Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the GE Investor Update. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. My name is Brandon, and I'll be your operator for today. If at any time during the call you require assistance, please press Star followed by zero, and a conference coordinator will be happy to assist you. If you experience issues with the slides refreshing or there appears to be delays in the slide advancement, please hit F5 on your keyboard to refresh. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the program over to your host for today's conference, Steve Winoker, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please proceed.
Thanks, Brandon. Welcome to GE's Investor Call, and thank you all for joining us on short notice. I'm here with our Chairman and CEO, Larry Culp, and CFO, Carolina Dybeck Happe. We'll spend about 15 minutes discussing today's announcement, then we'll move to Q&A. Before we start, I'd like to remind you that the press release and presentation are available on our website. Note that some of the statements we're making are forward-looking and are based on our best view of the world and our businesses as we see them today. As described in our SEC filings and on our website, those elements may change as the world changes. With that, I'll hand the call over to Larry.
Steve, thanks. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us. Today's announcement is a defining moment for GE. This morning, we shared our plan to form three independent investment-grade, industry-leading global public companies focused on growth sectors, aviation, healthcare, and energy. We intend to do this by spinning off healthcare, creating a pure-play company at the center of precision health. We'll combine renewable energy, power, and digital into one business positioned to lead the energy transition, which we'll spin off after healthcare. GE will then become an aviation-focused company, shaping the future of flight. This plan is the result of a thoughtful, deliberate, strategic process by our board of directors and senior management team. We're embarking on this exciting journey from a position of strength.
Over the last several years, our teams have done exceptional work strengthening our financial position and operating performance, all the while deepening our culture of continuous improvement through Lean. We've made significant moves to transform GE into a more focused, simpler, stronger, high-tech industrial company. As evidenced by our recent performance, our transformation is accelerating and delivering results. For almost 130 years, GE has leveraged its DNA of innovation to build a world that works, solving the biggest challenges through our technological expertise, leadership, and global reach. Operating each of these businesses as independent companies will enable them to realize their full potential, driving long-term growth and value for all stakeholders. Moving to slide four. We plan to form three well-capitalized investment-grade companies with strong, seasoned leadership teams. We're confident as standalone companies, each will drive long-term value. Let me explain why.
First is greater focus, which will allow these businesses to relentlessly prioritize where they can add the most value and continue to deliver for our customers. Second is more tailored capital structures and capital allocation frameworks that are aligned with each company's distinct strategies and industry dynamics. This strategic and financial flexibility will allow them to invest more in existing and adjacent growth markets with new or complementary technology and capabilities. For example, in healthcare, this might mean going further upstream into interventional and therapeutic modalities while integrating around a patient disease state to drive better outcomes and increase productivity. Next is dedicated governance in the form of their own boards of directors, building deep domain expertise in their respective industries. From an employee perspective, we expect each company can provide more business and industry-oriented career opportunities and incentives, helping us compete more effectively for talent.
Each will have the opportunity to attract a broader and deeper investor base, given each company's compelling investment profile, creating value over the long term. Benefiting from all of these factors, each will be a simpler, stronger, and more focused company. Each company is a current leader with global scale, talent, and long-term customer relationships that have been built over many, many decades. Moving to slide five. If that is why this transaction is the right next step in GE's transformation, let me explain why now is the right time. Several years ago, we set out to improve our financial position and strengthen our businesses, and financial strength was our priority.
In today's portfolio of businesses, GE is on track to reduce debt by more than $75 billion by the end of this year, and is now on track to bring its net debt to EBITDA ratio to less than 2.5x in 2023. The GECAS transaction that closed last week was a tremendous catalyst, providing approximately $30 billion in consideration. We've also taken decisive action to de-risk GE. We've stabilized insurance, mitigating funding risks with the capital contributions to date and focusing on operational improvements, such as our investment portfolio realignment strategy. For the GE pension plan, as we shared before, we do not anticipate any further funding requirements through the end of this decade.
