Next up we have RTX and, Chris Calio, President, CEO, and I think soon to be, Chris, thanks for coming again.
Thank you.
And I will turn over to you for forward-looking statements, and I think you have some introductions.
Yeah, good.
Comments.
Yeah, well, thank you, David. Great to be here. Good morning, everybody. Yeah, just some housekeeping upfront. You know, David, as you mentioned, likely be making some forward-looking statements here this morning. Those are, of course, subject to the usual risk and uncertainty, so please consult our SEC filings for more information on that front. And then I won't make a bunch of intro comments. I know we've got a lot to cover, David, but just for some of you who aren't familiar with RTX, global aerospace and defense company consisting of three leading businesses: Raytheon, Collins Aerospace, and Pratt & Whitney. Coming off a strong 2024, about $80 billion in sales, exited the year with a $218 billion backlog, strength across all of our, you know, customer demand channels. Feel well-positioned here in 2025.
As many of you know, we gave out guidance at our earnings call a couple weeks ago. No change there. $83 billion-$84 billion in sales, EPS in the range of $6-$6.15, and free cash flow in the $7 billion-$7.5 billion range. So with that, David, I'll turn it over to you to, run the show.
Okay. Great. So you were here a year ago. GTF was kind of the focus. How do you feel like over the course of the past year how things have gone? What's your vision for this year, kind of high-level vision for this year and for the company, you know, looking beyond that?
Yeah. Well, GTF's still a focus, and we'll probably talk about that.
Yeah.
Just when we get into this. We just sort of step back. It really comes down to what I said upfront, which is the backlog, the $218 billion backlog, really, really strong demand. And so our number one priority: executing on our customer commitments, ensuring that we're ramping up to meet our customer needs, make sure we're delivering those products on time and on cost. I'll tell you, the second key priority that we're focused on is continuing to innovate for growth. As you know, we're a long-cycle business. We've got to continue to innovate in this business in order to stay ahead. That's both in terms of the design of our products but also how we make our products. We're gonna invest about $7.5 billion in company and customer-funded E&D this year, another $2.5 billion in CapEx.
Making sure we execute on those investments is obviously critically important. And then the last priority we continue to talk about here, as a company, is leveraging our breadth and scale. And what does that mean? Well, it's really just about driving productivity and efficiency in everything we do, using our core operating system across all three of our businesses to be as cost-competitive as possible. And it also means leveraging the technologies that we've got across all three of our businesses. There's a lot of commonality, David, in what we do and some of the enabling technologies, so making sure we're leveraging that across all three of our businesses to develop differentiated solutions for our customers. That's how I'd frame sort of the RTX priorities as we're here in 2025.
In terms of 2025 risk and opportunities, as you think about the year, I think when you had your call, tariffs were not, not front and center like they are today. So how are you thinking about the potential risk around tariffs, and then, you know, what are your top priorities for each of the businesses?
Yeah. Well, again, I think well-positioned as we head in here in 2025. If you look at the commercial pieces of our business at Pratt and Collins, you know, commercial OE up from that mid-single-digit range as we continue to ramp up to meet the demands of our airframer, continued strong demand in the commercial aftermarket space. Obviously, we've had significant growth over the last two years. See, you know, continued growth this year in that 10% range. On the defense side, again, at Raytheon, exited the year with a $63 billion backlog, a 1.48 book-to-bill. And if you just think about the visibility into our sales this year, about 85% of Raytheon sales are in the backlog today. So very, very clear demand signal to our supply chain. So feel good there.
On tariffs, look, I'll just say like everyone else, it's a fluid situation. I would say it's not in our guidance today, or it's not incorporated in our guidance today. I would say that some of the things that have been communicated, we've put in the category of, you know, manageable, and there are others that we'll just need to stay close to and track as they develop, whether they be timing, what exemptions, the application, will there be some settlements like we've seen, you know, over the course of the last couple of weeks. So obviously, you gotta keep our eye on that. But I will tell you, we've spent a lot of time over the last couple of years creating a healthier and more resilient supply chain across the world, qualifying new suppliers, dual sources, sometimes triple sources in constrained areas.
