Teledyne Technologies (TDY) Risk Analysis

We sell products and services to customers in industries that are sensitive to the level of general economic activity and consumer spending habits. If another recession emerges, either globally or in the United States, we may experience declines in revenues, profitability and cash flows from reduced orders, payment delays, collection difficulties, increased price pressures for our products, increased risk of excess and obsolete inventories or other factors caused by the economic problems of our customers.

Several of our facilities, as a result of their locations, could be subject to a catastrophic loss caused by earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados, floods, ice storms, rising sea levels, droughts or other natural disasters. Many of our production facilities and our headquarters are located in California and thus are in areas with above average seismic activity and may also be at risk of damage due to wildfire or mudslides. In November 2018 and again in 2024, wildfires impacted areas near our headquarters and principal research and development center in Thousand Oaks, California, resulting in temporary disruptions and evacuations of employees who lived nearby. Local utilities may impose blackouts during high fire risk weather conditions, which could result in disruptions to our businesses located in California, including our headquarters. In the event of a major earthquake, tornado, hurricane or catastrophic event such as fire, power loss, telecommunications failure, vandalism, cyber-attack, war, terrorist attack or health epidemic (including COVID), we may be unable to continue our operations and may endure system interruptions, reputational harm, delays in our application development, lengthy interruptions in our production, breaches of data security and loss of critical data, all of which could harm our business, results of operations and financial condition and have a material adverse impact on us. Starting in December 2022, a series of direct-action protests by political extremists on several of our facilities in the United Kingdom have resulted in trespass and vandalism and in some cases caused damage to our facilities and interrupted some productions lines for a period of time. Teledyne FLIR's components operation is a single source supplier of certain sensors used throughout the FLIR business, and a disruption in business due to a disaster could have a material adverse impact on the businesses of Teledyne FLIR. Teledyne's facilities in Quebec, Canada have been impacted by loss of electrical power caused by severe ice storms. In addition, we have manufacturing facilities in the southeastern United States and Texas that have been threatened or struck by major hurricanes. Our businesses located in Houston, Texas and Daytona Beach, Florida have been impacted in the past by hurricanes. Our facilities in Alabama, Florida, Nebraska, Tennessee and Virginia have also been threatened by tornados. If any of our California facilities were to experience a catastrophic earthquake or wildfire loss, or if any of our Alabama, Florida, Nebraska, Tennessee or Texas facilities were to experience a catastrophic hurricane, storm, tornado or other natural disaster, or if Teledyne's facilities in Quebec experience long-term loss of electrical power, such event could disrupt our operations, delay production, shipments and revenue, result in large expenses to repair or replace the facility or facilities and could have a material adverse effect on our business. In addition, the insurance we maintain may be insufficient to cover our losses resulting from disasters, cyber-attacks or other business interruptions, and any incidents may result in loss of, or increased costs of, such insurance. Our existing disaster recovery and business continuity plans (including those relating to our information technology systems) may not be fully responsive to, or minimize losses associated with, catastrophic events. Disasters also have an indirect adverse impact on our business. For example, in 2018, a fire at a Netherlands-based facility of a key supplier of printed circuit boards resulted in delivery disruptions to the electronics industry, including to businesses in our Digital Imaging segment.

Our commercial aerospace group produces products for use in commercial aviation. Governmental agencies throughout the world, including the Federal Aviation Administration ("FAA"), prescribe standards and qualification requirements for aircraft components, including virtually all commercial airline and general aviation products. Specific regulations vary from country to country, although compliance with FAA requirements generally satisfies regulatory requirements in other countries. If any material authorization or approval qualifying us to supply our products is revoked or suspended, then sale of the product would be prohibited by law, which would have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. The FAA and equivalent regulatory agencies have increasingly focused on the need to assure that airline industry products are designed with sufficient cybersecurity controls to protect against unauthorized access or other unwanted compromise. A failure to meet these evolving expectations could negatively impact sales into the industry and expose us to legal or contractual liability. Changes in production rates for major aircraft manufacturers, like Boeing and Airbus, impact our commercial aerospace businesses. Boeing and Airbus recently have struggled to meet delivery targets due to supply chain issues and other challenges. In January 2024, the FAA ordered the temporary grounding of Boeing 737-9 MAX aircraft as a result of an incident on a Boeing 737-9 MAX where it lost a "door plug." The FAA capped the output of Boeing 737-MAX aircraft until quality control targets are reached. A strike by machinists at Boeing in 2024 lasted almost two months and resulted in a pause in aircraft production. These factors have negatively impacted our sales to Airbus and Boeing and any future pauses or reductions in manufacturing could negatively impact our business.

