United Technologies Announces USD12 Billion Buyback Plan

On Tuesday, United Technologies Corp (UTC) Chief Executive announced the company’s USD16 billion share buyback plan, Bloomberg reported. The buyback plan seems to have replaced the company’s initial plans to make large acquisitions or mergers in the near future. 

In a telephone interview, Hayes said that although the buyback plan budget is significant, the company may consider some M&As as long as it benefit’s UTC’s market share. He said, “We’ll probably do about $1 billion of M&A this year, so it’s never off the table. But as long as we think that the UTC stock is trading at a big discount to intrinsic value, I’m not going to go out and do a big deal that would require me to use UTC stock as a currency.”

He also echoed the same sentiment with Reuters.

Interestingly, the announcement came in the heels of UTC’s third-quarter earnings report, most particularly its sales revenue. Hartford Courant said the company lost USD500 million in the third quarter due to issues that came with the decision to outsource the screws and bolts kits to supply its engine assembly. The poorly done kits reportedly affected production in its Middletown, East Hartford and Florida factories.