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Operator
Conference Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Parker Hannafin Corporation first quarter 2020 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star 0. I would now like to hand the conference to your speaker today, Kathy Seaver, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead, Madam.
Kathy Seaver
Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Joelle. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Parker Hannafin's first quarter fiscal year 20 earnings release teleconference. Joining me today are Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Tom Williams and President and Chief Operating Officer Lee Banks. Today's presentation slides, together with the audio webcast replay, will be accessible on the company's investor information website at phstock.com for one year following today's call. On slide number two, you'll find the company's safe harbor disclosure statement addressing forward-looking statements as well as non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations for any reference to non-GAAP financial measures are included in this morning's materials and are also posted on Parker's website at phstock.com. Today's agenda appears on slide number three. We'll begin with our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Tom Williams, providing highlights from the first quarter. Following Tom's comments, I'll provide a review of the company's first quarter performance together with the revised guidance for the full year fiscal 2020. Tom will then provide a few summary comments and we'll open the call for a question and answer session. Please refer now to slide number four and Tom will get us started.
Tom Williams
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you Kathy and good morning everybody and welcome to the call. We appreciate your interest in Parker. So let me start with the first quarter highlights and I'm going to start like I normally do on safety. We had a 25% reduction in recordable safety incidents year over year, which is a great start to the year. When you look at it from a safety incident rate, so for those who aren't familiar with this, this is the number of safety incidents per 100 people. We came in at 0.46, which is a top quartile number. Top quartile happens to be 0.5, so this is the first time in the history of our company that we came in at a top quartile for an incident rate, so we're very proud of that. Safety for us is a core value, and zero accidents is not an aspirational goal. It's really an expectation that we're going to operate the business and lead the business in such a way that we're going to drive a zero-accident culture. And as you've seen, there's a very strong linkage between safety and business performance. And you can see that if you look at our numbers over the last several years and plotted safety and our financial improvement, you'll see that they went hand in hand. So switching to financial results, Q1 was a strong quarter on margins and on cash against a challenging macro environment on sales. Sales declined 4%, and that composition was a minus 3 organic, minus 1.5 on currency, and a plus 0.5 on acquisitions. Total segment operating margin remained level at 17.0% reported. Adjusted segment operating margins increased 10 basis points to 17.3. On a reported basis, EBITDA margin increased 70 basis points to 18.4, and adjusted EBITDA margin increased 110 basis points and reached 19.1%. So really when you look at it, operating margin or EBITDA margin, really excellent performance at this part of the cycle. EPS reported was $2.60. On an adjusted basis, it was $2.76. We had a very strong quarter on cash flow. Cash flow from operations came in at 13.5% of sales. We had a record as far as cash flow from operations in terms of dollars at $449 million. And free cash flow was 12.0%. And when you look at free cash flow conversion, that was 118%. So really, really strong quarter on cash. We had a number of exciting announcements in the quarter. We launched Wind Strategy 3.0. So that's the third revision of the Wind Strategy. This follows the second revision we did in 2015. And we launched a new purpose statement for the company. And we closed the Lord & Exotic acquisitions. So we've been busy in the quarter. And we're really excited to welcome the Lord & Exotic team members to the Parker team. The joint integration teams have been working hard in preparation for the closings, and they're hitting the ground running as we speak. As you heard me talk about, the acquisitions are transformational to Parker's portfolio, really strengthening engineering materials and aerospace with high growth, high margin businesses that will definitely be more resilient over the business cycle. Our global Parker teams are very energized by all these announcements between the wind strategy, purpose, and these acquisitions, so we're excited about the future. Now switching to the outlook. Revised guidance for FY20. We've seen a market shift within the last 90 days. It's reflected in weekend order entry. Primarily driven from macro conditions and trade uncertainties. So when you look at total sales for Parker and FY20, they're expected to be flat year over year at the midpoint. With guidance now, these are all midpoint numbers at minus six organic, minus one for currency, and plus seven on acquisitions. Segment operating margin guidance is now at 15.2% as reported. at the midpoint, and the adjusted midpoint is now 16.3%. I would just call to your attention there's two important impacts on there. When you look at it from a partial year is the amortization of the two deals. From a partial year standpoint for FY20, that impacts us by 70 basis points. When you look at it in a full 12 months, there's 100 basis points of deal amortization as a headwind on margins. Business realignment expenses are expected to increase to $40 million. This is reflective of the current macro conditions. This was $20 million in the prior guide. And, of course, our guidance now includes lord and exotic metals forming for the balance of the year. And we'll go through discussing markets and the guidance assumptions in more detail during the Q&A. So let's switch to cash flow and margin resilience. So hopefully you saw on the cash flow numbers in my comments just a moment ago, cash flow was very strong, record numbers. And then when you look at the operating and EBITDA margin performance, and I'm going to compare it to 2015 and 16. So the last downturn we experienced, I'm going to look at this legacy partner without acquisitions that allows us to do apples to apples comparison. So FY16, which would have been the worst year in that downturn on a adjusted operating margin was 14.8%. And then FY20 guidance is 16.6% at the midpoint. So when you look at that delta, That's an improvement of 180 basis points. On adjusted EBITDA and FY16, it was 14.7%. Our current guide at the midpoint is 18.2%. So that's a 350 basis point improvement. So clearly, raising the floor on margins when you compare the 15, 16 downturn to what we're experiencing now. We fully anticipate to do double digit cash flow from operations