Honeywell’s 2011 Profit Projection Trails Estimates

Honeywell International Inc., the maker of car turbochargers and aircraft parts, forecast a 2011 earnings increase that trailed analysts’ estimates.

Adjusted profit next year may climb to $3.50 to $3.70 a share, from a projected $2.98 a share this year, the Morris Township, New Jersey-based company said today in a statement. The average estimate of 18 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg was $3.80 a share.

“We think the 2011 EPS guidance sets an achievable and potentially beatable range,” Shannon O’Callaghan, an analyst with Nomura Equity Research, wrote in a note today. He has a “buy” rating on the stock.

Profit will be helped in 2011 by the $1.1 billion acquisition of France’s Sperian Protection, which closed in October.

Honeywell predicted 2011 revenue will climb as much as 9 percent to $36 billion as order rates show “double digit” increases at the automation and controls division, the refining- technologies operation and the commercial aerospace unit that builds parts for planemakers.

“Our short-cycle businesses, such as turbochargers and general industrial products, led the way in 2010 with a robust recovery off low 2009 levels,” Chief Executive Officer Dave Cote said in the statement.

The projected sales gain of about 6 percent to 9 percent from about $33 billion this year compares with an October forecast of at least 5 percent. Analysts, on average, estimated sales of $35.6 billion next year.

Honeywell fell 99 cents, or 1.9 percent, to $51.54 at 4:13 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have gained 25 percent in the past 12 months, compared with an 11 percent increase in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

To contact the reporter on this story: Will Daley in New York at wdaley2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Ed Dufner at edufner@bloomberg.net