We've also maintained strong liquidity, and we're operating with better cash management, driving lower, more predictable cash needs. To enable this, we've eliminated on-book factoring, and given the planned separations, we announced this morning that we're going to discontinue our remaining off-book factoring program that funded receivables across aviation and healthcare. The estimated free cash flow impact will be about $2 billion, and we expect most of this impact in the fourth quarter of this year. Like the rest of discontinued factoring, this will be adjusted out of industrial free cash flow. Moving forward, we're committed to continuing to reduce debt as we stand up three well-capitalized investment-grade companies that are positioned to invest in growth. At the same time, the GE team also meaningfully improved our business' operating and financial performance, driven by the belief that people close to the customer can serve them best.
To that end, we shifted the center of gravity to our businesses, removing overhead layers and driving resources, decision-making, and accountability out to the P&L level. As we scale lean company-wide, driving better performance, and in turn, a better culture. Keeping score, managing visually, and in real time, these lean principles help us get the day-to-day things right, then improve safety, quality, delivery, and cost. I shared with you in earnings a couple of weeks ago about a Kaizen with our military team in Lynn, Massachusetts, where my group set out to improve first-time yields on mid-frame parts. Today marks 30 days out from that Kaizen, and our changes are delivering 100% first-time yields, compared with 59% previously. That's but one example. Added up across sites, teams, and businesses, the results are real, driving consistent, sustainable free cash flow.
As they take root, they build, allowing our board and leadership to spend more of their time and focus on breakthroughs. This stronger foundation gave us a running start for some headwinds outside of our control, including the COVID-19 pandemic. The muscles we've been building around ruthless prioritization, relentless customer focus, and continuous improvement helped us manage severe uncertainty and move faster on our mission-critical work, keeping planes flying, hospitals operating, and power flowing together with our customers. GE has emerged as a company that's stronger, nimbler, and more customer-centric. We're getting back on our front foot, playing offense with the recent inorganic growth plays in healthcare as one example. We're not taking our eye off enhancing operational performance. We have headroom for more improvement in each business without exception.
As these improvements take hold, we expect more sustainable, profitable growth and a lift in earnings, leading to stronger cash flow generation. In 2021, we expect to deliver about $5 billion of industrial free cash flow at the midpoint, adjusted, of course, for the discontinued factoring for the full year. We now expect, in today's portfolio of businesses, to reach high single-digit free cash flow margins or more than $7 billion of free cash flow in 2023. Worth noting, even if you exclude healthcare, we expect GE to achieve a high single-digit free cash flow margin rate in 2023. Turning to slide seven. Each of these businesses will be leaders in their own right, shaping the future of their respective industries. Let's dive into how we plan for this transformation to materialize.
We'll spin off healthcare as an independent company, and we expect to complete this first step in early 2023. At the same time, we'll integrate renewables, power, and digital into one business. In early 2024, we'll launch this business as a new independent public company. Both spinoffs are expected to be tax-free to our shareholders. Following these spins, GE will be an aviation-focused company, continuing to innovate and lead the industry. I'll serve as non-executive Chair of the healthcare company upon the spinoff. I'll continue as Chairman and CEO of GE until the second spinoff, at which point I'll lead the GE aviation-focused company going forward. As previously announced, Peter Arduini will assume the role of President and CEO of GE Healthcare in January 2022.
Scott Strazik will expand his responsibilities and will be the CEO of the combined renewables, power, and digital business, while John Slattery continues as CEO of GE Aviation. Now I'll spend a little bit more time on each of the businesses. Starting on Slide eight. At Aviation, we're a global leader in aircraft engines, systems, and avionics. Our engine value proposition across efficiency, reliability, and lifecycle economics is the most competitive and innovative in the industry. We have more than 37,000 commercial engines, and over 60% haven't seen their second shop visit, a tremendous opportunity as the market recovers. In fact, we power 2/3 of commercial flights, illustrating how impactful this business is today and to the future of flight.
Our military business, which has been a big operational focus, has more than 26,000 military engines, and servicing our vast global install base keeps us close to our customers and able to anticipate their needs. The pandemic has really drawn a spotlight on this business. While our results have improved significantly, along with the broader market, admittedly, it's still early. We continue to use Lean to run our operations better and with a lower cost structure. As the industry progresses on its commitment to halve carbon emissions by 2050, we're investing in lower carbon technologies, such as the CFM RISE program, where we're aiming to improve fuel efficiency by at least 20%. Through the upcycle, no business is better positioned than GE Aviation to support our customers. Near term, we're focused on delivering top line growth, profitability, and cash generation in line with 2019 levels.
