes, finalization of the capital structure of the three corporations, the effectiveness of appropriate filings with the SEC, final approval of the Honeywell board, and other customary matters.

HON closed at $143.60.

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