Honeywell International, Inc. 2026 Q3 Earnings Call

Good morning, and welcome to Honeywell Technologies third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Joining me today are Honeywell Technologies Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Vimal Kapur, and Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Mike Stepniak. This webcast and the presentation materials, including non-GAAP reconciliations, are available on our investor relations website. From time to time, we post new information on the investor relations website that may be of interest or material to our investors. Our discussion today includes forward-looking statements that are based on our best view of the world and of our businesses as we see them today, and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, including those described in our recent SEC filings. This morning, we will review our financial results for the third quarter of 2026 and discuss our updated 2026 guidance. As always, we will leave time for your questions at the end.

With that, it is my pleasure to turn it forward to Vimal, who will begin on slide 3.

Thank you, Mark, and good morning, everyone. Our first quarter as a standalone pure-play automation company was a clear demonstration of the value creation strategy we laid out during Investor Day in June with broad-based organic growth, strong margin expansion, and higher free cash flow conversion. I am very pleased with the result our teams delivered. This quarter showed the breadth and quality of new Honeywell Technologies portfolio with strong results across all segments. We delivered 7% organic sales growth above the high end of the targets we unveiled at Investor Day in June. Demand across the portfolio was broad-based, which drove short-cycle orders growth of 8%, excluding our divestitures, led by industrial and building automation. Additionally, the growth inflection we expected in Process Automation & Technology is occurring, with the business growing 8% organically in third quarter.

As I will talk more about shortly, we believe PA&T is beginning a multi-year growth inflection fueled by robust project backlog and continued capital investment in energy sector, especially in Africa, Middle East, and U.S. On profitability, we expanded margins by 370 basis points to over 21% through strategic pricing, productivity actions, and the continued reduction in the stranded cost. Importantly, with accelerated progress this quarter, we now expect to eliminate all remaining stranded costs by end of 2026, just six months after the aerospace spin-off, demonstrating our strong execution capabilities. Together, this combination of profitable growth and the fixed cost productivity drove adjusted EPS of $2.27, up 34% year-over-year. To round out the story, the cash conversion accelerated to 95% for the quarter, and we expect to be above 100% conversion in the fourth quarter.

As a result of our strong execution this quarter and momentum heading into fourth quarter, we are raising our full year 2026 guide across all metrics. The growth inflection in PA&T and the turnaround in industrial automation are well underway, compounded by eight straight quarters of outperformance in building automation. Mike Stepniak will talk more about our stronger outlook for Q4 and the full year in a few minutes. Our transformation into a pure-play automation company is complete. As our third quarter results have demonstrated, we have strong position in growing end markets, differentiated offerings, and clear competitive advantage in higher growth verticals like LNG and data centers. We are instrumenting the business to outperform both in 2027 and over the long term with strong short-cycle demand, a backlog of nearly $19 billion, and momentum across the portfolio.

This gives me and the leadership team great confidence in delivering of our 2029 targets. Let's now turn to slide 4 to talk more about the order trends in the business. The key takeaway is that demand remains strong across most of our portfolio. We saw growth across our short-cycle businesses led by sensing and measurement in industrial automation and double-digit growth in building automation product businesses. Orders in data center vertical were up over 100%. In PA&T, we saw strong refining Catalyst Technologies demand consistent with our expectation for a second half recovery. On a regional basis, we saw strength in India, the Middle East, and Africa. In Process Automation & Technology, we are navigating tough prior year comparison due to the two strategic low carbon energy and LNG awards in third and fourth quarter of 2025, which were each $700 million.

From time to time, large awards like this do not always correlate with underlying market demand we are seeing, which is why we have elected to present a normalized view of the demand. Excluding the impact of Q3 award last year, total company orders are up 3% organically. Furthermore, book to bill in this quarter was 1.0, which drove ending backlog to nearly $19 billion, up 7% excluding our divestitures. In PA&T specifically, the backlog was up double digits driven by these large project awards. We continue to believe that the ongoing transition to LNG and renewable as priority fuel increasing pipeline activity from refurbishment and rebuilds in Middle East and the refining build-out in Africa will drive a meaningful energy upcycle over the next several years.