for the full fiscal year, like we've been doing for the last 18 years. And really this performance is driven by a combination of factors. The new wind strategy which we introduced in 2015 is propelling our performance. All the previous restructuring activities we've done which has positioned us to be a more agile and lean operating company. So let's move to slide five and talk about the future. We're very positive about the future. And I think we are absolutely poised to generate nice earnings growth after we clear these near term macro conditions. A couple things influencing our confidence on the earnings potential. Wind strategy 3.0 and the purpose statement represent some important changes for the company. Plus, we've added two great businesses via these acquisitions. And actually, in my view, the timing of these acquisitions couldn't be any better during the soft part of the cycle. There's clear advantages here. We have the capacity to digest these much easier than when we were digesting Clarkor as we were trying to ramp up the base business as well as digest Clarkor. And when you look at the timing, when you look at the integration teams hitting their stride, it's about the same time the markets will start to turn for us, you know, approximately nine months. And both of those factors will drive earnings growth as we look into the future. We're going to be hosting an Investor Day, March 12th of 2020 in New York City. And during that Investor Day, we're going to showcase One Schedule 3.0 and the purpose statements to give you a lot more color on the key strategic changes for the future. We're going to highlight all six operating groups. In the past, we've highlighted one group. Last time, we highlighted three groups. For the first time ever, we're going to give you insights of all six groups. You'll see the entire company. We'll go through the three last acquisitions, Clark, Orr, Lord, and Exxon. Just a quick reminder, which is on this page, that you see the winning formula for Parker, our competitive differentiators. The win strategy, now 3.0, the third revision of that, which is Our business system, you couple that with our decentralized divisional structure. In my view, that's the best of both worlds. You get a centrally-led business system that's deployed locally with that closeness to the P&L. The breadth of our portfolio technology is very interconnected. Strong intellectual property, long product life cycles, very balanced between OEM and aftermarket with the best distribution channel in the motion control space. Low CapEx requirements to actually generate growth and productivity. And all this ends up culminating in being able to generate a lot of cash and being able to deploy it on the best behalf we can for our shareholders. So we have a lot of confidence in our ability to achieve the FY23 financial targets. I just want to thank all the global team that's listening in for their hard work, their continued and dedicated effort, and I'll hand it back to Kathy for more details on the quarter and the guidance.
Kathy Seaver
Chief Financial Officer
Okay. Thanks, Tom. I'd like you to now refer to slide number six. This slide presents as reported and adjusted earnings per share for the first quarter. Adjusted earnings per share for the quarter were $2.76 compared to $2.84 for the same quarter a year ago. Adjustments from the fiscal year 20 as reported results totaled $0.16, including before tax amounts of business realignment charges of $0.04, acquisition cost to achieve of $0.04, and acquisition transaction-related expenses of $0.14, offset by the tax effect of these adjustments of $0.06. Prior year first quarter earnings per share had been adjusted by $0.05, the details of which are included in the reconciliation tables for non-GAAP financial measures. On slide 7, you'll find the significant components of the walk from adjusted earnings per share of $2.84 for the first quarter of fiscal 19 to $2.76 for the first quarter of this year. We benefited $0.02 per share in operating income from Exotic Metals Forming Company since closing on that acquisition September 16th. For Legacy Parker, a $166 million decline in sales contributed to a 15 cent reduction in operating income. The teams did a great job of controlling costs with lower volume by sustaining a 15% decremental margin for the quarter. Incremental interest expense on the debt borrowed for the two acquisitions resulted in a 15 cent decline in the current earnings per share. Interest income from the pre-acquisition investments of that cash benefited the current quarter 9 cents. Lower other expense of 13 cents came from several one-time gains in the current year and by not repeating several one-time losses from last year. Lower corporate G&A contributed 1 cent, while fewer favorable discrete tax benefits in the current quarter resulted in a higher tax rate causing 12 cents of incremental tax expense. Finally, a lower share count benefited the quarter 9 cents. Slide 8 shows total Parker sales and segment operating margin for the first quarter. Organic sales decreased year over year by negative 3.3%. Currency had a negative impact of minus 1.5%. These declines were partially offset by a positive impact of 0.6% from the September acquisition of Exotic. Despite declining sales, total adjusted segment operating margin improved to 17.3% versus 17.2% last year. This 10 basis point improvement reflects the operating cost improvements teams have been working hard on, combined with additional positive impacts from our wind strategy initiatives. On slide 9, we're showing the small benefit Exotic had on the first quarter FY20 results post-close on September 16. You can see they contributed $21 million in sales and $3 million in operating income on an adjusted basis during this brief stub period. Exotic results are included in the aerospace systems segment. Moving to slide 10, I'll discuss the business segments, starting with diversified industrial North America. For the first quarter, North American organic sales were down 3.2%. Currency had a small impact on sales of negative 0.2%. Even with lower sales, operating margin for the first quarter on an adjusted basis was an impressive 17.3% of sales versus 16.6% in the prior year. North America continued to deliver improved margins, which reflects the hard work dedicated to productivity improvements, as well as synergies from Clarkor and the impact of our wind strategy initiatives. Moving to diversified industrial international segment on slide 11. Organic sales for the first quarter in the industrial international segment decreased by 8.7%. Currency had a negative impact of minus 3.9%. Operating income for the first quarter on an adjusted basis was 15.9% of sales versus 17.0 in the prior year, a detrimental margin of 25%. The teams continue to work on controlling costs during the more difficult drops in volume by utilizing tools of our wind strategy initiatives. I'll now move to slide 12 to review the aerospace systems segment. Organic revenues increased 8.2% for the first quarter as a result of growth in all of the platforms, with the strongest growth in military OEM and the commercial aftermarket. In addition, the