I'll also tell you, we've got very strong partnerships all over the globe where we do work to serve those local markets. So again, I think those are, those are both things that sort of help us weather sort of the uncertainty that you see sort of out there. But I would just say if you just step back, your perspective of sort of what's happening, you know, around us, just really strong fundamentals at each of the businesses. And you asked about the priorities. If you think of Collins, again, strong positions on some of the fastest-growing platforms out there. They've got $160 billion of installed equipment flying around out there today, about $100 billion of it out of warranty, so very strong aftermarket tails.
So for Collins, it's really about driving that structural cost reduction throughout its business to drive margin expansion and just being prepared for the ramp-up, you know, that's happening clearly, you know, Boeing ramping, Airbus ramping. At Pratt, again, priority, you referenced it upfront, is the GTF, executing on the GTF fleet management plan, continuing to drive GTF, you know, margins, aftermarket margins, where we need them to be. And again, making sure that we continue to support our military customer, F135, sustainment continues to grow, and maintaining our leading position at Pratt & Whitney Canada. And then again, at Raytheon, it's all about delivering on the backlog. It's about the supply chain, ensuring that we've got the supply chain and the capacity in place, you know, that we need.
We've seen seven straight quarters of material receipts growth at Raytheon, which is, again, tailwind for us, good, good progress there. And we continue to add capacity to meet the needs of the ramp and our customer. Last year, we invested about $300 million in capacity expansion, another $200+ on tap this year. And we've seen, you know, some very good results there. If you just think of our Coyote counter-UAS system, we entered 2024 at a rate of 20 a month. We exited close to 100 a month. So again, continuing to ramp the needs to meet the needs of our customers is really the issue at Raytheon. It's got a tremendous backlog right now. That backlog has become tailwind for us in terms of the mix shift. David, it's more international than it's ever been.
Yeah.
So again, just delivering on that backlog is where the focus is.
You touched on your expectations on the commercial aerospace for OE and aftermarket demand. How do you balance the two in terms of shipping the OE, shipping the aftermarket, and, you know, what are you seeing out of your, you know, out of your customers in terms of Boeing and Airbus, in terms of how the ramps are going for them and, you know, the demand pool from them?
I think for us, it's about controlling what you can control. I said before, making sure that our supply chain is healthy and we've got the capacity to meet the ramp, whatever it may be. Right? Again, if you think about the supply chain side, we've continued to see sort of stabilization in our supply chain, which is good. You know, year-over-year growth in some of our constrained value streams, like structural castings, for instance. That's good. On the capacity side, again, you know, Collins has got capacity. It's not even at 2019 levels. You know, more volume there, frankly, begets sort of a cost tailwind for us with the absorption. We've got the capacity to meet the ramp there. At Pratt, they're actually well above 2019 production levels.
To your point, at Pratt, it's about balancing OE and aftermarket. And by aftermarket, it really just means support of the GTF fleet right now as we're executing on the fleet management plan. It's about the constant dialogue we have with our customers and with Airbus. How do we make sure that we get Airbus what they need when they need it, but also make sure there are MRO shops who are executing on the fleet management plan? And as you know, MRO output is the key to that plan, have the material flow that they need, to be able to, you know, have the output increases we need.
You know, as I said before, we saw a 30% year-over-year MRO output on the PW1100 last year at Pratt, and we need to see a continued growth, you know, at that level, which means you're gonna need material flow to do that. So that's just a constant balance there, David. But again, feel like we've got the demand well-calibrated, we've got the capacity, and the supply chain headed in the right direction.
Yep. Going into a little bit more detail around the defense mix, but what, I mean, what you were getting a lot of mixed signals out of the new administration, whether it be budget, DOGE, all that. Your thoughts there, there's a lot of talk about Iron Dome. Obviously, that would seem to play to your strengths. And, you know, you talked about international getting stronger. What are you seeing there in terms of demand? And, you know, I think last year, the defense, Raytheon defense was 1.5 book-to-bill. I mean, what do you think about the, you know, the potential for, you know, above one times book-to-bill this year?