Long-term, through the cycle, we expect market growth of low to mid-single-digit% with an operating margin in the high teens to 20% range, while converting more than 90% of our free cash flow. With the industry's largest and youngest fleet, I'm confident our platform will generate value for decades to come. In addition, GE will be able to monetize any remaining stakes in AerCap and Baker Hughes, as well as our stake in Healthcare, which we expect to be nearly 20%. These stakes provide us with substantial financial flexibility going forward. We will also retain other assets and liabilities of GE today, including our runoff insurance business. Moving to slide nine. Our global healthcare franchise is a leading equipment business complemented by higher margin services, where we have a solid local capability that keeps us close to customers around the world.
With 4 million installations worldwide, serving more than 1 billion patients and executing more than 2 billion procedures per year, GE is at the nexus of most care pathways. Demand here continues to be robust, supported by powerful secular growth drivers. Our operational performance has led to higher growth, continued margin expansion and robust cash generation, which is enabling us to increase our future investments. Our recently announced acquisition of BK Medical represents a step forward, and as a standalone company, Healthcare will be even better positioned to invest both organically and inorganically to drive faster growth. Today and tomorrow, delivering on the future of healthcare is about enabling precision health, integrated, efficient and highly personalized care. Making this a reality requires merging clinical medicine and data science by applying advanced analytics and AI across every possible point of the patient journey.
GE is one of the few companies with the reach, capabilities and relationships to do this. Long-term, through the cycle, we expect market growth of mid-single digits% with operating margins in the high teens to 20%, while converting more than 100% of free cash flow. Moving to slide 10. As mentioned, we plan to integrate Renewables, Power and Digital into a franchise that will play a critical role in solving the trilemma of affordable, reliable and sustainable energy. This business possesses a unique offering with the world's most powerful wind turbines and most efficient gas turbines, as well as technology to modernize and digitize the grid. The energy transition represents the largest market opportunity for digital with vertical market solutions in grid and power generation. We've been intently focused on improving operational performance in these businesses.
At Renewables, we're navigating some industry headwinds, and we have more work to do to improve cost productivity. We're bullish about the business's long-term potential with our new platforms, including the Haliade-X and Cypress, driving record orders. At Grid, we've been executing a turnaround through cost improvement and decreased turnkey project work. At Gas Power, we've made tremendous progress in stabilizing the business, delivering higher services growth, margin expansion and cash generation. A large part of this improvement is driven by Lean, a playbook that we're extending to the rest of Power. In Digital, now a billion-dollar business with over 40% recurring revenue, is focused on improving profitability. Looking forward, with roughly 1 billion people not having access to reliable power and energy demand only increasing, we must meet this demand while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Our business is developing breakthrough technologies, enabling carbon capture and the combustion of carbon-free fuels like nuclear and hydrogen. As a company generating one-third of the world's electricity, we're well-positioned to help customers achieve their net zero ambitions. Longer term, through the cycle, we expect market growth of low single digits with operating margins in the mid to high single-digit range, while converting 80%-90% of free cash flow. In all, this journey is the culmination, the hard work and dedication our teams have shown over the last several years. We're incredibly proud that our financial and operational progress will enable us to stand up three strong industry-leading global companies, each of them well capitalized with seasoned leaders to drive the next phase of organic growth and margin expansion.
This, along with focused capital allocation, can further accelerate revenue, earnings and free cash flow growth at each company. Stepping back, at GE, we've always had immense pride in building a world that works. We have a responsibility to move with speed, to shape the future of flight, advance precision health and lead the energy transition. The momentum we have built puts us in a position of strength to take this exciting next step in GE's transformation, enabling each of our businesses to realize their full potential. With that, Steve, let's go to questions.
Thanks, Larry. Before we open the line, I'd ask everyone in the queue to consider your fellow analysts and ask one question so we can get to as many people as possible. Brandon, can you please open the line?