aerospace segment sales increased 21 million, or 3.7%, from the addition of the exotic acquisition. Operating margin for the first quarter was 20% of sales versus 19.5 in the prior year, reflecting the impact of higher volume in all the platforms, lowered development costs, and good progress on the wind strategy initiatives. On slide 13, we report cash flow from operating activities. Cash flow from operating activities was a first quarter record of $449 million, or 13.5% of sales. This compares to 10.3% of sales for the same period last year after last year's number is adjusted for a $200 million discretionary pension contribution. That's a year-over-year increase of 25%. Free cash flow for the current quarter was 12% of sales, and the conversion rate to net income was 118%. Moving to slide 14, we show the details of order rates by segment. As a reminder, these orders' results exclude acquisitions, divestitures, and currency. The diversified industrial segments report on a three-month rolling average, while aerospace systems are based on a 12-month rolling average. Continued declines in the industrial markets drove total orders to drop 2% for the quarter end. This year-over-year decline is made up of a 6% decline from diversified industrial North America, 10% decline from diversified industrial international orders, offset by a very positive 22% increase from aerospace systems orders. The full year earnings guidance for fiscal year 2020 is outlined on slide number 15. This guidance has been revised to align to current macro conditions and now includes the impact of the lowered and exotic acquisitions. Guidance is being provided on both an as reported and an adjusted basis. Total sales for the year with the help from acquisitions are now expected to remain flat compared to prior year. Anticipated full year organic change at the midpoint is a decline of 6%. Currency is expected to have a negative 1.1% impact on sales and acquisitions will add 7.4% to the current year. We've calculated the impact of currency to spot rates as of the quarter ended September 30, and we have held those rates steady as we estimate the resulting year-over-year impact for the remaining quarters of this fiscal year. For total parker, as reported, segment operating margins are forecasted to be between 15.0% and 15.5%, All adjusted segment operating margins are forecasted to be between 16.0% and 16.5%. We've not adjusted for the incremental amortization of approximately $100 million, which we will incur for the remainder of this year as a result of the two acquisitions. The full year effective tax rate is projected to be 23%. The first quarter tax rate was favorably impacted by discrete items, which we don't forecast. We are anticipating a tax rate from continuing operations of 23.3% for quarters two through four. For the full year, the guidance range for earnings per share on an as-reported basis is now $8.53 to $9.33, or $8.93 at the midpoint. On an adjusted earnings per share basis, the guidance range is now $10.10 to $10.90 or $10.50 at the midpoint. The adjustments to the as-reported forecast made in this guidance include business realignment expenses of approximately $40 million for the full year fiscal 2020, with the associated savings projected to be $15 million. Synergy savings from Clarkor are still estimated to achieve a run rate of $160 million by the end of fiscal 20, which represents an incremental $35 million of year-end savings. In addition, guidance on an adjusted basis excludes $27 million of integrated costs to achieve for Lord and Exotic and $200 million of one-time acquisition-related expenses. Lord & Exotic are expected to achieve synergy savings of $15 million this fiscal year. A reconciliation and further details of these adjustments can be found in the appendix to this morning's slides. Savings from all business realignment and acquisition costs to achieve are fully reflected in both the as reported and the adjusted operating margin guidance ranges. We ask that you continue to publish your estimates using adjusted guidance for purposes of representing a more consistent year-over-year comparison. Some additional key assumptions for full-year 2020 guidance at the midpoint are a split first half-second half of 47%, 53% for all sales, adjusted segment operating income, and adjusted EPS. All three we expect to be split 47%, 53%. Second quarter fiscal 2020 adjusted earnings per share is projected to be $2.22 per share at the midpoint. This excludes $15 million of projected business realignment expenses and $167 million of acquisition-related expenses and costs to achieve for both Lord and Exotic. On slide 16, you'll find a reconciliation of the major components of revised fiscal year 20 adjusted EPS guidance of $10.50 per share at the midpoint compared to the prior guidance of $11.90 per share. Starting with just the legacy business, a $0.10 per share beat in the first quarter is quickly going to be offset by the challenging macro conditions facing the rest of the fiscal year. A drop of nearly $800 million in forecasted sales at the midpoint is driving a decline of $1.44 in operating income for the rest of the year. Interest expense in our previous guide included the interest on $2.3 billion of bonds we were holding for the acquisitions. Since then, we have borrowed additional term loans and commercial paper to complete both acquisitions. Now that both acquisitions are closed, we've allocated 72 cents of interest expense to the acquisitions, which includes the interest on the bonds, the term loans, and the new commercial paper, causing a relief of 29 cents of interest expense within the legacy business. Also in our previous guide, we had an assumption of earning 35 cents from interest income on the cash from the bonds. That cash has now been used for the acquisition, so the other expense line, which includes interest income, has been reduced going forward. And finally, within the legacy business, we are anticipating a slightly higher tax rate for the rest of the year, which will drop earnings per share 3 cents, resulting in revised legacy Parker adjusted guidance of $10.50. Exotic is estimated to contribute 28 cents and Lord 44 cents, to operating income for the year, inclusive of the additional combined $100 million amortization expense we will be incurring. Offsetting this will be the 72 cents of interest expense related to the debt for these acquisitions. All in, this leaves $10.50 consolidated adjusted earnings per share at the midpoint for our guide for fiscal 2020. On slide 17, we show the impact the acquisitions will have on both an as-reported and adjusted basis. On an adjusted basis, the acquisitions lower operating margin to 16.3% for total Parker from 16.6% for legacy Parker, impacted by $100 million of amortization expense. For adjusted EBITDA margins, The acquisitions provide 50 basis points of improvement, moving from 18.2% for legacy Parker to 18.7% for total Parker. For those of you building forecast models, we've included more details regarding the Lord and exotic impact on the total year guidance in the appendix. You'll now go to slide number 18. I'll turn it back to Tom for summary comments.