We perform work on a number of contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense and other agencies and departments of the U.S. Government including subcontracts with government prime contractors. Sales under contracts with the U.S. Government, including sales under contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense, as prime contractor or subcontractor, represented 24.3% and 24.5% of our total net sales in 2024 and 2023, respectively. Performance under government contracts has inherent risks that could have a material effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition. Government contracts are conditioned upon the continuing availability of Congressional appropriations, and the failure of Congress to appropriate funds for programs in which we participate could negatively affect our results of operations. U.S. Government operation under a continuing resolution could impact the business by preventing new programs from starting as planned and by limiting funding on existing programs. U.S. Government shutdowns have resulted in delays in anticipated contract awards and delayed payments of invoices for several of our businesses, and any new shutdown or increase in shutdowns could have similar or worse effects. Any renewed emphasis on Federal deficit and debt reduction could lead to a further decrease in overall defense spending. Budgetary concerns could result in future contracts being awarded more on price than on other competitive factors, and smaller defense budgets could result in government in-sourcing of programs and more intense competition on programs that are not in-sourced, which could result in lower revenues and profits. The new Presidential administration has announced plans to significantly cut federal spending and the size of the federal government and has taken steps to reduce and reorganize the federal workforce at many agencies. It is unclear how such cuts, if implemented, could impact our current and future business with the U.S. government. If cuts to government personnel lead to staff shortages or disorganization at certain federal agencies, we may experience delays in obtaining contract awards or payments, the loss of current or future contracts, or delays in obtaining necessary permits, licenses or registrations. Rising inflation and other factors also may result in a shift in U.S. defense spending between various programs based on priorities, which may result in a reduction or loss of expected revenues on programs in which we participate. Changes in policy and budget priorities by the U.S. Presidential Administration for various defense and NASA programs could impact our Engineered Systems, Aerospace and Defense Electronics and Digital Imaging segments. It is also not uncommon for the U.S. Department of Defense to delay the timing of awards or change orders for major programs for six to twelve months. These delays by the U.S. Government could impact our revenues. Uncertainty over budgets or priorities with the U.S. Presidential Administration could result in further delays in funding and the timing of awards, and changes in funded programs that could have a material impact on our revenues. Further, most of our U.S. Government contracts are subject to termination by the U.S. Government either at its convenience or upon the default of the contractor. Termination for convenience provisions provides only for the recovery of costs incurred or committed, settlement expenses, and profit on work completed prior to termination. Termination for default clauses imposes liability on the contractor for excess costs incurred by the U.S. Government in re-procuring undelivered items from another source. During 2024 and 2023, contracts terminated by the U.S. Government have not materially impacted our results of operations. We are seeing increased sales into the European defense market as European defense budgets increase as a result of the conflict in Ukraine, threats from Russia and other geopolitical instability. If European government funding on defense programs declines, or if defense spending priorities of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ("NATO")-member countries change with respect to Ukraine, existing and potential future sales would be negatively impacted.

Many of our products are used by industrial customers and municipalities to monitor ambient air quality, water quality and gas and particulate emissions in order comply with regulatory requirements issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies. The new Presidential Administration has signaled its intent to scale back many of these regulations, which could result in decreased demand for our products. The new Presidential Administration has also signaled its intent to roll back green energy initiatives, which could harm our energy systems business that manufactures hydrogen-based energy generation systems.

