Honeywell sells logistics unit to Brady for $1.4 billion in restructuring push

Honeywell has agreed to sell its productivity solutions and services unit to Brady Corporation for $1.4 billion in cash, a deal that sharpens the company’s move away from a broad conglomerate model and toward a slimmer portfolio built around higher-value industrial businesses. The unit makes mobile computers, barcode scanners and printing systems used in warehouses and logistics operations, placing the sale at the center of Honeywell’s effort to redefine what it wants to own.

The divestiture is part of a broader restructuring that Honeywell began evaluating on July 8, 2025. The company said the productivity solutions and services business produced about $1.1 billion in revenue in 2025 and sits inside Honeywell Industrial Automation. Honeywell is still reviewing Warehouse and Workflow Solutions, which operates under the Intelligrated and Transnorm brands, while its planned aerospace spin-off remains on track for the third quarter of 2026. After those separations, Honeywell has said it intends to emerge as a pure-play automation business.

That sequence points to a larger identity shift. Honeywell already sold its personal protective equipment business in 2024 and spun off its advanced materials arm as Solstice Advanced Materials in October 2025. The latest sale suggests management is not simply pruning assets for cash, but steadily stripping out legacy units that no longer fit the company’s target shape. The question for investors is whether Honeywell is betting most heavily on aerospace, automation or a narrower set of higher-margin industrial lines.

Brady said the acquisition values the business at about 8 times EBITDA for the 12 months ended December 31, 2025, and that it should be immediately double-digit accretive to adjusted diluted earnings per share. The Wisconsin-based company said the purchase expands its total addressable market and gives it immediate access to an enterprise customer channel, broadening its reach in mobility and scanning solutions for large transportation, warehousing and logistics customers.

The unit is based in Fort Mill, South Carolina, and employs about 3,000 people globally, with customers across North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia. Honeywell said the transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2026 and remains subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. Shares of both companies slipped after the announcement, a sign that investors were still weighing whether the price adequately reflected the unit’s growth prospects. For Honeywell, the deal fits a wider industrial trend: simplified, more focused companies are increasingly being rewarded over sprawling conglomerates that still carry slower-growth legacy businesses.