Gregory Lewis
Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Honeywell International
Thank you, Vimal, and good morning, everyone.
Let me begin on Slide 5. As a reminder, we're now reporting our results using the new segment structure, which went into effect in the first quarter.
With that, let's discuss the results. We delivered a very strong first quarter, exceeding the high-end of our adjusted earnings per share guidance and meeting the high-end of our organic sales and segment margin guidance ranges. Despite a dynamic macro backdrop, Honeywell's disciplined execution and differentiated solutions enabled us to deliver on our commitments.
First quarter organic sales growth were up 3% year-over-year, led by 18% organic growth in Aerospace Technologies. This was the 12th consecutive quarter of double-digit growth in our commercial aerospace business, in addition to double-digit growth in Defense & Space. Segment profit grew 4% year-over-year, and segment margins expanded by 20 basis points to 22.2%, driven by expansion in Aerospace. Improved business mix, our focus on commercial excellence and benefits from productivity, allowed us to expand margins in line with the high-end of our guidance range.
Earnings per share for the first quarter was $2.23, up 8% year-over-year. And adjusted earnings per share was $2.25, up 9% year-over-year. While tax was a bit lighter relative to our first quarter guide, our full year tax expectations have not changed. A bridge for adjusted EPS from 1Q '23 to 1Q '24 can be found in the appendix of this presentation.
Orders were $10.2 billion in the quarter, down 1% year-on-year, which supported our backlog growth of 6% to a new record of $32 billion. This was led by quarter-over-quarter growth in aero, Building Automation and Industrial Automation, including in key short-cycle product businesses, namely productivity solutions and services in IA and fire in BA. This setup gives us confidence in our back half 2024 outlook, which I'll discuss in a few minutes.
Free cash flow was approximately $200 million, up $1.2 billion versus the first quarter of 2023, due to the absence of last year's one-time settlement of legacy legal matters that derisked our balance sheet. Excluding the impact of these settlements, net of tax, free cash flow is up approximately $200 million as higher net income was partially offset by a higher working capital due to lower payables. However, we see working capital becoming a tailwind in the coming quarters as we unwind the multiyear buildup of excess inventory.
We also continue to execute on our capital deployment strategy, putting our robust balance sheet to work through $1.6 billion, including $700 million in dividends, $700 million in share repurchases and $200 million in high-return capital expenditures.
As you saw in February, we successfully issued $5.8 billion in bonds during the first quarter, including our first-ever four-year maturity, taking advantage of strong demand in both the euro and dollar markets and locking in attractive long-term spreads, while extending our weighted average bond maturity from seven to 10 years. Proceeds will be used primarily to fund our acquisition of the Carrier Global Access Solutions business and to address current debt maturities. This really demonstrates the attractiveness and strength of Honeywell in the capital markets that we have built over time.
Now let's spend a few minutes on the first quarter performance by business. In Aerospace Technologies, sales were up 18% organically year-on-year, matching the third quarter of last year as among our strongest performances in over a decade. Increases in commercial aviation were led by original equipment, which saw over 20% growth in both air transport and Business & General Aviation as supply unlocks and deliveries continue to increase. We also saw significant growth in air transport aftermarket as global flight activity remains strong. In Defense & Space, robust demand and improvements in our supply chain enabled us to grow sales 16% in the quarter.
AT had book-to-bill of approximately 1.1 in the quarter as commercial demand and benefits from the impact of an increased global focus on national security support a strong growth trajectory. Supply chain continues to show sustained modest sequential improvement, leading to a 15% increase in output year-on-year, marking the 7th consecutive quarter of double-digit output growth. Segment margin in Aerospace expanded 150 basis points year-over-year, driven by commercial excellence and volume leverage, partially offset by cost inflation and mix pressures within our original equipment business.
For Industrial Automation, sales decreased 13% organically in the quarter, primarily as a result of lower volumes in warehouse and workflow solutions as investments in warehouse automation remains subdued. Our short-cycle sensing and safety technologies and productivity solutions and services sales were stable, but lower year-over-year with orders in our productivity solutions and services business growing sequentially and year-over-year for the second consecutive quarter, a positive sign that we're nearing a return to growth in that business.
Process Solutions revenue was flat in the first quarter as growth in our aftermarket services business was offset by mega project timing. Segment margin in Industrial Automation contracted 200 basis points to 16.8%, driven by lower volume leverage and cost inflation, partially offset by productivity actions and commercial excellence.