Brandon? Brandon, can you just confirm? Folks, we're just waiting for Brandon to come back on to admit people into the Q&A, if you can hear me. If I could ask for your continued patience. I know I'm getting emails and texts from folks where I know you can, in fact, hear me. We are just waiting for our operator to come through and make sure that you can ask questions. I may take the unusual such step of asking the folks on the phone, and I see one of you, to text me your question if you're unable to get through. I'll give an example while we're still waiting.
I can always ask you again.
I know.
The questions.
Yes. No, and we're ready to go, Larry.
Absolutely.
I'm gonna start in the absence of something else on my list with who I have from next for Andrew Obin, to actually who I see texting me right now. Andrew, why don't you text me your question? I will read it verbatim on the phone at this point. I'll ask others to text and email me their questions, and I will get in as many as possible since you can all hear me. Here we go. From Andrew, who's typing as quickly as he can, I might add. Historically, GE funded aviation from the rest of the company through the cycle. Now you're funding it as a standalone entity. Question will be, "How should we think about the stability of funding going forward?" Why don't we start with that one.
Okay. I hope you can hear me.
Yes, we can hear.
Carolina here. Andrew, thank you for your question. I mean, we're talking about, first of all, the key principle that the businesses, we believe, are best positioned for success as standalone companies. To set them up for success, it also comes with an investment-grade balance sheet, and the companies will all be public and have access to capital markets in a focused way. By doing that, we set them up to both operate and invest in their businesses, and I mean R&D, sales, or M&A, and to be able to do so successfully through, I would say, the whole cycle, including downturns. That's why it's important with these appropriate capitalization structures. Again, for very long cycle businesses, we talk about long-term products and technology investments that need to be sustained over time to keep leadership.
That is also why we're setting the companies up the way we do.
Okay, great. The next question comes from Scott Davis of Melius Research. He asks, "Will asset sales be on the table ahead of the spins, particularly pieces of renewables, grid, or digital?
Scott, good morning. I know this is a topic that has been close to a lot of your analytical work over time. We'll get a chance to follow up, hopefully live later. Scott, I think in terms of asset sales, there's nothing planned. None of the steps that we've laid out here are predicated on asset sales. I would reiterate, though, that part of the opportunity to further deleverage the company will come through monetizing the stakes, as we have shared previously, both in Baker Hughes and in AerCap. We've also flagged this 19.9% stake, retained stake in Healthcare.
That'll be something that we will also monetize over time as we set the balance sheets for the three companies and position each of the three companies to be on their front feet, able to invest in growth going forward.
Great. Thank you, Larry. From Nigel Coe of Wolfe Research, can you confirm that you are raising 2021 free cash flow to $5 billion? If so, what is driving that? You're also being more definitive on 2023 free cash flow. What's driving that confidence?
Thank you. Let me start with 2021. When we talk about the $5 billion, that's the midpoint of our existing free cash flow guide, $3.75 billion-$4.75 billion, and then adding back the $800 million of discontinued factoring from the first quarter. That gets you to $5 billion. It's the same as we said at earnings. We do have a change though, and that is the high single-digit free cash flow margin. We're now saying that we will get there in 2023, and we're also saying that we mean that as bigger than $7 billion, just to be clear. It's an important question. Let's take it one step deeper.
If we look, we've talked to you before about the $10 billion of op profit and how we see that as sort of the base to get to that high single digit. It's really all comes down to the profit in the businesses, right? If we take aviation business, we are seeing the commercial markets starting to recover. We do expect to get to 2019 levels by narrow bodies in 2023, wide bodies by 2024. Larry talked about our young fleet. I would say more than half of that fleet hasn't seen the second shop visit yet, so we're gonna expect healthy shop visits as well. Stronger utilization, military growing again, and then also the cost actions that we have talked about in aviation. Together, that will expand the margins to the high teens.
