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Rockwell Collins
The business dates back to Collins Radio, founded in 1933. Although today focused primarily on the aerospace industry, Cedar Rapids (Iowa)-based Rockwell Collins is still big in electronics. It’s a leading maker of everything from missile guidance systems to inflight entertainment for commercial airlines. CEO Clayton Jones, a former Air Force fighter pilot, seems to have found the right flight path in this era of surging Pentagon procurement budgets. Commercial and government work each made up half of Rockwell’s $3.9 billion in revenues last year. Rockwell is the U.S. Army’s leading provider of handheld global positioning systems. It also supplies the cockpit instrument displays and navigation and communication systems for the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Jones is predicting another year of double-digit sales and earnings growth in 2007.
| Overall Grade | A |
|
| Market Data | COL | |
| Market Value (2/28/2007) |
$11.0 Billion |
|
| Profitability* | 44.2% | A |
| Sales Growth Rate** | 15.2% | B |
| 12-Month Sales | $4.0 Billion |
|
| 12-Month Net Income | $0.5 Billion |
|
| Total Return | Past 12 Months24.6% | Past 36 Months108.0% |
| Economic Sector | Industrials | |
| Industry | Aerospace & Defense | |
The overall sector letter grade reflects how the weighted average of the return on income, or return on equity, and sales growth grades compare with others in the same sector. For the overall grade as well as the ROE/ROI and sales growth grades, an "A" places a company in the top 7% of its sector and an "A-" in the top 14% of the sector. The actual ranking was done using the underlying numerical measures. Grades are for information only.
* For nonfinancial companies, three-year average pretax operating profit before interest and special items as a percentage of average invested capital. For financial companies, pretax profits as a percentage of average shareholder's equity.
*Three-year average annual sales growth based on the most recently reported 36 months, calculated using the least-squares method.
$FOOTNOTE