Building Automation sales were down 3% organically. We had another strong quarter of growth in our long-cycle building solutions business, while we worked through the volume challenges and the short-cycle building products area. Solutions grew 7% in the quarter, led by double-digit growth in building projects, driven by strong execution of our backlog. On a year-over-year basis, orders and building projects were up double-digits with strength in our core business and robust performance in energy and airports. Sequentially, orders for Building Automation improved in the first quarter, highlighted by a seasonal lift in building services and modest improvement in fire, resulting in an overall Building Automation book-to-bill of 1.1. Segment margins contracted 120 basis points to 24%, due to mix headwinds from softer product volumes and cost inflation, partially offset by productivity actions and commercial excellence.
Energy and Sustainability Solutions sales grew 5% organically in the first quarter. Advanced materials gained 6%, primarily driven by double-digit growth in flooring products. In UOP, sales were up 3% year-over-year as robust demand led to a double-digit increase in both petrochemical catalyst shipments and refining equipment more than offset expected challenging year-over-year comps in gas processing equipment projects. ESS book-to-bill was 1.2 in the first quarter, the second consecutive quarter of a book-to-bill above 1. Segment margin contracted 70 basis points on a year-over-year basis to 19.8% as one-time factory restart costs were partially offset by favorable business mix and productivity actions.
Growth across our portfolio was supported by another quarter of double-digit sales growth in Honeywell Connected Enterprise, a powerful indicator of our strong software franchise powered by our differentiated Forge AI IoT platform. Our offerings in cyber, life sciences and connected industrials all grew by more than 20% year-over-year in the quarter. HCE continues to generate not only value for our customers, but accretive growth and profitability for Honeywell.
The ongoing tailwinds in our long-cycle end markets and the strength of our backlog give us confidence in our ability to navigate the current operating environment. We continue to execute on our proven value creation framework underpinned by our Accelerator operating system, which will enable us to drive compelling growth in earnings and cash for quarters to come.
Now let's turn to Slide 6 and talk about our second quarter and full year guidance. We delivered on our 1Q commitments while maneuvering through known risks. And as we look to the rest of 2024, our original guidance framework continues to be solid. We expect the environment to remain dynamic as we were reminded again by recent geopolitical events. However, our Accelerator operating system that enables us to move quickly and decisively, our exposure to attractive megatrends and our record backlog will continue to support organic growth for the business. This outlook includes continued progress among our long-cycle portfolio as well as a modest back half recovery in short cycle as markets continue to normalize. Overall, we have a strong setup that will drive growth within our long-term financial framework for sales, margin, earnings and cash in 2024.
Now let's discuss how these dynamics come together for our 2024 guidance. Given the backdrop I just laid out, in total for 2024, we continue to expect sales to be in the range of $38.1 billion to $38.9 billion, which represents overall organic sales growth of 4% to 6% for the year with a greater balance between volume and price. We expect sequential improvement in the second half of 2024 over the first as Aerospace continues to grow its supply capabilities, coupled with a modest short-cycle recovery that should build momentum in the second half of the year, albeit with different rates of improvement for our various end markets.
For the second quarter, we anticipate sales in the range of $9.2 billion to $9.5 billion, up 1% to 4% organically. We anticipate our overall segment margin to expand 30 to 60 basis points this year, supported by improving business mix, price/cost discipline and productivity actions, including our precision focus on reducing raw material costs. Similar to last year, Building Automation margins will lead the group in margin expansion, followed by Industrial Automation and Energy and Sustainability Solutions.
For Aerospace, margins should remain relatively comparable to the last few years as volume leverage covers higher sales from the build-out of our original equipment installed base, which is driving robust year-over-year profit growth. For the second quarter, we expect overall segment margin in the range of 22.0% to 22.4%, roughly flat sequentially, but down 40 basis points to flat year-over-year, primarily due to volume deleverage in IA and the expiration of the Zebra licensing payments.
Importantly, our guidance for both the second quarter and full year 2024 does not consider the planned acquisition of Carrier's Global Access Solutions business. We anticipate the closing of the deal by the end of the third quarter, and we'll update our guidance accordingly at that time.
Now let's spend a few minutes on the outlook by business. Looking ahead for Aerospace Technologies, demand remains very encouraging across our end markets. Sales should grow sequentially in the second quarter, particularly in commercial original equipment as shipset deliveries continue to increase. However, we expect these sales to come at a lower margin, driving a sequential and year-over-year decrease in margin rate following the first quarter's strong result.
Increased build rates and shipset deliveries will carry on throughout the year, leading commercial OE to be our strongest growth business in 2024. In commercial aftermarket, volume strength and further improvement in wide-body flight hours will support additional growth. We'll continue to work through our healthy order book in defense and space, generating sequential sales improvement throughout the year. Ongoing supply chain improvements will continue to support double-digit output growth in AT throughout 2024.
For the year, we still expect Aerospace Technologies to lead organic growth for total Honeywell with sales in the low double-digit range. 2024 segment margin should be relatively comparable to 2022 and 2023, as volume leverage is mostly offset by higher sales of lower-margin products, a dynamic that likely leaves the first quarter at the high point for aero margins this year.
