Garrett Motion CEO: Electrification Is a Big Trend For Our Company
*By Michael Teich*
Honeywell is cutting ties with its transportation systems business, but the spin-off's CEO considers it a mutual breakup.
“We’re not about to reinvent our strategy,” Garrett Motion's president and CEO Olivier Rabiller said Monday in an interview on Cheddar. "The only thing it provides us is to work at our own speed.”
Honeywell ($HON) opted to simplify its business, announcing in October of last year it was divesting Garrett Motion ($GTX) along with its home-products business. Rabiller said that allowed his company ー which debuted on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday ー to continue its "winning" strategy but at a faster pace.
Shares of Garrett Motion ended down slightly in its first day of trading Monday, while Honeywell's stock reached a new record high.
Garrett, which produces turbochargers and electric boosting technologies, may have had a slow start, but all is not lost. Companies like PayPal ($PYPL), which spun out of eBay ($EBAY) in 2015, have proven that splitting from a parent company can be a catalyst for growth. Shares of PayPal are up 127 percent since that separation.
For Garrett Motion future growth will come from China, Rabiller said. The company is banking on that country's booming electric vehicle market.
While overall car sales only grew 3 percent between 2016 and 2017 ー the slowest pace since 2011 ー EVs proved to be a bright spot. China logged sales of 578,000 vehicles in that market last year, up 72 percent from 2016. That accounts for less than 3 percent of total auto sales in the country, but the government's focus on electric vehicles presents a great opportunity, according to Rabiller.
“It’s not only about electrification in China. It about having tougher emission standards,” he said. “This is a trend we see pretty much all around the world.”
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/honeywell-spins-off-garrett-motion).
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