Honeywell’s position increases with Fisher Asset Management
Fisher Asset Management reveals its 4Q14 positions (Part 3 of 8)
Fisher Asset Management and Honeywell
According to its latest 13F filings for 4Q14, Fisher Asset Management has added a new position, UBS AG (UBS). It increased its positions in Honeywell International (HON), Baidu (BIDU), Home Depot (HD), and Apple (AAPL). It decreased its positions in Amazon.com (AMZN) and Visa (V).
The hedge fund increased its position in Honeywell International (HON) by $32 million.
Overview of Honeywell
Honeywell International (HON) is an American multinational conglomerate company founded in 1906 and headquartered in Morristown, New Jersey. It has more than 1,32,000 employees worldwide.
Honeywell is a highly diversified company that’s driven by technology. It produces a variety of commercial and consumer products, engineering services, and aerospace systems for a wide variety of customers. Honeywell caters to the following industries:
aviation and defense
automotive and transportation
construction
chemicals and fertilizers
energy
healthcare
manufacturing
Honeywell declares 4Q14 results
In 4Q14, Honeywell delivered better-than-expected results. The firm saw a 4% year-over-year growth in its organic sales to $10.3 billion above its guidance of $10.1–$10.2 billion. Earnings per share (or EPS) were $1.43, up 15% year-over-year.
As stated by Honeywell’s management, “Strong execution in our businesses and continued momentum across the portfolio throughout the year helped us to deliver on our aggressive 2014 sales, margin, and EPS targets. We achieved significant margin expansion in 2014 with benefits from our key process and productivity initiatives, and increased organic growth by continuing to ‘seed plant’ with investments in new products and technologies, high ROI capex, and expansion of our global footprint.”
Sales for the fourth quarter were up 3% reported, or 6% on an organic basis, driven primarily by strong organic growth across the portfolio and partially offset by the unfavorable impact of foreign exchange.
Honeywell to upgrade operations in Turkey
In November 2014, HON announced it will focus on upgrading controls at two refineries that are currently run by Turkey’s largest company, Tupras. This will help to substantially improve operations and reduce maintenance costs.
HON will upgrade the present systems at Tupras’ Aliaga refinery and boost the performance of the Batman refinery by providing appropriate maintenance, support, and parts management services. The upgrades will help to improve overall refinery operations, which will result in potential savings.
HON to increase dividend rate in 4Q14
Honeywell announced that its board of directors has approved a 15% increase in the company’s regular annual cash dividend rate, from $1.80 to $2.07 per common share. As stated by the chairman and CEO (chief executive officer) of HON, “Our 5-year plan reflects a balanced capital allocation strategy that includes strategic M&A, opportunistic share buybacks and dividends which grow faster than our earnings. We’re very proud of our ability to generate the strong earnings and cash growth required to increase our dividend for the tenth time since 2005 and are confident in Honeywell’s ability to outperform in the future.”
The next article in this series will explore Fisher Asset Management’s increased position in Baidu (BIDU).
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