Tom Williams
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Kathy. So we're very pleased with our progress. We are going to perform well with this downturn as demonstrated by our cash flow performance and raising the floor and operating margins, and we're well on our way to being that top quartile company that we want to achieve and be in best in class. And just a reminder of where we're trying to drive to, we want to transform the company to achieve the targets we've set out in FY23 of growing organically 150 basis points greater than global industrial production growth, segment operating margins of 19%, EBITDA margins of 20%, free cash flow conversion greater than 100%, and EPS CAGR over that time period of 10% plus. So again, thanks to everybody, all the global team members around the world for your hard work. And with that, I'll hand it over to Joelle to start the Q&A portion of the call.
Operator
Conference Operator
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. To withdraw your question, press the pound key. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Nathan Jones with Stifel. Your line is now open.
Nathan Jones
Analyst at Stifel
Good morning, everyone. Good morning, Nathan. Tom, it seems like you guys have taken maybe a bit more negative outlook going forward over the next three quarters here than some of your peers have. I think you mentioned you were planning on three more quarters of a downturn here. Can you just maybe talk a little bit about what's going on in the end markets and your expectations around prices why you're thinking this downtime is as long as you guys seem to have built into guidance here.
Tom Williams
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, Nathan, it's Tom. And I'm sure this is the question top of mind for everybody. So let me, I'll start off with going through kind of what was behind the guide. Then I'll finish with a summary of end markets. So it starts first with our Q1 orders. And you've seen that minus two total company. But in particular, minus six North America and minus 10 internationally. And then you get a look at Other external indicators that are typically flow-through in our orders, you know, three to six months out, those things like the ISMs and the PMIs. So the U.S. ISM at 47.8 for September. That was a 10-year low, as everybody knows. Europe's PMI at 45.7 for September. And, of course, Germany, our third-largest country, at 41.7. obviously feeling the impact of the trade-related uncertainties. Asia PMIs are weak. And so when we look, part of what influenced our forecast was the trend of orders through the quarter. So August and September were about the same, but they were weaker than July. And then as you look at October, while October is not done yet, we looked at October on a daily basis. We saw further softening from that August and September rate. So put those factors into consideration. Also, our bottoms-up latest look from the divisions, in our view, yielded a more challenging macro environment. So I'll peel back the organic piece a little bit more, and I'll give you some of my thoughts as to why we did what we did. So you've seen organic at the midpoint at minus 6. So that composition is North America at minus 6, international at minus 11.5, and aerospace at plus 4.5. So the first half, second half organic is both minus 6. So minus six for the first half, minus six for the second half. And so given that organic growth was minus three in Q1, that implies that our low point or the bottoming out of Parker is somewhere between Q2 and Q3 in this guidance. And we also looked, remember I talked about the pressure curves last time, and we had baked in about a 15-month duration. This now looks like it's an 18-month duration, a whole fiscal year. That's a difference versus the prior guide. When we look at the four phases of growth that we've talked about in the past, we've got the markets are definitely moving through those phases. The largest phase is now in Phase 4, decelerating growth at 48%. That last quarter, that was at minus 10%. So that's encouraging that they're starting to move through that. When you look at Phase 3, which is accelerating decline, that used to be 67% last quarter. Now it's 28%. So that's also an important point. So all these things are signaling some kind of a bottoming for us about the midpoint of our FY20. So maybe now just to kind of walk on the prior guide to the new guide. So the prior guide was minus 1.5 at the midpoint. Again, I'm talking about organic. And the new guide is minus 6. So that's a 450 basis point step down. Our order stepped down 200 basis points. Again, I'm focused on the industrial piece here. where North America and international stepped down 200 basis points. And then we have to try to project out those ISMs and PMIs I just described that are pretty negative, and they're going to flow through in orders anywhere over the next couple months to maybe a maximum of six months. And then also looking at the October orders that weakened from what you see in September. So that kind of made up the balance. You've got 200 that's already declined with orders. The balance 250 made up of that projecting those PMIs and ISMs into our future orders and what we saw in October. So that kind of gives you a walk-down. So maybe if I give you comments on the end markets for Q1, I'll start with the positives. Aerospace continues to be very strong. Lawn and turf, forestry, and marine. And pretty much all the others are negative. So probably the best way for me to summarize the others is to kind of take them into major buckets. So distribution, I recognize, is not a market, but it's an important channel for us. Distribution actually got a little bit better. I'm talking about going from Q4 to Q1 year over year. It came in Q1 at about a minus two, and in Q4 it was minus two and a half. That composition, North America got better, Europe stayed about the same, and Asia Pacific got worse. The industrial land markets, stayed relatively the same. Both were minus 9, minus 9 in Q4, minus 9 in Q1. And the mobile market is where we saw the step down. Mobile markets went from a minus 3 in Q4 to a minus 6. In particular, what stepped down in mobile was ag, construction, heavy-duty truck, and material handling. So that's a quick run through. That's at the global level what I was describing as far as the end markets and what caused us to move the guidance like we did.
Nathan Jones
Analyst at Stifel
I appreciate the transparency and the color there. Just moving away from things that are happening in the short term here, I'm sure there'll be plenty of questions for that on you. Maybe you could just talk a little bit about what's changed in the wind strategy 3.0 from wind strategy 2.0.