We currently incorporate machine learning and AI capabilities into certain of our products and solutions and may seek to expand the use of AI in our offerings in the future. As with many innovations, AI presents risks, challenges, and unintended consequences that could affect our business. AI algorithms and training methodologies may be flawed. These deficiencies and other failures of AI systems could subject us to competitive harm, regulatory action, legal liability, and brand or reputational harm. Further, incorporating AI could give rise to litigation risk and risk of non-compliance and unknown cost of compliance, as AI is an emerging technology for which the legal and regulatory landscape is not fully developed (including potential liability for breaching intellectual property or privacy rights or laws). While new AI initiatives, laws, and regulations are emerging and evolving, what they ultimately will look like remains uncertain, and our obligation to comply with them could entail significant costs, negatively affect our business, or entirely limit our ability to incorporate certain AI capabilities into our offerings. Additionally, leveraging AI capabilities to potentially improve internal functions and operations presents further risks and challenges. The use of AI to support business operations carries inherent risks related to data privacy and security, such as intended, unintended, or inadvertent transmission of proprietary, sensitive or export-controlled information, as well as challenges related to implementing and maintaining AI tools. Additionally, our competitors might move faster than us to gain efficiencies by incorporating AI into their design and development processes, and our products and/or cost structure could become less competitive as a result. The rapid evolution of AI will require the application of resources by us to develop, test and maintain our products, services and operations to help ensure that AI is implemented ethically in order to minimize unintended, harmful impact. Our competitors may be faster or more successful than we are in incorporating AI and other disruptive technology into their offerings, which would impair our ability to compete successfully.

Our ability to enforce and protect our patents, copyrights, software licenses, trade secrets, know-how, and other intellectual property rights is subject to general litigation risks, as well as uncertainty as to the enforceability of our intellectual property rights in various countries. When we seek to enforce our rights, we have found that various claims may be asserted against us, including claims that our intellectual property right is invalid, is otherwise not enforceable or is licensed to the party against whom we are asserting a claim. In addition, we may be the target of aggressive and opportunistic enforcement of patents by third parties. If we are not ultimately successful in defending ourselves against these claims in litigation, we may not be able to sell a product or family of products due to an injunction, or we may have to pay damages that could, in turn, harm our results of operations. Our inability to enforce our intellectual property rights under these circumstances may harm our competitive position and our business.

In recent years, inflation and supply chain constraints resulted in sustained increases in the prices we pay for many of the components and raw materials used in our products. In addition, we have experienced higher labor costs due to increased competition for personnel in many regions in which we operate as well as general inflationary conditions, and higher shipping costs due to labor and rising energy prices. If we are unable to increase our product prices enough to offset these increased costs, our gross margins and profitability could decrease, perhaps significantly over a sustained period of time.

Teledyne manufactures seismic energy sources, interconnects and data acquisition products that are used in offshore energy exploration. The oil and gas industry has historically been cyclical and characterized by significant changes in the levels of exploration and development activities. Oil and gas prices, and market expectations of potential changes in those prices, significantly affect the levels of those activities. Any prolonged reduction in the overall level of offshore oil and gas exploration and development activities, whether resulting from changes in oil and gas prices or otherwise, could materially and adversely affect our financial condition and the results of our businesses within our Instrumentation segment. Some factors that have affected and are likely to continue affecting oil and gas prices and the level of demand for our products and services include the following: - worldwide demand for oil and gas;- the ability of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries ("OPEC"), to set and maintain production levels;- the level of production by non-OPEC countries;- the war between Russia and Ukraine, including the implementation of price controls on Russian oil exports and restrictions on oil and gas exports imposed by Russia;- conflict in the Middle East, including disruption of shipping lanes in the Red Sea;- the ability of oil and gas companies to generate or raise funds for capital expenditures;- domestic and foreign tax policy;- laws and governmental regulations that restrict exploration and development of oil and gas in various offshore jurisdictions or the use of hydraulic fracturing;- laws and governmental regulation that restrict the use of hydraulic fracturing;- technological changes;- the political environment of oil-producing regions;- the price and availability of alternative fuels; and - climate change regulations that provide incentives to conserve energy, use electric vehicles or use alternative energy sources, or that impose restrictions on the development and extraction of oil and gas.