Honeywell to maintain a Twin Cities presence after spin off of two businesses

Honeywell International officials said last week the company will maintain a presence in the Twin Cities after it spins off two businesses into independently traded companies at the end of this year.

The Minnesota presence may be diminished by the moves.

Honeywell was founded in Minneapolis but moved headquarters to New Jersey after Allied Signal bought the company in 1999.

Right now, Honeywell still has sizeable operations in Golden Valley and Minneapolis, and locations in Plymouth and Coon Rapids. Honeywell has about 3,700 employees in Minnesota.

A Honeywell spokesman confirmed Wednesday that the Golden Valley location alone has about 1,700 employees.

It is currently unclear how many employees Honeywell-related entities will retain in the Twin Cities after the split.

Traditionally, Honeywell's Golden Valley-based building controls business has made energy-efficiency and automated-temperature controls for 150 million-plus homes, including thermostats, and more than 10 million commercial customers. After a restructuring in 2016, Honeywell' created the new Home and Building Technologies business and positioned that unit's headquarters in Atlanta, while maintaing some operations in Minnesota.

In a recent email, Honeywell Homes spokesman Trent Perrotto said, "The Twin Cities continue to be an important location for Honeywell and the future stand-alone company, Resideo, with its rich history and more than 1,000 employees supporting our business and functions. The [Golden Valley] facility will become a split site after the [Honeywell] Homes spin-off happens at the end of the year. Resideo will own the facility and Honeywell will maintain a presence at the site."

About a year ago, Honeywell announced that it would spin off its "Homes" products group and ADI Global Distribution business into one company [now named Resideo]. It will also split its Transportation Systems business into a second company.

The stand-alone transportation vehicle engine business will have about 6,500 employees and $3 billion in sales.

The spun off homes and distribution businesses will have about 13,000 global employees and about $4.5 billion in annual sales, officials said.

Perrotto said in an email Wednesday that "the current Honeywell Homes business has the largest number of employees within Golden Valley. [After the split] employees who are currently Honeywell Homes will become Resideo employees. The employees of other Honeywell business located in Golden Valley will remain Honeywell."

What the company has yet to answer is if layoffs will be part of the business splintering equation.

What is known is that after the spin offs, the remaining Honeywell corporation will focus on aerospace, performance materials, building technologies and safety solutions operations.

Honeywell recently announced that the soon-to-be spun off homes products/global distribution company will be called Resideo and focus on residential heating, venting and air conditioning products and distributing security and fire protection systems.

Honeywell last spring named Michael Nefkens, a former Hewlett Packard executive, to head Resideo.

The other spun-off business, Transportation, will get a new name and focus on engineering auto and truck engines and other vehicle technologies. It is based in Switzerland.