Tom Williams
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, and I'd be happy to do that because that's going to be very exciting for the company. And obviously, when we have you all together, we'll go through this in a lot more detail. But if I would just paraphrase the key points. So underneath engagement, we're going to continue to expand that whole ownership concept with the idea that the more people we have thinking and acting like an owner, the better the company's going to perform. But a big change on engaged people is Kaizen, and we'll take you through all the things we're doing on Kaizen as far as our approach to it, who we're working with, and the results we're seeing. Under customer experience, a lot more emphasis on digital leadership, and we'll expand what we mean by that. And a new metric, which is not too dissimilar to what we had before, but we have a new metric called composite, likely to recommend, which is going to be a mixture of on-time delivery and feedback from our customers and distributors. Underneath profitable growth, we have this new initiative called strategic positioning, which we'll give you more color on. New product blueprinting underneath innovation. And two new metrics for innovation, product vitality index and gross margin for that product fatality, and we'll explain more about that when we're in person. And underneath simplification, a very new, powerful concept called simplify design, where we focus on simplifying the design of our products to reduce the bill of material complexity, the inventory and planning and scheduling complexity, and the ability to produce it, recognizing that about 70% of our product costs are tied up in how we design it. So we will talk a lot more about that when we have you all there. We'll be somewhat careful on simple by design because I don't want to teach all my competitors how to do that, but we'll give you enough color so that you all know that it's real and there's just some big enhancements to the company, both on a growth and a margin standpoint.
Nathan Jones
Analyst at Stifel
I appreciate all the color and all the transparency there. I'll pause it on. Thanks very much.
Kathy Seaver
Chief Financial Officer
Thanks, Nathan.
Operator
Conference Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Ann Dinan with J.P. Morgan. Your line is now open. Thank you.
Ann Dinan
Analyst at J.P. Morgan
Hi, good morning. I'm not sure that there are any questions left after all of that color. You gave us global end markets, industrial versus mobile. Would you mind breaking those up by region, please, or any notable differences across the major markets that have declined, ag, construction, heavy duties, material handling?
Tom Williams
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, Anna's time. So I'll give you the high points by region. So North America... was about 3% organic decline. On the positive side was machine tools, heavy-duty truck, forestry, and lawn and turf. Flat was distribution and automotive. And then on the negative side, we had low single digits was mining, telecom, and life sciences. Mid-single digits decline. These are all declines. Refrigeration, mills and foundries, and tires. And then switching to the mobile markets, Mid-single-digit declines was construction and marine, and mid-teen declines was ag, material handling, and rail. So, again, I had mentioned that distribution fared better in North America than any of the other regions as far as how it performed. Then in Europe, came in about a minus seven for the quarter. On the positive side was refrigeration, power, Semicon, life science, and oil and gas. And then on the negative side, starting with the industrial end markets. We had a couple that were greater than 20% mills and foundries, machine tools, obviously Europe being more export-sensitive, feeling the impact of trade uncertainties. Those are very trade-centric type of end markets. Mid-teen declines was mining, tire, and rubber. Distribution came in around minus 4.5, about the same as it was versus prior period. And mobile, we had low single-digit declines in construction and ag, and about 10% in heavy-duty truck and auto. So actually, mobile fared okay in Europe. The industrial markets suffered worse in Europe. And then in Asia, on the positive side, Asia came in a 12% decline for Q1. And on the positive side were oil and gas, mining, and marine. All the declines, distribution was down about 5.5%. And on the industrial space, we had about mid-teen declines on mills, refrigeration machine tools greater than 20 on some of those big secular and markets like PowerGen, Semicon, and, of course, telecom being somewhat impacted by the Huawei challenges. And then on the mobile side is where we saw some of the steepest declines, greater than 20 in construction, ag, material handling, and rail. So you can see that mobile feeling the worst in Asia Pacific. So that's a quick spin through the regions.
Ann Dinan
Analyst at J.P. Morgan
Okay, and then just as a follow-up, I think you've already answered this, but are you seeing any signs of, I hate to, like, use the word we use every time when we're coming up, but any green shoots anywhere?
Tom Williams
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Well, you know, what has been nice is that distribution got a little bit better, so we like that, the fact that that went into Phase 4. And we had a number of other things move into Phase 4, automotive and life sciences and oil and gas. And actually, PowerGen and Semicon, even though they're down mid-teens for us, the fact that they went into Phase IV, I always like when things move into Phase IV because then, you know, guess what? The next phase is accelerating growth. So that's encouraging. And we still had the ones that were strong and continue to be strong, like aerospace, lawn and turf. You're seeing some seasonal help there. And forestry, with all the paper-related goods tied to e-commerce, has continued to be strong. So those are what I would say as indicators. Again, for us, what we're signaling with this guidance is a bottom forming for us. I can't call a bottom for anybody else, but a bottom for us is somewhere in the middle of our fiscal year.
Ann Dinan
Analyst at J.P. Morgan
Okay, I'll leave it there in the interest of time and get back into you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks, Ann.
Operator
Conference Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Joel Tis with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
Joel Tis
Analyst at BMO Capital Markets
Hi, how's it going?
Operator
Conference Operator
Hi, Joel.
Joel Tis
Analyst at BMO Capital Markets
I just wonder, you know, on the last discussion and super-duper color there, can you just give us any sense of how you take it? It feels like things are a little worse now or maybe in the next couple of months future because of inventory reductions. How do you take the amplification of that in the near term out of your forward guidance? I'm just curious how to think about that.
