About Judith Marks
Judith Marks, chair, president, and CEO of Otis Worldwide, has been discussing the company's financial performance and strategy during earnings calls for the first three quarters of 2025 and the first quarter of 2026. She stated that Otis delivered a solid first quarter in 2026, with adjusted operating profit expected to be approximately $2.5 billion and adjusted EPS forecast at $4.20 to $4.24. Marks noted that the company announced a 5% increase to its quarterly dividend, which she said has increased by approximately 120% since the company's spin-off. She also highlighted a majority investment in We Maintain, a digital and AI-enabled elevator service provider, describing it as a complement to Otis's existing offerings. On the Q4 2025 call, Marks said the company's service portfolio had grown to nearly 2.5 million units and that the company was focused on retaining high-profit units. In Q3 2025, she reported that the company completed approximately $250 million in share repurchases, bringing the year-to-date total to about $800 million.
In an interview, Marks discussed the role of conglomerates, stating that investors currently want focused companies rather than conglomerates, as they prefer to make their own capital allocation choices. She also addressed the integration of AI into Otis's products, saying the company wants its elevators and escalators to become smarter and more autonomous, using voice, video, and AI agents to improve the passenger experience. Marks noted that Otis moves 2.5 billion people per day and described the company as an early provider of autonomous technology, drawing a comparison to the removal of elevator operators in the 1950s.
Source: AI-verified profile updated from Judith Marks's recent appearances.
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✨ AI-enhanced transcript with speaker attribution
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Interviewer0:00
One manifestation of the lack of return you have noted in credit markets is what's going on right now in distressed credit. Have you ever witnessed the kind of open warfare that is unfolding today among creditors? One investor whom I know well calls it fratricide.
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Howard Marks0:21
Well, you know, you might call it fratricide. Somebody else might say people energetically exercising their fiduciary duty to maximize the outcome for their clients. I would tend towards the latter. You know, we're not brothers in the sense that we should take it easy on each other and not maximize the interest of our clients. But the problem, Eric, is that over the years, in pursuit of yield in a low return environment — and we have had a low return environment ever since the global financial crisis, which occurred 12 years ago — ever since then, we've been in a low return environment, and people have been scrambling to get yield. They've been competing to buy securities, which gives the issuer the upper hand, which permits the issuer to strip out the covenants and the protections as to what they can do to the lender. And when the protections are gone, then it becomes easier for aggressive people to pursue recoveries for themselves and their clients at the expense of other people and their clients. Oak Tree has been one of those aggressive people, collectively one of those aggressive people, participated in these so-called priming or up-tiering deals that, as you explain, have the result of stripping some creditors of their seniority and their covenants and their collateral protection. A couple of deals I'll mention because people need to have some context: Primark and Board Riders. And the question to you is this: that's the kind of behavior that Apollo has always been known for, not Oak Tree, and it makes me wonder — makes some people wonder — whether there has been a change of view or thinking among you and your colleagues that you do need to cross the kinds of lines that you weren't prepared to cross before.
Well, Eric, I can't comment on any of Oak Tree's specific activities, but we still have the highest standards. We think that everything we have done is the right thing, and that we're playing within the boundaries of the playing field and not over the lines.
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Interviewer2:59
Is it possible, though, that at the end of the day it's just a losing game for everybody? If everybody is prepared to screw everyone else, then you're going to get screwed as many times as you screwed others.
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Howard Marks3:15
Well, look, I don't think of it as screwing, and I really resist that terminology. The point is that we have obligations, and we try to carry out those obligations to the best of our ability and still perform with integrity. And I'll have to leave it at that.
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Interviewer3:47
That is the critical point to be made here. Obviously, when you talk about fratricide, the alternative is to go — fratricide suggests brothers, so the other investors are our brothers according to that theory, and we should go easy on them because of our relationship. We can't go easy on another firm and fail to carry out our duty to our clients, which is to consciously maximize their interests.
