Skip to navigationSkip to main contentSkip to right columnADVERTISEMENTReuben Gregg Brewer, The Motley FoolSat, September 5, 2026 at 4:35 AM GMT+2 6 min readWall Street goes through cycles. One that recurs with some regularity is the shift between conglomeration and corporate separations. Right now, conglomerates are separating, creating multiple businesses from one. Honeywell is a good example of this trend, with the conglomerate breaking into Honeywell Technologies (NASDAQ: HON), Solstice Advanced Materials (NASDAQ: SOLS), and Honeywell Aerospace (NASDAQ: HONA).If you are thinking about buying one of these three companies, you may want to consider following the CEO who orchestrated the corporate split. Here's what you need to know.Missed Nvidia in 2009? This Rare Signal Is Flashing Again. In 2009, a "Double Down" signal flashed for a little-known chipmaker called Nvidia. For the first time in years, that same "Total Conviction" signal is flashing for a company 1/100th the size of Nvidia. Continue »Image source: Getty Images.What is the point of a conglomerate like Honeywell?When it comes to acquisitions, there can be a fine line between a CEO who is simply trying to build an empire and one who is piecing together a coherent business. Honeywell was a large industrial company with the financial resources to support the businesses it operated. Bringing more industrial businesses under one roof could increase revenue diversification, eliminate redundant tasks (such as accounting), share technology and innovation among businesses, and enable enhanced access to capital markets.Those are all good things, but conglomerates also have their downsides. For example, business units often compete for funding. Bureaucracy can slow down decision-making. And sometimes small or underperforming business units get ignored, making poor performance hard to fix. When the negatives outweigh the positives, conglomerates often spin off businesses or break up, as Honeywell has done. That said, Wall Street's desire for de-conglomeration can also lead to business breakups simply to satisfy shifts in investor sentiment.By breaking a business into parts, each new business can focus all its energy on just one thing. That, in turn, is expected to lead to improved results for each of the newly independent businesses. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. But it is usually worth watching to see which company the CEO who initiated the corporate split-up sticks around to manage.What is Honeywell today?The company that retained the HON ticker is Honeywell Technologies, a pure-play industrial automation business. This is the company run by Vimal Kapur, the CEO who led Honeywell when it was an industrial conglomerate. That likely suggests that he believes automation is the most desirable business within Honeywell, noting that artificial intelligence (AI) is likely to be an important trend in industrial automation. When the company reported second-quarter 2026 earnings, the reason for his choice became clear.Terms and Privacy PolicyEU DSA contactPrivacy & Cookie SettingsMore Info