I also talked about high free cash flow conversion. That's the big Aviation to $6 billion. The next one is really Healthcare. In Healthcare, we've talked about profit between $3 billion and $4 billion. Here, we see new products having really strong demand. Overall the markets, as you know, we have strong demand. Basically, you can see that also from our orders. We have strong convictions that we're gonna get there as well in 2023. Because the top line growth, including the operational improvements that we're doing, as well as investing in growth, I should say, get us to that healthy OM expansion improvement YoY and to be there in 2023. Power. In Power, we're talking about $1 billion-$2 billion of op profit.
Here, a couple of different parts. We've talked about how important services is and how we're focusing on increasing the services part here. Scott and the team have talked about gas and how we're getting gas to high single digits already. Then going forward, more and more HAs are coming online. We expect that also to, over time, continue to grow services. Steam, we are in the middle of restructuring, but steam has a good path to getting there in 2023, and will also mainly be a service business then. Overall, we get the margins to high single digits. Now renewables. With Scott's extended mandate, also using, I would say, the same playbook as was used in gas power, to now all power also going into renewables. Here's the combination.
We talk about continued operation improvements, right, on the products as well as how we service. Then on top of that, again, focusing on more and higher service penetration. We expect the U.S. onshore wind to stabilize. We expect to continue to see selective international growth, growing offshore wind, and then better grid execution in the turnaround, also being an important part of the energy transition. Finally, corporate costs. We've said less than $1 billion. You can see already from our guide for this year that we expect to be at $1 billion. All of that gives us confidence to get to more than $10 billion of op profit in 2023. That also means that if you add back the D&A, we get an EBITA of $13 billion-$14 billion in 2023.
Thanks, Carolina. There are a number of emails that have come in text, so we have plenty of questions to answer everybody without our operator assistance through the end of this call. Larry, to follow up on Nigel's question from Nigel, are there barriers to getting the Healthcare spin done before 2023?
Nigel, I would say that, you know, as we look at the work to be done, it's probably, at this point, a 12-15 month undertaking. When we say early 2023, I think that's the best time frame. If we can move more quickly, you know, rest assured we will. We wanna get it right. Let's keep in mind that we've got a relatively new leadership team in place. Peter Arduini, who will start first of January, will be doing just that, right, as CEO. We need to give Peter and company, the team, time to get everything prepared. I couldn't be happier with the prospect of Peter coming in.
Kieran Murphy's been a tremendous leader of that business, but I'm more excited about Peter's leadership than I was the day we made him the offer to join the team. We'll move at pace, right? The other businesses in 2022 will be focused principally on improving our operating performance. We'll be busy next year with Healthcare, continuing to grow that business, getting the team squared away, and getting ready for the spin early the following year.
Question from Joe Ritchie of Goldman Sachs. How should we think about GE Capital's impact to the capital structure going forward? With long-term care and other assets, Baker Hughes, GE Healthcare stake, and GE Aviation, what are your thoughts around cleaning up long-term care as you stand alone these businesses?
Well, I don't think, Joe, thanks for the question. It's tough not hearing everyone's voices, Steve.
Sorry.
You're doing a great job.
You haven't heard me usually.
You're doing a great job. You know, I think, Joe, that relative to long-term care
That's the primary obligation that will stay with the aviation-focused business. Our posture doesn't change. I think we're really pleased with the way that we've managed this runoff obligation, right. As you heard on the earnings call, the claims curves that were reset a few years ago continue to hold. I think we're doing a better job not only managing that portfolio, but also frankly, running the business in terms of finding opportunities to raise premium as well as, you know, frankly, managing claims smarter. We'll continue down that path. I mean, if things change, we'll deal with that in time. This is an obligation that we've run well, again, a runoff obligation, and we'll continue that posture as we move forward.
From Deane Dray, please expand on the deleveraging plan. More than $75 billion and now less than 2.5x by 2023. What's driving this? What are the key assumptions?
Good morning, Deane. I can hear your question through Steve's voice there. Let me talk about the deleveraging. We were asked about the high single-digit free cash flow just a minute ago, and I alluded that that basically gets you to $13 billion-$14 billion of EBITA in 2023. Of course, that's an important part of the equation, since the deleveraging is about profit as well as the debt side. You have one part of the equation. If we look at the other part of the equation, that's on the debt side. Larry talked about it this morning, how we went from $140 billion, and how we now expect to have reduced by more than $75 billion by this year-end, right?
