“we expect to contribute approximately $75 million in 2024.”

In context

“year. The lion's share of these investments are of course, in our shipyards to support the Navy's submarine and shipbuilding plan. At 2.1% of sales, full year capital expenditures were a little lower than our original expectation due to timing, so some of that naturally pushes into next year. As a result, we expect CapEx to be between 2% and 2.5% of sales next year and closer to 2% thereafter. We also paid $360 million in dividends in the fourth quarter, bringing the full year to $1.4 billion. There were no shares repurchased in the quarter, so we finished the year with two million shares repurchased for $434 million at $215 per share. With respect to our pension plans, we contributed $106 million in 2023, which included a modest voluntary contribution to one of our commercial plans, and we expect to contribute approximately $75 million in 2024. After all this, we ended the year with a cash balance of $1.9 billion and a net debt position of $7.3 billion, down approximately $1.9 billion, more than 20% from last year. We have $500 million of debt maturing in 2024. Our net interest expense in the fourth quarter was $78 million, bringing interest expense for the full year to $343 million. That compares to $85 million and $364 million in the respective 2022 periods. We expect interest expense in 2024 to continue to decrease to around $320 million. Turning to income taxes, we had an 18.1% effective tax rate in the fourth quarter, which brings our full year rate to 16.8%, slightly below, but generally in line with our guidance. Looking ahead to 2024, we expect the full year effective tax rate to increase to around 17.5%, reflecting high”