At Curtiss-Wright, we remain deeply committed to the profitable growth of our business. Through this growth and a continued focus on working capital management, we will drive robust free cash flow generation, and a strong and healthy balance sheet to fuel a disciplined and balanced capital allocation strategy.
Since 2016, we have deployed approximately $3.4 billion towards capital allocation through a combination of high-quality strategic acquisitions, consistent returns to shareholders, and operational investments (including Capital Expenditures or CapEx) to grow the business. As stated at our 2021 investor day, our capital allocation is a critical component of our Pivot to Growth strategy. We remain confident in our ability to deliver upon this strategy in the years ahead.
We are continually investing the necessary capital and resources to support our growth initiatives across the portfolio and to drive improved efficiency in our operations.
Bolstering the Portfolio
We have a strong track record of successful acquisitions and a team that is very good at integration. We have supplemented our existing portfolio with critical adjacent technologies to enhance our customer offering, with six of our past eight transactions primarily serving our A&D markets. We utilize a stringent diligence process to identify properties that fit the mold with the right strategic and financial fit to help grow our top- and bottom-line faster, and drive long-term accretion to our financial metrics. During 2022, we completed two acquisitions for a total of $282 million, including Safran’s aerospace arresting systems business and Keronite Group Limited. We expect these acquisitions to yield significant opportunities for profitable growth and support Curtiss-Wright’s long-term financial objectives.
In June 2022, we completed the acquisition of Safran’s aerospace arresting systems business for approximately $249 million, which operates within our Naval & Power segment. The arresting systems business is a market leading supplier of mission-critical, fixed-wing military aircraft arresting systems, with a tremendous installed base of more than 5,000 systems globally, demonstrating steady growth in both aftermarket and OEM revenues. The acquisition expands our overall aftermarket sales while boosting our international military exposure with contracts awarded by the UAE, France, Japan, and many other countries. Their key products include hook cable systems, net stanchion systems and mobile systems, for landing aircraft on airstrips or aircraft carrier decks. In addition, their safety systems have a strong alignment to and are a logical adjacency with Curtiss‑Wright’s existing helicopter landing and recovery systems, and the combination provides an opportunity to leverage our combined, long-standing relationships with leading defense customers supporting critical defense platforms. The arresting systems business is well-positioned to deliver solid top-line growth and the integration has been going extremely well.
Our cable arresting systems provide tailhook equipped military aircraft with proven and innovative technology for safely capturing and arresting aircraft, as shown here on the Ford-class aircraft carrier where our critical braking sub-systems are used in the Advanced Arresting Gear system.
In November 2022, we added Keronite Group Limited (Keronite) for approximately $34 million, which operates within our Aerospace & Industrial segment. Keronite is a leading provider of Plasma Electrolytic Oxidation (PEO) surface treatment applications offering corrosion protection, wear resistance, thermal protection and electrical insulation for the defense, commercial aerospace and industrial vehicle markets, as well as coatings used in the semiconductor manufacturing process. PEO enhances the performance characteristics of materials by producing ceramic layers on the surface of light alloys, such as aluminum, magnesium & titanium, in a more environmentally-friendly manner. This acquisition increases the breadth of our surface treatment services portfolio with complementary coatings technologies recognized for their critical performance in severe service environments.
Consistent Distributions to our Shareholders
We remain committed to driving returns to our shareholders and believe an active share repurchase program is the most effective method. Over the past seven years, we have repurchased approximately $1 billion in shares and reduced our share count by 8.9 million shares. This includes the highest level of annual share repurchases in Curtiss-Wright’s history with $350 million completed in 2021, as we opportunistically deployed our capital to buybacks, followed by another $50 million in 2022. We expect to repurchase at least $50 million in shares in 2023.
In 2022, we also increased our dividend for the sixth straight year, up 6% year-over-year, continuing our consistent pace of dividend increases in alignment with our long-term sales growth.
As a world leader in emergency arresting systems for military aircraft, Curtiss-Wright’s PortArrest® P-IV ESCO mobile system was used during testing on a F-35 at Edwards Air Force Base. The system is designed to support rapid deployment and facilitate aircraft recovery on permanent or temporary runways.
Investing in our Future Growth
We are continually investing the necessary capital and resources to support our growth initiatives across the portfolio and to drive improved efficiency in our operations.
Our goal is to maintain top quartile CapEx spending levels at an average of 2% of total sales over time, and we typically spend two-thirds on growth & efficiency and the remaining one-third on maintenance investments.
In 2022, given some of the supply chain challenges, we finished below our long-term average, but in 2023, we expect a bigger shift towards our Organic Growth & Efficiency as we ramp up our engineering and production resources to a more normalized level of investment.
Overall, we remain proud of our strong balance sheet, continued focus on working capital and free cash flow generation to support our disciplined approach to capital allocation and drive long-term shareholder value.