Thread regarding Honeywell International Inc. layoffs

What a politically inclined, bs-ing, rose colored glasses wearing, two bit axe-faced, king of pricks.

They've laid off a lot more than 10,000 people since the end of 2019.

Covid-19 leads Honeywell to cut workforce 8.8% and look for acquisition opportunities

By John Downey – Senior Staff Writer, Charlotte Business Journal
Jul 24, 2020, 3:40pm EDT Updated Jul 29, 2020, 1:26pm EDT
Honeywell International Inc. has laid off at least 9,929 people worldwide in its repositioning in the wake of the recession from the Covid-19 pandemic. That is about an 8.8% reduction in what had been a 113,000 person workforce at the beginning of the year. And the company plans more cost cutting before the year ends, although details are not available.
CEO Darius Admaczyk, while declining to discuss specific numbers in an earnings call with analysts today, said Honeywell’s Aerosopace segment was the hardest hit. He said layoffs in that division, which employed about 40,000 at the beginning of the year, were approaching 10% of the workforce. But, again, he declined to give specific numbers.
And he noted, “In some of the other businesses, we’re adding head count, so it’s a little bit all over the place.” The company’s businesses that produce masks, eye protection and other personal protective equipment for medical services are growing particularly well, and its Honeywell Intelligrated automated warehouse systems business also showed substantial growth in the second quarter.
And Adamczyk told analysts Honeywell (NYSE:HON) remains in the market for acquisitions to expand growing businesses in its highly diversified conglomerate.
“I think you would agree that the balance sheet is very strong and well-protected, well-funded,” he told analysts, with cash and short term investments totaling $15.1 billion. “So, in short, we’re very much open for business both from an M&A perspective as well as potential (stock) buyback perspective.”
Cash and short term investments are up 4.5% from the $10.4 million the company reported at the end of 2019, according to figures Honeywell released Friday.
The Charlotte-based company reported second-quarter net income of $1.08 billion, or $1.53 cents per diluted share, on sales of $7.47 billion. That compares with net income of $1.54 billion, or 2.10 per diluted share, on sales totaling $6.99 billion.
But the company reports that 27 cents of its earnings per share came from the favorable resolution of a tax dispute over the spinoff of some of its companies. Discounting that one-time gain, adjusted earnings for the quarter were $1.26 cents. That beat analysts expectations of earnings of $1.21 per diluted share .
For the first six months of the year, net income totaled $2.66 billion or $3.74 per diluted share. That compares with net income of $2.96 million, or $4.07 per diluted share, last year.
'All-time worst'
Adamczyk said the company performed well, considering the repercussions of the pandemic that created the “environment … we had in Q2 which was all-time worst for Honeywell.”
Edward Jones Analyst Jeff Windau says the strong performance is attributable in many ways to the highly diversified conglomerate Honeywell has built. “The industrial world has been negative on conglomerates in the last year or so,” Windau says. “But it's interesting, for instance, how fast the aerospace business has fallen and yet Honeywell still has cores of strength. That allows them to meet demand in the market where it is.”
He also credited the company’s cost-cutting measures.
“Their management team does an excellent job of managing through the business cycles,” he says. “They have been aggressive at managing expenses.”
At the same time, Windau says, the company has remained alert to growth opportunities. He pointed to its 2016 purchase of the Intellligrated line of business as an example.
Adamczyk reminded analysts on the call that when Honeywell bought that business it produced $800 millioin to $900 million a year in sales. “We booked $1.2 billion this past quarter, so it gives you the kind of growth profile that we’re seeing in that business,” Adamczyk said.
He was less eager to dicuss numbers on layoffs however.
Analyst John Inch with Gordon Haskett Research Advisors took a run at getting some details. Inch noted that Honeywell had 113,000 employees at the end of 2013 and asked where Adamczuck thought the number would be at the end of this year.
“I think it’s tough to call at this point,” Adamczyk responded. “We obviously know roughly what we have in our restructuring plan, so we know what we’re going to do there. What we don’t know is the capacity additions because … now we’re adding hundreds, if not thousands of people in SPS (the division that includes protective equipment and Intelligrated), and we don’t think we’re done.”
But there are figures in the quarterly financial filing Honeywell made with the Securities and Exchange Commission Friday.
"Protect as many jobs as we can'
Through June 30, that filing reports “gross repositioning charges totaling $356 million including severance costs of $320 million related to workforce reductions of 9,929 manufacturing and administrative positions across our segments, with a majority of the reductions in Aerospace and Performance Materials and Technologies.”
The filing says 7,805 of those occurred in April, May and June. The remaining 1,424 occurred in the first quarter.
That tracks with reports by anonymous reports by employees in Honeywell. One stationed at the Aerospace headquarters in Phoenix said early this month that the headcount there dropped to about 1,500 from an initial 3,000. That would make up the majority of the something close to 4,000 layoffs in that division overall based on the 40,000 pre-layoff headcount and cuts approaching 10%.
More recent reports have come in the Performance segment, which includes Honeywell’s hard-hit Universal Oil Products division.
Adamczyk told Inch: “I think we try to … protect as many jobs as we can because we frankly don’t want to be doing a lot of job reductions, but I also have to be realistic.”
And that includes looking for growth opportunities. Adamczyk says repositioning focuses on strategic investments for improving returns as much as cutting costs. He noted the company has launched a new bottles and vials business focused on packaging of medications and vaccines, a thermal monitoring system and a new ultraviolet light product that can quickly sterilize an airplane cabin as a precaution against the coronavirus. Honeywell is already looking at potential applications for the UV product in commercial buildings and even residences.
More broadly, the company has launched a new line of “healthy building” technology products and has separately announced a partnership with SAP Software Solutions to develop a cloud-based technology to improve building efficiency. Investments in protective equipment and medical packaging will also help the company shift more business into the medical field, Adamczyk contends.
And CFO Greg Lewis says that with plenty of cash available, Honeywell intends to remain active in acquisitions.
“On the topic of M&A, we were pleased to welcome Emily McNeal to Honeywell this quarter as our new senior vice president, corporate development and global head of M&A,” he told analysts. McNeal, who joined Honeywell in June, “will be responsible for maintaining and building our robust pipeline of acquisition opportunities that are strategically well positioned to accelerate Honeywell’s growth,” he said.