Yeah. Well, again, I think the threat landscape out there today, which everyone is well aware of, is driving sort of unprecedented demand in our defense channels. Again, you know, I know there's a lot of noise out there, but when you just sort of step back, I think there's bipartisan support for a strong defense and a strong defense industrial base. And I think there's general alignment around sort of a peace through strength, you know, narrative and the need to project power globally, which again, I think our businesses and our product portfolio well align to meet those needs. So if you think about the U.S., significant replenishment opportunity and need, given all the support we've been giving to our international partners.
On the international side, and you kind of referenced it, David, I mean, look, it used to be that we were trying to get our NATO partners up to that 2% spend. You're now seeing, I think, a real thrust behind numbers even higher than that, and especially given what's been going on recently. I think our product portfolio well-suited to meet the needs of today. Just think about the integrated air and missile defense that's required in today's environment. Think Patriot, think NASAMS, Coyote, our counter-UAS system. In addition, just sort of the need to have naval deterrence. Our Standard Missile family, Tomahawk, SPY-6, again, all things that are gonna be critical to the U.S. and its allies. On Iron Dome.
Yeah.
Yeah, I would say that that's clearly an opportunity. That's something, again, integrated air and missile defense. That is core to who we are. I just named the key products and sort of made that up. We're working, you know, with the government agencies on what that RFP sort of looks like and what we can provide. I think it's also important for us to sort of put together a proposal that says, "Hey, here are the things, the capabilities that we have today that we could stitch together that could provide a more near-term solution", and so kind of working, you know, both tracks there, but certainly something that I think plays to our strengths.
How are you thinking about book-to-bill on the defense side this year?
As you just said, we had, I mean, if you just go back the last couple of years, given Ukraine, given Russia, given, you know, Israel, the demand has been just unprecedented. I mean, as you said, we had exited the year at an almost 1.5 book-to-bill. I think demand's still gonna be strong. I mean, we haven't given a number, but it should be in that, in that 1.0 range. Again, I think the threat landscape supports that, and the international demand supports that.
So you've talked in the past, I mean, core came up, your operating system, I think, came up, I think, back, you know, it came up originally back at your investor day in 2021. So, can you talk about how, you know, kind of core enabled the good results we saw in 2024 and, you know, how it could contribute to what you're expecting in 2025 and beyond?
Yeah. You know, it's interesting. I think when we talk about Core and it's our operating system, I think sometimes, you know, people get the impression it's sort of like a bumper sticker, as I refer to it. And really, when you really dig in and if you get into our businesses and get into our sites, you know, I think you'll come away with the conclusion it's really an operating mindset about driving efficiency, driving out waste, getting to the root cause of bottlenecks and eliminating them. And I can give you a number of examples, but perhaps the simplest and most straightforward one, and we talked about it on our call, is that, you know, we had 11% organic sales growth last year, and headcount grew by 2%. That's real productivity. And you see it across the company.
It's in our factories, it's in our functions, it's across the board. And I will tell you, again, we've had a tremendous inflation headwind over the last couple of years. And Core and the incremental initiatives and benefits that we continue to see from Core, both in terms of our quality signature and cost of poor quality, you know, getting better yields out of our factories and so forth, it has been key to help mitigating that. And eventually, when we get, you know, to a, I would call it a more normalized sort of inflationary environment, I think you'll start to see it contribute to margin expansion. But today, as we're ramping up, I mean, it's critical to us ramping our powder metal part production at Pratt, which had a significant increase in 2024.
It's critical to the 30% year-over-year output we've seen at MRO. It's critical to getting our inventory in the right position, improving our quality signature across the board. And again, I, I'll use the baseball analogy. There's a lot of singles and doubles, and we've got to continue to add those up, and you'll start to see the incremental benefits. But it's something that is truly fundamental to who we are as a business. You go into our factories, you'll see it at work. And so it's just gonna continue to be critical to us, as we meet the needs of the ramp and our customers.
Wanted to move over to GTF, so I want to break it up into two parts. I guess the first question on GTF Advantage. We just had Howmet in here. Obviously, they're playing a big role on that. They talked about middle of this year, so a status update on GTFA and how, once you, you know, once you get that out there in the market, how that changes kind of the trajectory of the GTF in terms of durability.