Looking ahead to the fourth quarter, we expect orders to grow in the high single-digit range, excluding the large LNG award shown in the chart on Slide 4. This will be driven by demand in Middle East, India, and Asia Pacific in process technology and building automation, continued short-cycle demand in building automation products, and sensing and utilities in industrial automation and momentum in our high-growth verticals. Let us now turn to Slide 5 to discuss the favorable dynamics we are seeing in the global energy value chain, reinforcing our growth outlook for Process Automation & Technology business. On a global basis, we continue to see activity increasing on large energy projects, including over $1 billion in process technology orders since quarter one of 2026. PA&T backlog is over 10% higher than a year ago, supported by wins across LNG, refining and petrochemicals, and low-carbon energy projects.

The breadth of these orders is important, too. We are seeing investments across North America, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, rather than a single region. LNG remains strong in U.S. and internationally, while refining and petrochemical orders include major projects in Africa and continued activity across Middle East and Asia. Low-carbon energy remains a small part of the business overall, but it is growing at a strong double-digit rate, with wins in areas such as sustainable aviation fuel and carbon capture. We continue to believe that longer term, this will be a growth driver. These orders expand our install base and create opportunities beyond the initial project win. As these facilities come online and operate at high utilization rate, they will drive future demand for catalyst, automation, digital modernization, and life cycle services.

Overall, the strength and global diversity of the orders give us confidence in the outlook for continued growth of PA&T segment as we enter 2027. In conclusion, we are seeing robust backlog growth and commercial momentum across our business, and we expect 2027 organic growth to be at or above our long-term growth algorithm. Let me now turn it to Mike to discuss the third quarter results and our 2026 outlook in more detail.

Thank you, Vimal, and good morning. In the third quarter, Honeywell Technologies delivered strong results that surpassed our expectations across most metrics. Sales grew 7% organically with strength across all segments. Process Automation & Technology sales grew 8% organically, led by double-digit growth in projects and return to growth in aftermarket, led by refining catalyst demand. Project sales grew 14% year-over-year, led by strong LNG and petrochemical backlog conversion. The momentum in Building Automation continued with 8% organic growth, our eighth straight quarter of high single-digit growth, evidence that we continue to gain share in the market. This was principally driven by 11% organic growth in products, led by both the fire and security businesses, while solutions also grew 4% organically, driven by strength in services. On a regional basis, we saw double-digit growth in both India and Asia-Pacific, with continued strength in the Americas.

Finally, in industrial automation, organic sales were up 4% in the third quarter, led by double-digit growth in solutions, principally in industrial measurement and utilities. Product sales were roughly flat, with sensing and industrial measurement demand offset by industry-wide deferrals in meter deployments across the utility segment. On profitability, segment profit grew 23% and segment margin expanded 370 basis points to 21.3%, driven by productivity, accelerated stranded cost elimination, as well as strategic pricing actions and volume leverage. This more than offset rising inflation, headwinds from the mix of projects versus aftermarket, and the acquisition impact in Process Automation & Technology. By segment, in industrial automation, price and productivity actions in the core business drove 350 basis points of margin expansion, with the business firmly on path to deliver 22% segment margin in the fourth quarter.

In Building Automation, segment margin expanded another 30 basis points to 27%, driven by volume leverage and pricing actions that more than offset rising inflation. In Process Automation & Technology, margin contracted as expected, driven by mix headwinds stemming from higher project growth and dilution related to the acquisition of Johnson Matthey's Catalyst Technologies business. Adjusted EPS was up 34%, driven primarily by 23% segment profit growth and lower interest expense, which more than offset a higher adjusted tax rate in the quarter. Finally, free cash flow was up 15% to roughly $690 million, while our conversion increased to 95% in the quarter. We expect free cash flow conversion to be above 100% in the fourth quarter as we drive working capital improvements, including strong receivable collections. Let's now move to Slide 7 to discuss the third quarter segment margin and adjusted EPS bridges.