Tom Williams
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, Joel, it's Tom again. So the destocking, it's always a tough question, but the one area where we do have good data on is North America distribution. And you've heard both Lee and I talk about this in the past, that it's been, the destocking has been improving by about 100 bps, and that's actually what happened again. So To refresh people's memory, in Q3 of 19, it was down 300 pips of destocking. Q4 was 200 pips. And now Q1 was 100 pips. So we had guided to that we felt distribution was going to, at least North America, was going to get into somewhat of equilibrium at the end of the calendar year, so the end of Q2. But we clearly are seeing destocking at the OEMs, especially the mobile OEMs, destocking. And how long that takes to play through is very difficult because we don't have the kind of visibility to that that we have with the U.S. distribution. But what we're guiding to, and it's very hard to split end market demand versus destocking, what we gave you is kind of our view all in of this impact.
Joel Tis
Analyst at BMO Capital Markets
And then just like a strategic question, and not so much thinking about a forecast, just thinking about how do we think about Parker's earnings resiliency going forward, like beyond the obvious, you know, okay, aerospace is a bigger part of the company. But like some of the ways that you guys think about it, that could help us. Thank you.
Tom Williams
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, Joel, Tom, that's a good question, and I'm actually glad that you asked it because we've been working very hard at this, as you might imagine. And there's a number of factors. First, it would start with some of the portfolio moves that we've made over the last number of years. Clarkor, Lord, and Exact. So let me give you some for instances. So when we look at our order entry without getting into things that I don't want to disclose publicly, our filtration platform is holding up much better than the rest of the industrial platform. And that was by design with Clarkor with its density and aftermarket. So that is, it's living up to its billing, what we had hoped for. Lord is coming in with about a 4% organic growth. And that compares to what we just told you, guiding to a minus six for Parker. And Exotics growth is coming in around 11%. And so that's better than Parker and better than Parker Aerospace. So you've got some portfolio things that we're doing that drives resilience and enhanced organic growth. And then you've heard us talk about what we've been doing on distribution, growing international distribution in particular. And we've changed that mix from one We started with wind strategy 2.0. We were at 35% international mix and distribution, and now it's 40%. So that doesn't seem like a lot, but moving that number, 100 bps a year, is meaningful. That enhances margins, and it provides more resilience, again, because our channel there is servicing primarily aftermarket. We're doing a lot of things on innovation, which will give you a lot more color with 3.0. We see it all in March, but the new product blueprinting product vitality index, our gross margin that we're tracking on these products are all designed because when you look at our innovation growth, it is growing faster than the base business, so it's going to hold up better in a downturn. The things we're trying to do to drive customer experience are really important because you can't really grow with a customer if you don't give them a good experience. And then all the things we've been doing operating-wise, simplification, lean, supply chain, et cetera, and now Kaizen to make the company more agile, and just a better operating company. So those would be the things that I would say in the top line. And then just from an operating standpoint, you know, how we're going to get to those FY23 targets.
Joel Tis
Analyst at BMO Capital Markets
Great. Thank you very much.
Operator
Conference Operator
Thanks, Joel. Thank you. Our next question comes from Jamie Cook with Credit Suisse. Your line is now open.
Jamie Cook
Analyst at Credit Suisse
Hi. Good morning. I guess just a couple questions. I guess the first one is just understandings. the guide, the international or the implied international adjusted margins, I guess, fall off a little more than I would have expected in the remaining nine months of the year. Understanding there's a lot of moving parts, but is there any way you could sort of help me, you know, help us with what the puts and takes are there besides increasing them more? And then just obviously the cash flow in the quarter was very strong, and as we are in sort of a slowdown here, you know, leverage becomes more topical. So just You know, Tom, how we should think about cash flow for 2020, whether there's any structural improvements we should be looking for. Thank you.
Tom Williams
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
So, Jamie, let me start. I'll have Kathy add on as far as debt and maybe comment on cash flow. But one thing I want to try to make sure everybody understands, this new guide has got still some really good decremental margins in it. And we've always, if you benchmark companies, which I know you all do this, a minus 30 decremental is still best in class. So I'm just going to read to you total decrementals for the company Q2 through the rest of the year. So Q2, and these are approximate. These are at the midpoint. There's going to be a range around these numbers. 27% decremental, Q3 at 28% decremental, Q4 at 23% decremental. So we end up with a full year at about a 25% decremental. So those are really, I think, very excellent performance given that if you look at industrial, you know, it's going to be down minus six North America and minus 11.5 on international. That's why international is a little bit worse. On its decrementals, North America is coming in around 24 and international is at 29. And it's because it's about a 2x difference in volume. And so that's creating a lot more challenge. And then in addition to the volume side, international has currency, which we've always struggled to identify currency impact on financials. And we've We basically decided not to try to communicate that because you can't get a consistent number with it. But we do all know that when currency becomes a headwind to us, it becomes a pressure point on margins. So that's another factor for international. On cash flow, and I'll hand it over to Kathy, I would have shareholders rush assured that that 18 years of 10% plus CFOA is going to turn into 19 years because we've got a proven track record of being able to work working capital. And these operating margins, like you heard me talk about in my opening comments, are 180 basis points better than our last downturn. So we have better operating margins, and we'll work the working capital like we normally do. And, Kathy, do you have anything to add on that?
Kathy Seaver
Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. Jamie, we finished the quarter end at a leveraged gross debt to EBITDA of 3.6. We did bring in a small amount of additional debt in the form of term loan to be ready to close Lorde this past week. And so it's going to go up slightly. But if you look historically, we do have a great track record of managing the working capital very well during a down cycle. So we're pretty confident. In addition to that, both Lorde and Exotic have a history of very strong cash flow, stronger than Parker. So they will be great contributors to it. And we're confident. We'll be at a level that we were with Clarkor when we closed that deal and we brought that down very quickly. And we feel that we can do the same even though we are seeing things slow down. Also keep in mind, we do carry about a billion dollars of international cash, so our net debt to EBITDA was actually 2.1 at the end of the quarter.