Yeah. So we're very pleased with where we are in terms of the testing and certification process on the Advantage. As you sort of alluded to, we're looking here at sort of a middle-of-the-year sort of certification. Just to remind folks, it's an additional 1% fuel burn, 4% thrust. Engine runs cooler should really help us in terms of time on wing. Time on wing, of course, as you know, David, is the name of the game when it comes to our fleet management, you know, agreements. And the GTF Advantage with, you know, the additional testing that we've done, three times the testing versus our base program, and the changes that we've put into the hot section should really be an engine that stays on wing much longer for our customers, will be more durable and be higher performance.
There's gonna be a sort of cutover, David, over a period of a couple of years. We want to make sure industrially that we can both, you know, support the ramp. So that means we'll be, you know, producing both configurations, if you will, for a period of time before we ultimately cut over to the GTF Advantage. But I'll tell you one thing that is an opportunity for us as we've gone through testing is seeing some of the benefits in testing and the advantage that we think we could kit and deploy into what we call the base program, the existing fielded product today to continue to drive time on wing. If you just think about the GTF program today, we're cutting in a number of enhancements here in 2025 that'll improve durability and enhance hot section, you know, durability and time on wing.
So continuing to invest in that base program, is something that clearly we're committed to. And I think the GTF Advantage and the testing has given us a path to continue to do that.
So when you say it's gonna transition over a couple of years, so you're talking about you'll produce GTFA alongside the current base version for a couple of years. Is that constrained just by the ability of your suppliers to ramp up or?
I think we've all learned over the course of the last couple of years that supply chain stability.
Yeah.
Is paramount. And so to be able to do this cutover in a responsible way to make sure we can continue to meet the demands of our airframers and the material we need in the aftermarket, it's the responsible thing, you know, to do. But ultimately, the GTF Advantage will cut over and be the configuration of record going forward. Now, of course, as I said, we're gonna have this installed base that's out there that's sort of pre-GTF Advantage.
Yeah.
Taking the improvements from the Advantage, bringing it back in again as a kit that you can put in during an MRO visit.
Got it.
I think it's a real opportunity for us.
Okay. And then the other part of the GTF question on, on powder metal, you know, the progress that's been made already, what are you expecting for 2025, how it plays out in the 2026? Is this behind us, you know, for the most part in 2026?
Yeah. So, you know, as we've said on our call, the GTF fleet management plan is, you know, as we've been talking about before, no changes to the guidance that we've given there. I will tell you that the underlying inspections and testing are all consistent with the assumptions. That's obviously the underpinning of the fleet management plan. So that ends up being consistent. That's great news. The AOG levels have stabilized, and we've got to continue to bring those down over the back half of this year and have them decrease on a steady, sustainable level. The most critical enabling part of that is MRO output, which I had mentioned before. 30% year-over-year output in 2024 needs a similar level here in 2025. The key enabler for that is materials, well.
I talked about the structural castings, you know, before, so you know, again, stabilization there. The powder metal, you know, the forgings, significant increase in 2024, and we'll need to continue to see that in 2025 as we insert more and more full-life powder metal parts into MRO, you know, shop visits, but again, it's the material flow. Once we get material into our MRO shops, we can, our turnaround times, are really, you know, quite strong, and we've used, frankly, our core operating system to compress gate one and gate three, right, and then the assembly and test, you know, pieces of that value chain. It's the material accumulation, getting the material in place, which is that gate two, which is a huge enabler for us. That's gonna continue to be the focus here as we bring down the AOG level.
The main constraint there is powder metal.
Again, you're talking about, you know, shop visits, you need all the parts.
Mm-hmm.
I would say powder metal is something that we continue to ramp because not only is it going into every new and spare engine that's being delivered, but we're incorporating more and more of those into MRO. And so the greater that we can continue to drive the output there, the higher percentage we're gonna get those in the MRO, which is gonna just increase, you know, time on wing going forward.
You still feel like for the most part this is behind in 2026?
Look, I think that we're not gonna wake up on January 1st, 2027 and have the entire fleet there. But we anticipate being in a much, much more manageable position as a fleet and be able to support our customers and Airbus, you know, the way they would expect.