We've talked to you previously that the goal would be to go to less than $45 billion of gross debt. Basically, that leaves us with $15-$20 billion to go. That $15-$20 billion to go, well, we have plenty of sources to use here. Larry mentioned a couple of them, the Baker Hughes stake, about $4 billion, the AerCap stake, by the way, now up to $7 billion. Then, of course, we also have the cash at hand and our free cash flow generation. That's how we get to less than $45 billion of gross debt. That's the equivalent of less than $35 billion of net debt.
If you take the 13-14 EBITA and the less than $35 billion of net debt, that's what we are seeing happening in 2023, and that's how we get to our deleveraging target. A clear path on our profit, on our cash, and on our debt reduction in 2023. I would say, I mean, that's why we're here today, talking about the next step.
A follow-up question from Jeff Sprague, I think is related to the last one. Jeff Sprague from Vertical Research. How should we think about the starting balance sheet ratios? Why hold the healthcare stake in aviation as opposed to total separation?
Jeff, good morning. I think what we tried to share here earlier in the release and elsewhere is that we haven't made any formal fixed decisions about the respective capital structures of any of the three businesses. We'll clearly retain Healthcare within GE in early 2023, which, at that time, will be a combined renewables power business as well as Aviation. We're gonna work through over the next year or so, how we want to structure the Healthcare balance sheet to really find the optimal position for them, obviously, with a bias toward growth. I think we feel very strongly, and the agencies will weigh in here, I'm sure in time, that we have a clear path for all three to be investment-grade.
As we get to that second step, we're clearly going to be putting power and renewables out there. I think we know that, of three, is the business that will carry the least amount of debt with it as it leaves compared to the other two. Then going forward, what will be the core GE business, the aviation-focused business, will have those stakes that are left at that time, both in terms of whatever is left at healthcare at that point, in addition, as we mentioned earlier, both Baker Hughes and AerCap.
Great, Larry. Thanks. From Josh Pokrzywinski of Morgan Stanley on stranded costs. It's early, but how do you consider dis-synergies or stranded costs relative to those high single-digit free cash flow margins?
Josh, thank you for the question. Maybe starting by what we're talking about as the transaction costs. We talked about that we expect to see a one-time cost of about $2 billion as separation costs. You know, those are the usual ones, sort of the transition costs, IT, legal, audits, restructuring, and so on. About half a billion of tax costs, part of this. What we also see is that standing up three public companies, we expect each of the companies to have around $150 million-$200 million of standalone costs per company. If you then compare to where we are today, basically, we have a corporate of about $1 billion. Out of that, $600 million-$700 million is really functional costs.
That's to be compared to the 3x , 150-200. Basically, it's a wash on that one. We don't see dyssynergies from this.
Great. Gautam Khanna from Cowen has a related follow-up question. How should we think about the respective tax rates of the companies? And he further asked about conviction in that separation cost number you just talked about.
When it comes to tax costs, yeah, we need to work through the structures of each of the entities and then see sort of what the footprint will look like, and we'll come back then on the specific tax rates, 'cause it depends on which countries you're sort of profitable in and the structure and the setup. We'll come back with more information on that once we get closer to the spins.
Okay. Pat Baumann, who works with Steve Tusa at JP Morgan asks a follow-up question to your earlier question on the free cash flow guidance. Should we assume a linear trajectory to that more than $7 billion in 2023, so that 2022 will be up from this year? In other words, will 2022 be higher than 2021?
Thank you. I was talking about how we would get to more than $7 billion in 2023, and our jumping off point in 2021 is $5 billion, excluding all the factoring, right? What we've also said is that we're going to one column, one company, and as we do that, we expect to have important growth in free cash flow next year as well.
Okay. From Joe O'Dea from Wells Fargo, why does digital go with renewables and power? Can you talk about the revenue overlap versus adding the quality of the digital profile to the energy business?
