Selective equipment demand

Equipment demand is showing up in narrow pockets, not across the whole economy: chipmaking supplier Forge Nano is heading for public markets as RTX lifted its 2026 targets on April 21. (forgenano.com) (rtx.com) Forge Nano said April 21 it agreed to merge with Archimedes Tech SPAC Partners II in a deal valuing the business at about $1.6 billion, with up to $342 million of gross proceeds and a Nasdaq ticker of NANO after closing in the second half of 2026. (finance.yahoo.com) (forgenano.com) RTX, the aerospace and defense group behind Pratt & Whitney, Collins Aerospace and Raytheon, reported first-quarter 2026 sales of $22.1 billion and adjusted earnings per share of $1.78, then raised its full-year sales outlook to $92.5 billion-$93.5 billion and adjusted earnings per share to $6.70-$6.90. (rtx.com) Those two updates came from sectors with visible order books. RTX said its backlog reached $271 billion, including $109 billion in defense, while Forge Nano pitched more than $2 billion of pipeline activity and $84 million of binding offtake agreements tied to its coating and battery businesses. (rtx.com) (forgenano.com) Forge Nano sells atomic layer deposition tools, which coat materials one ultra-thin layer at a time, and says that process is used in semiconductor manufacturing and battery production. The company said it holds more than 200 patents and has investors including GM Ventures, Hanwha Aerospace, Volkswagen, Air Liquide and LG Technology Ventures. (forgenano.com) RTX’s demand is coming from several channels at once. The company said January 27 that it entered 2026 with a $268 billion backlog, split between $161 billion of commercial business and $107 billion of defense, before that figure rose again in the April quarter. (rtx.com 1) (rtx.com 2) The financing structures also show how selective this market has become. Forge Nano is using a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, after a multiyear slump in that listing route, while RTX is funding expansion from cash flow after generating $1.9 billion of operating cash flow and $1.3 billion of free cash flow in the first quarter. (finance.yahoo.com) (rtx.com) The risk is execution. Reuters said Forge Nano’s deal lands amid strong artificial-intelligence chip demand but also lingering supply constraints and the industry’s cyclical swings, and RTX said it is still investing to increase output as it works through backlog. (finance.yahoo.com) (rtx.com) For lenders and equipment investors, that leaves a narrow map: tools tied to data centers, munitions, aircraft systems and specialized manufacturing are still attracting capital, while the case for a broad capital-spending rebound remains harder to prove. (finance.yahoo.com) (rtx.com)