Okay. So, you've obviously given 2025 guidance. You know, high level, how are you thinking about, you know, the growth potential maybe by business thinking beyond 2025 and the margin business thinking beyond 2025?
Yeah. I think the one thing we've been focused on with our businesses and we've been going through our longer range sort of planning cycle is what is the full potential of each of our businesses just from in terms of a margin rate. Again, I think if you just look back at the history of each of our businesses, there is margin, you know, rate expansion opportunities in all three. And if you look at some of the businesses, there's an opportunity to go beyond where we were sort of pre-COVID. And again, it's not about just getting to pre-COVID. It's looking at the attributes and fundamentals of each business and saying, "What can that business achieve? What should it achieve?" So if you think about Collins, Collins has, as I mentioned before, a huge installed base.
It's got twice the content on, you know, new aircraft than it did on, you know, prior generations, so it's got a very, very strong set of positions across the fastest growing platforms. So for Collins, it's about driving structural cost reduction. As you know, Collins has been created over a number of very large acquisitions. There continues to be opportunity to drive structural cost reduction in that business to provide the kind of margin expansion that I know they expect and we expect, and again, the, I think the aftermarket tails in that business, you know, will drive a lot of strength in that, in that story. At Pratt, it's again about the, the GTF fleet management plan and making sure we get our GTF aftermarket margins, you know, higher, faster, and you've got an incredibly strong military engine business there. F-135 sustainment is gonna continue to ramp.
You have the leading small engine business in Pratt & Whitney Canada with 66,000 engines in service, number one or number two in all of its key segments. So it's maintaining our strength in those and getting the GTF back to where it needs to be. And then at Raytheon, again, it comes down to executing on that backlog. I will tell you the backlog today is much stronger from a quality perspective, you know, than it was pre-COVID. I would say we've burned through some of our trouble programs, got those into a better position. And the composition of the backlog today is really those elements that are in our wheelhouse as a business.
Again, integrated air and missile defense, radars, effectors, things that historically we've been able to drive productivity through and deliver for our customers. And so it'll be about the supply chain there and execution because the backlog is there.
Capital allocation. So you've had this $36 billion-$37 billion target out there. You're close to being done with that. Obviously, a year or so ago, you did the big ASR.
Yep.
You know, as GTF kind of gets behind, you're gonna generate, looks like you'll generate significantly more cash. How are you thinking about capital deployment from here in terms of, you know, potential M&A? You've done some divestitures, but potential M&A and then, you know, getting back to share repo in a, in a big way.
I think you'll see a consistent sort of position in our capital allocation strategy. I think we continue to be committed to the dividend first and foremost, and that should grow with earnings. On the M&A side, we really like the businesses that we have in place today. We'll be opportunistic, you know, obviously, but we don't think we need to do anything big given the backlog we have, given the positions we have. We're gonna continue to look at the portfolio. There may be pruning opportunities. We've announced some of that over the last couple of years. We think we'll get our actuation divestiture done here in 2025. But I put that in sort of the pruning category. We really like the way the businesses are put together and their positions on the right platforms.
I think on, you know, share buyback, to your point, we did the ASR. So, I'm feeling good about the commitment we made about the $36 billion-$37 billion by the end of this year, being on the high end, you know, of that range. Once we get our debt levels down to more sort of pre-ASR levels, I think you'll see, you know, share buyback again be more of a standard part of our playbook.
Okay. Can we pull up audience questions, please? You have keypads in front of you. If you could use those, we'd appreciate the responses. We collate everything and compare across all the companies that are here, and we'll publish those results, once the conference is over. Okay. Next question, please. That's for sure better than it was last year. Okay. That's good. Next question.
For those of you at home who can't see this, it's like taking a test and getting your grade.
Yeah.
Right away.
Absolutely. You're on the hot seat.
Right.
The uncomfortable seat.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Very comfortable.
Yeah. Okay. I think we have one more, and I think two more. Yeah. We don't want the people at home knowing what we're asking. They need to come to the conference.
They need to come. Exactly.
Next one. Last one. Okay. There you go. Execute on the backlog. Chris, thank you. Appreciate your time.
Yeah.
Thanks for coming.
Appreciate the participation, everybody.