Sure. Well, I think as we shared in the prepared remarks, digital today, what we call GE Digital, is over $1 billion in revenue. It sits at corporate. When you look at the component pieces, the biggest piece is our digital grid business. I think I also mentioned that the other businesses are energy-related, particularly in and around power generation. We call it GE Digital today for a host of reasons, but it is fundamentally an energy-oriented business. It's an easy, natural decision as we take this next step to put it with the energy-related businesses. There's some good non-energy-related businesses in there, and they'll continue to do what they're doing, which has been really, frankly, remarkable the last couple of years.
Really, an easy, natural, strategic fit for Digital in that group as opposed to Healthcare or Aviation. We certainly have significant ongoing Digital investments and activities in Healthcare and in Aviation, but those are more geared toward those businesses and historically have always been there, so that path continues.
Great. Joe has a follow-up question, and Julian, I just got your text with six questions. Let me read that while Larry's answering this next one, and then we'll get to you. From Joe on the second question, can you please expand on the full potential of businesses and what's not achievable under the GE umbrella? Is unlocked potential more than cost management or top line growth?
Well, you know, I think of it very simply. We've made a lot of progress, not only with the balance sheet, but improving our core operations over the last several years. I think as we've seen in so many instances outside of GE over the last decade, spinning good businesses heightens focus and accountability. I think there's no question about that. As someone who has been through this a couple of times shared with me recently, it just helps make everybody better. I think the capital allocation and strategic flexibility improvements that we're out to get with everybody, boards, leadership teams, and the like, focused on all of the dynamics, the opportunities and the challenges in their respective industries, will be a real positive.
Again, I think up and down the chain from the board to the team and including investors, that alignment that you get with pure plays is really helpful. You put all that together on top of what we have been able to achieve. I think we feel strongly this is the right decision, this is the right time. With what customers need from us, we can't afford to waste a day, which is why we're out first thing this morning with this announcement. We're excited about it, ready to go.
Great. From Julian Mitchell of Barclays. The long term through the cycle operating margin profiles for each business implies expansion relative to Q3 levels and the prior long-term guides, despite the incremental standalone costs. Does this reflect conservatism in the prior guide or better than expected progress with cost out initiatives to date?
Well, I think what we're really trying to capture here is what we think each of these businesses are capable of as we move forward. It's a combination of both the progress that we've made and the opportunities that we see as we move forward. Again, I think that as I've talked to a lot of people on our board and elsewhere, there's no question that the heightened focus and accountability will help us put money to work where we should and take it out where we can.
Another question from Julian. What will the capital structures of the three companies be in terms of their debt and leverage? How should we think about that?
Julian, thank you for the question. Well, it sort of starts with where we will be as a total GE, and I talked about $13 billion-$14 billion of EBITDA and less than $35 billion of net debt. I would say that the amount of debt that the businesses can support depends on their sort of cash generation and the sector, but they also have different needs. That's what we talk about when we say it needs to be fit for purpose. If you start with power and renewables, you have the financials, so you know, what that looks like. You also realize that that's the business that can carry the least amount of debt across the three businesses. We have Healthcare.
I would say based on the business profile and the financial outlook, yes, healthcare can support more debt, but as Larry mentioned, we also wanna be sure we leave enough room to grow here. Then we have aviation. Clearly the biggest cash generator and also the one that can support the most absolute debt because of that. What the ratios will look like more exactly, we will come back to you closer to the spin. I would also say that the equity stake in healthcare gives us even more strategic flexibility here. Today we're saying three investment grades, and then exactly what that would look like, we will come back to closer to the spin.
Okay. We're actually out of time now that it's 9:00 at the top of the hour. I did get some additional emails in, no doubt from folks, and we will get back to you separately with those questions or answers to those questions. Larry, any final comments that you would like to make?
Steve, well, first off, apologies for the technical difficulties. We appreciate everybody's perseverance in staying with us here. Hopefully, we got to a number of the questions on your minds, and we'll obviously follow up and be available through the course of the day. I just wanna take a moment here to thank everybody, our employees, our partners around the world for their extraordinary work. It's really thanks to all of you that we're able to take this next step in our transformation. I'd also like to thank our investors for their continued support. We're excited about what lies ahead. After today, we get back to work. Thanks, everyone.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.