United Technologies Corp. matched analysts’ fourth-quarter profit estimates as the jet-engine and building-systems manufacturer boosted sales in the aerospace and climate-control businesses.
Adjusted earnings rose to $1.56 a share, United Technologies (IW 500/19) said in a statement Wednesday. Sales of $14.7 billion also matched the average of analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
United Technologies is looking to overcome a strong U.S. dollar and sluggish economy that are weighing on sales of products such as elevators and aircraft parts. The Farmington, Conn.-based company is also boosting production rates on a critical new jet-engine program in its Pratt & Whitney division.
“Despite an uncertain global macro environment, our growing aerospace backlog and strategic investments in the commercial businesses” position United Technologies for growth in 2017, Chief Executive Officer Gregory Hayes said in the statement. The company is on track to hit its 2020 growth targets as well, he said.
Hayes was thrust into the national spotlight in late 2016 when Donald Trump, after he was elected president, criticized United Technologies’ Carrier division over plans to relocate manufacturing work to Mexico. Hayes appeared last month with Trump at a widely televised event to announce that some of the jobs would remain at a plant in Indiana.
Profit in 2017 will be $6.30 to $6.60 a share, the company said, reaffirming a forecast given last month. Sales will be in the range of $57.5 billion to $59 billion.
The shares advanced 31 percent in the 12 months through Tuesday, compared with a 21% gain for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.
By Richard Clough