Jamie Cook
Analyst at Credit Suisse
Okay, thank you. I appreciate the call.
Kathy Seaver
Chief Financial Officer
Thank you.
Operator
Conference Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from David Rosso with Evercore ISI. Your line is now open.
David Rosso
Analyst at Evercore ISI
Hi, thank you. Just looking at the organic data, Growth first half, second half. Obviously, the second half, a big change from used to be up one to negative six now. Can you take us through your thoughts on how you see orders playing out underneath that decline? I mean, it seems like the second quarter you're expecting the biggest organic decline, but the second half is still pretty healthy at down six. I mean, healthy meaning a large decline. So I'm just trying to get a sense of how you're viewing the order patterns underneath that negative six in fiscal second half.
Tom Williams
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, David, as Tom, and that's where the forecast gets more and more challenging is the further that you go out. But we really were trying to project some of those macro indicators that I mentioned in my comments, US-ism, Germany's number, Asia's PMIs, the rest of Europe's PMIs, et cetera, recognizing that as we plotted those historically, they tend to lag and impact our orders three to six months out. So we know we saw a weakening in October. which that's going to influence Q2. And then these other macro indicators, three to six months out, starts to impact the second half. And so that was the thought process behind that. But it does become more challenging as we try to figure that out because our backlog outside of aerospace doesn't carry us out that far. So we had to kind of look at historical trends and lagging periods between these macro indicators and what we do.
David Rosso
Analyst at Evercore ISI
I'm just trying to think how you thought about managing your own inventory through the end of the year and, you know, that interplay between, okay, the second half is a lot weaker than we thought, but, you know, we do see some bottoming process, and that's how we're managing, you know, not even just inventory, but how you're thinking about pricing that usually gets announced Jan 1 and so forth. I mean, is it fair to say at this stage you're not thinking of the orders improving much in the future? In the back half, fiscally, it's just the comps get a lot easier. So I think for a lot of people, seeing the cut to the organic is obviously not pleasant. But if you felt the orders were improving in the back half to some degree, you can call it temporary. Because the way you're speaking to the business is it's kind of a temporary macro environment. I know it's hard to call. I was just curious to have some sense of where your head is and how you're managing the company for that fiscal second half. It doesn't sound like you're planning for orders to be you know, say, up in the latter part of the year. Is that a fair assessment, how you're trying to manage?
Tom Williams
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yes, David, I think that's fair. We would project that orders would continue to be weak because our orders, you know, organic growth and orders are typically within a month or two of each other when you plot it historically. So for us on inventory, you know, inventory is never good. It's always a waste when you're running a lean operation. So we're continuously weathering. we have volume going up or volume going down. We're looking to optimize inventory, period, all the time. And the Kaizen efforts that we're doing in unity with our Parker lien process will continue to work at managing inventories down. Now, obviously, when orders go down, you need to update all your planning tools, your plan for every part, which is part of our lien system. So we're doing that. And then on pricing, I'll let Lee comment on pricing with what we're doing with that.
Lee Banks
President and Chief Operating Officer
Well, David, maybe I'll put price and cost together. I would say cost inputs, it's a mixed bag. There's some going down, some going up. But from a price-cost standpoint, as always, we just try to stay margin neutral, and that's what we're planning going forward.
David Rosso
Analyst at Evercore ISI
Okay. And just to make sure, just to wrap up here, the first quarter organic was in line with your expectations, maybe 20 bips even better. I actually thought the orders weren't even that bad in the first quarter relative to some of the fears out there. But then obviously you took a big chunk out of the rest of the year on organic sales and even your thoughts on orders. So the surprise, I guess, must have really been this last month that you really thought to see at least some beginning of bottoming process. So is that fair? It's really been the last month that really drove the change in the guys.
Tom Williams
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
David, it's Tom again. So there's two things. You're right, October, but then also the sequencing we saw within the quarter, the fact that August and September got worse from July. So we were starting to see a weakening through the quarter, then another step down in October. That's why we changed the guide. All right, that's helpful.
David Rosso
Analyst at Evercore ISI
I appreciate it. Thank you.
Operator
Conference Operator
Thanks, David. Thank you. Our next question comes from Andrew Open with Bank of America. Your line is now open.
Andrew Open
Analyst at Bank of America
Yes, good morning. Good morning, Andrew. Just a question on cash flow, and it's not more a question, but a lot of companies that do deals have shifted to reporting sort of cash earnings given a massive discrepancy between your cash flow generation and reported earnings. Have you guys considered moving to reporting cash numbers and what has the feedback been from your investors?
Tom Williams
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, Andrew, it's Tom, and it's a good question. We have thought about it, and we have reached out to shareholders, and it's been pretty uniform from shareholder feedback saying don't make that change. To continue to – obviously, we will adjust for one-time costs and the things that we'd normally be doing, but other than that, continue to report on a gap basis. And if you think about it, just it creates – a bigger hurdle that business needs to absorb to generate returns on behalf of the shareholders. And I think that was the feedback I heard from shareholders, is we want you to incorporate that bigger challenge into how you run the place. But it's a good comment. I know there's been good companies that have made that change. At this point, we've elected to stay with what we've been doing.
Andrew Open
Analyst at Bank of America
Thank you. And then just a question, you know, as your numbers have decelerated, what has the feedback been from Lorde and Exotic? What have they experienced relative to expectations when you announced the deals?