In Industrial Automation, the timing of short-cycle recovery will remain an important factor in our 2024 results, leading a back half-weighted year. In the second quarter, IA should be roughly flat sequentially. We expect growth in Process Solutions to be offset by warehouse automation demand that remains near trough levels and the end of the $45 million quarterly license and settlement payments we have received for the past two years in our productivity solutions and services business.
For the full year, Process Solutions will grow sequentially each quarter to build on last year's strong performance, driven by the aftermarket services business. Warehouse and workflow solutions will improve as we move through the trough of warehouse automation spending, while also benefiting from easing comps throughout the year. Our sensing and safety technologies business will benefit as the effects of distributor destocking fade throughout the year.
Lifecycle solutions and services orders grew sequentially and year-over-year in the first quarter, and we expect that strength to continue throughout the rest of the year. Two consecutive quarters of orders growth in our Productivity solutions and services business provide confidence in a back half ramp, excluding the impact from the absence of additional Zebra payments. As a result of these dynamics, we continue to see flattish sales growth in 2024 for IA. We still expect segment margin to expand, particularly in the second half as short-cycle recovery leads to positive volume leverage.
Moving to Building Automation. We remain confident in the overall outlook and execution of the business. For the second quarter, sales should improve sequentially as the channel further normalizes and our long-cycle businesses continue to benefit from strong backlog and aftermarket services tailwind. The timing of the short-cycle recovery remains one of the key drivers of business performance throughout the year, and our expectation for a more back half-weighted recovery in BA has not changed. As such, we will anticipate our long-cycle businesses to outpace our short-cycle portfolio, as both projects and services benefit from strong demand in backlog.
Additionally, high-growth regions remain a core part of the growth strategy for this business, and encouraging signals from regions like India and the Middle East support our full year sales forecast, which remains low single-digit growth for the year. We anticipate BA will be the segment with the largest margin expansion, primarily driven by productivity actions and commercial excellence net of inflation.
Finally, in Energy and Sustainability Solutions, the geopolitical environment will remain a key focus as we move through the year. In the second quarter, we expect sales to remain roughly flat year-over-year and sequentially, as sustained demand in flooring products and catalysts will offset remaining volume headwinds from challenging comps in gas processing equipment. For the full year, strong performance in those businesses is expected to offset volume declines in our legacy stationary products due to well-telegraphed quota reductions within the U.S.
In sustainable technology solutions, robust demand will lead to another strong year of growth. We continue to monitor the ongoing short-cycle recovery, particularly from semiconductor fabs, a key component to achieving our unchanged top line expectation of flat to up low single digits for the year. Margins should improve throughout the year from a 1Q bottom, driven by a combination of commercial excellence and productivity actions.
Moving on to other key guidance metrics. Pension income in 2024 will be roughly flat to 2023 at approximately $550 million. We anticipate net below-the-line impact to be between negative $550 million and negative $700 million for the full year and between negative $120 million and negative $180 million in the second quarter. This guidance includes repositioning spend between $200 million and $300 million for the full year and between $25 million and $75 million in the second quarter, as we continue to invest in high-return projects to support our future growth and productivity.
We expect the adjusted effective tax rate to be around 21% for both the full year and the second quarter. We anticipate average share count to be around 656 million shares for the full year, as we execute our commitment to reduce share count by at least 1% per year through opportunistic buybacks.
As a result of all these inputs, we are maintaining our previously provided full year adjusted earnings per share range of $9.80 to $10.10, up 7% to 10% year-over-year. We anticipate second quarter earnings per share between $2.25 and $2.35, up 1% to 5% year-over-year.
We also expect free cash flow to grow in line with earnings, excluding the after-tax impact of last year's one-time settlement from derisking our balance sheet. We are progressing on the multiyear unwind of working capital, where our efforts to improve demand planning and optimize production and materials management are yielding some early operational benefits, another indicator of the power of our digitalization capability through Accelerator.
In addition, we will continue to fund high-return projects focused on creating uniquely innovative, differentiated technologies. As a result, our free cash flow expectations remain $5.6 billion to $6 billion for the year, up 6% to 13%, excluding the impact of prior year settlements. Our robust balance sheet and strong cash generation will support accretive capital deployment. And while we're happy with our recently announced transactions, we will further build on our active M&A pipeline as we continue to optimize the portfolio.
So in summary, we executed a strong first quarter and anticipate delivering a strong second quarter and 2024, benefiting from our alignment to the compelling aerospace, automation and energy transition megatrends. Our record backlog and rigorous operating principles give us confidence in our track record of execution.
So let me turn it now back to Vimal on Slide 7.
