New Boeing CEO's engineer background 'helpful' to turnaround

Boeing (BA) has faced many challenges this year, with the aircraft manufacturing stock down over 30% year to date in 2024. Great Hill Capital chairman and managing member Thomas Hayes joins Wealth! to discuss the company's outlook as it moves forward with a new CEO.

Hayes is confident in Boeing's new CEO Kelly Ortberg, pointing to his success with Rockwell Collins and his past as an engineer. "For the first time in a while, we get to have Boeing run by an actual engineer versus a salesman," he explains, adding that it is "helpful" after the mechanical and safety issues the company faced in the last year.

"Kelly Ortberg is going to turn around this ship. The duopoly is in place. The backlog of over a decade is in place. So we like this as a high-quality business that's temporarily impaired."

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This post was written by Melanie Riehl

Video Transcript

Just lastly because there are a lot of people who are trying to figure this one out and, and you have some thoughts on it as well.

Boeing Boeing has a windy road of challenges that we've seen over the course of this year.

The stock is down, what, 33% year to date?

I think we have a chart we can toss out for the viewers at home.

Do you see this as a buying opportunity?

I think it's phenomenal.

Kelly Ortberg came from Rockwell Collins when he got involved with Rockwell Collins.

It was a $7 billion company.

Six years later, he sold it to for $30 billion 4.5 bagger.

This guy knows how to run business.

The, the second thing is he's actually engineer.

So for the first time in a while, we get to have Boeing run by an actual engineer versus a salesman, uh which is helpful when you want to keep doors on planes and keep things, you know, fuselages together and all that stuff that's important.

But the key thing is it operates in a duopoly.

Ok.

So at the end of the day, you can say I don't like Boeing.

They've been sloppy the last few years.

Ok. We'll get online at Airbus and you can wait 20 years for your next plane.

They've got 6000 plus backlog.

They just said, oh, by the way, we underestimated the demand because China's uh China's flying is picking up the middle class is growing.

Uh, they're gonna need another 8000 planes.

So what you like to see with stocks that have relentless every day, bad news is that they stop going down and that's happened to Boeing in the last few weeks.

Uh, headlines have been bad every single day and the stocks stopped going down saying that they space, it couldn't get any worse, like, like you, you couldn't make this stuff up every single day, they screw something up and the stock has stopped going down which tells you that most of the problems are in the rearview mirror.

Kelly Ortberg is gonna turn around this ship.

The Duopoly is in place, that backlog of over a decade is in place.

So we like this as a high quality business that's temporarily impaired.

I should, uh just clarify as well for those who are, are viewing as well.

And you know, the full story on the NASA the as well.

NASA is astronauts.

They used Boeing and the starliner to get them up there uh to the ISS and now we're trying to get them back, uh, and they're going to SpaceX for that anyway, all these things considered still a Boeing story.

Tom, you're still great, great Hill Capitol chairman and managing member, Tom Hayes.

Great to see you.

Thanks so much.

Appreciate it.