Tom Williams
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, so, Andrew, it's Tom again. So actually they've held up really nicely. Lorde and the outlook that we've just given you is coming in about a 4% organic growth. And we had in our model about 5.5%. That's what I verbally said during the announcement. That was kind of our five-year CAGR. So if you think of everything that's going on that's changed from when we made that announcement to today, that's pretty good. And, again, that 4% positive compares to minus 6 for Parker. That's why we like Lorde so much. That's why we bought him. It's accretive from a growth standpoint. And then when you look at Exotic, Exotics come in at a little over 11.5. In our model that we built for the TCF, we had about a 7.5% CAGR. So that's held up nicely. I would say two things a little better, F-35 sales. And we modeled a more conservative 737 MAX. We modeled exotic going down to 42, but Boeing is not done that yet with Exotic and probably won't because Exotic with its long lead time for materials. When you look at what Boeing has done when they're managing supply chain, the rest of our aerospace is for the most part at 42. But as they've managed long lead time type of suppliers, Exotic being one of those, they've kept them at 52 because of obvious reasons. You can't ramp back up with that kind of long lead time. So that's part of why they've They've overproduced on the revenue. So in a nutshell, both acquisitions holding up on revenue, both acquisitions coming in at the EBITDA level that we expected actually lowered slightly better on EBITDA margins because we pulled in $15 million. The $15 million that Kathy referred to in her comments is the synergies for Lord, and we were able to pull them a little bit earlier than we thought.
Andrew Open
Analyst at Bank of America
And if I may squeeze just one in, auto exposure was lowered. You did comment that auto is bottoming. Was that referring to sort of the old Parker exposure, or was that referring to Lord's exposure as well? And that will be it for me. Thank you.
Tom Williams
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
That was total Parker. That was based on Q1, so we didn't have Lord in Q1. But their auto has held up better than our auto has, so it you know, pretty comparable. Thank you.
Operator
Conference Operator
Thanks, Andrew. Thank you. Our next question comes from Andy Casey with Wells Fargo Securities. Your line is now open.
Andy Casey
Analyst at Wells Fargo Securities
Thanks a lot. I just wanted to go back to the decrementals that you talked about, Tom. Were those all in, including the acquisitions? Or were those Parker legacy?
Tom Williams
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Parker legacy without the acquisitions. Andy, trying to do it with the acquisitions is apples and oranges. Acquisitions are not in the prior period. We've got the $100 million of intangible amortization. So the MROSs, when you look at it all in versus prior, are basically nonsensical. You can't really read anything into it, which is why I gave you the ones without it.
Andy Casey
Analyst at Wells Fargo Securities
Okay. Okay, I appreciate that. And then... Basically, over the long term, you had talked about 30% incrementals. The decrementals you gave were lower than that, which is good. When you embed the two new acquisitions that seem to be a little bit similar to Clark or a little bit more resilient, would the downside over the long term relative to the mid to high 20% decremental that you gave Can it even shrink further?
Tom Williams
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Well, I think there's definitely that potential because, to your point, they will be more resilient. There are higher margins as well, so they should help us with that. And we're going to work to make them even better than they are today. The whole goal of these is to take the best of what we do and the best of, and of course, we is not all of us, and the best of what the acquisitions had and make it even better. So I still think, you know, again, for purposes of bottling, I don't want to get too far over my skis. I would just encourage you to continue to use the plus or minus 30. It's still best in class. And, of course, our goals are to try to do better than that.
Andy Casey
Analyst at Wells Fargo Securities
Okay. Thank you very much.
Kathy Seaver
Chief Financial Officer
Thanks, Andy. Joelle, I think we have time for one more question.
Operator
Conference Operator
Thank you. Our final question comes from Jeff Spragu with Vertical Research Partners. Your line is now open.
Jeff Spragu
Analyst at Vertical Research Partners
Thank you. Good morning. I just Just two from me, if you don't mind. Just first back on the acquisitions. You know, at the time they were announced, I thought, you know, Lorde's run rate sales were about a billion one, and Exotic was about 450. And when I look at what you laid out here, it looks like they're both actually kind of on an annualized basis tracking flat-ish, not up. Is Is there something in timing, or do I have those bases wrong?
Tom Williams
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Jeff, it's Tom. I think the main thing we gave it was based on calendar year over calendar year. Now these numbers are in our FY and Parker's fiscal year, so the prior periods are not comparable.
Jeff Spragu
Analyst at Vertical Research Partners
Those growth rates you gave us, though, Tom, were for the year in your plan or just in the quarter, those organic growth?
Tom Williams
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, the growth rates I gave Jeff were for our FY20, so it would be comparing the period of time they're in part of Parker FY20 and then using the same Parker fiscal year in FY19 for them to go back and kind of reconstitute that with the two acquisitions.
Jeff Spragu
Analyst at Vertical Research Partners
And then just one other question on incrementals, if you don't mind. And perhaps it goes to the FX point you were making, Tom, but the decline in 6% organic sales declines is about $650 million in sales. I think Kathy said $800 million if I think about it on a core basis. And $1.44 of EPS had one would gross up to like $230 million. So that's like a 35% decremental on the core business if I think about it relative to the walk that you gave us where you showed kind of legacy Parker versus the deals. Am I missing something there or is it FX?
Kathy Seaver
Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, Jeff, it's the FX differential. So the number I quoted was top line total drop that we had in our guidance for the second, third, and fourth quarters. And when you're quoting organic, you're probably correct that it's closer to 600.
Jeff Spragu
Analyst at Vertical Research Partners
Okay, great. Thank you for that color.
Kathy Seaver
Chief Financial Officer
Okay. Thank you. All right, this concludes our Q&A and our earnings call. Thank you to everyone for joining us today. Robin and Jeff will be available throughout the day to take your calls should you have any further questions. Everyone have a great day. Thank you.
Operator
Conference Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
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