Company: BA
Filing Date: 2025-02-03
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000012927-25-000015
Chunk: 375

Company: BOEING CO
Filing Date: 2025-02-03
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 375
---
 fund dividend payments or outstanding financing commitments or meet other business requirements, we may need to refinance or restructure our debt, reduce or delay capital investments, or issue equity, equity-linked or debt securities, and these activities could have terms that are unfavorable or could be dilutive. If we are unable to access the capital or financial markets at competitive rates, on terms acceptable to us or in sufficient amounts, or if we experience an increase in our borrowing costs or otherwise fail to manage our liquidity effectively, our business, financial position and results of operations would be adversely affected.

We have in the past experienced and could in the future experience further downgrades in our credit ratings. Any such downgrades, as well as other factors including disruptions or declines in the global capital markets, a decline in our financial performance or outlook, a delay in our ability to ramp up production and deliveries, and changes in demand for our products and services, could increase the cost of borrowing, jeopardize our ability to incur debt on terms acceptable to us, and negatively impact our access to the capital and financial markets and our ability to fund our operations and commitments. We cannot be assured that we will be able to maintain an investment grade rating, and any additional actual or anticipated changes or downgrades in our credit ratings, including any announcement that our ratings are under further review for a downgrade, may impact us in a similar manner and have a negative impact on our liquidity, financial position, and access to the capital or financial markets.

17

Substantial pension and other postretirement benefit obligations have a material impact on our earnings, shareholders’ equity and cash flows from operations, and could have significant adverse impacts in future periods.

Many of our employees have earned benefits under defined benefit pension plans. Potential pension contributions include both mandatory amounts required under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act and discretionary contributions to improve the plans' funded status. The extent of future contributions depends heavily on market factors such as the discount rate and the actual return on plan assets. We estimate future contributions to these plans using assumptions with respect to these and other items. Changes to those assumptions could have a significant effect on future contributions as well as on our annual pension costs and/or result in a significant change to shareholders' equity. For U.S. government contracts, we allocate pension costs to individual contracts based on U.S. Cost Accounting Standards (CAS), which can also affect contract profitability. We also provide other postretirement benefits to certain of our employees, consisting principally of health care coverage for eligible retirees and qualifying dependents. Our estimates of