Parker-Hannifin Corporation

Hello and welcome to the Parker-Hannifin Corporation fiscal 2024 fourth quarter and full year earnings conference call and webcast. At this time all participants are in listen-only mode. If anyone should require operator assistance please press star zero. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. You may be placed into question queue at any time by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. We ask you please limit yourselves to one question, one follow-up, then return to the queue. As a reminder this conference is being recorded. It's not my pleasure. Turn the conference over to Toddly and Bruno, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead Todd.

Thank you Kevin and good day everyone. Welcome to Parker's fiscal year 2024 fourth quarter and year end earnings release webcast. As Kevin said this is Toddly and Bruno, Chief Financial Officer speaking. And with me today is our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jenny Parmiter. We appreciate your interest in Parker and we thank you all for joining us today. If I could draw your attention to slide two you will find our disclosures on our forward looking projections on gap financial measures. Actual results could vary from our forecast based on the items we have listed here. Our press release, the presentation we're going to go through today and reconciliations for all non-gap financial measures were released this morning and are available under the investor section on our website at Parker.com. We're going to start the call today with Jenny summarizing our record fiscal year 2024 that was really driven by our portfolio transformation and really some exceptional strength in our aerospace businesses. She'll also touch on our bright future and what really is driving the company today. I'm going to follow Jenny with some more details on specifically the strong fourth quarter we just posted and then both of us are going to provide some color on the fiscal year 2025 guide that we released this morning that sets us off on our journey to achieve our FY29 targets. After those remarks we'll open the call for Q&A session. We'll try to take as many questions as possible within the one hour time slot. And with that Jenny I'm going to hand it over to you and ask everyone to reference slide three.

Thank you Todd and thank you to everyone for joining the call today. Parker delivered an outstanding year in fiscal 2024 on the dedication of our people, the strength and balance of our portfolio and the value of our business system, the wind strategy. We met or exceeded many of our commitments for FY24. We produced top quartile safety performance aligned with our goal to be the safest industrial company in the world. The strength of our portfolio was highlighted by a stellar year delivered by our aerospace systems segment. On low single digit sales growth the team delivered 200 basis points of margin expansion. Our earnings per share grew 18% on top of earnings growth of 15% in fiscal year 2023. And we generated record free cash flow of $3 billion. Parker has a very promising future ahead as you'll see from our strong fiscal year 25 guide and the targets we have set for fiscal year 2029. Next slide please. And it was a record year for aerospace, our first full year with MEGAT achieving over $5 billion in sales, more than two times the sales of fiscal year 20. All market segments delivered double digit sales growth and the strength continues as we look ahead. We are positioned for growth with significant content on leading programs. And our extensive portfolio will continue to create value for our customers as well as our large install base will drive continued aftermarket growth. Next slide please. As illustrated on this slide, the transformation of our portfolio further expanded longer cycle and secular revenue mix in fiscal year 24. And although aerospace is a big part of the transformation, it's not the whole story. The acquisitions of Clarkor and Lorde and our on purpose strategy to expand distribution in Europe and Asia have greatly contributed to the longer cycle, secular and industrial aftermarket mix. We see this transformation continuing and expect 85% of our portfolio to be longer cycle, secular and aftermarket by fiscal year 29. Early last week, we announced that we have signed an agreement to divest the North American composites business that came with the mega acquisition. As mentioned during our investor day, we continue to optimize our portfolio. Our best owner playbook identifies businesses that find greater value with a different owner. Through this process, we determined that this business is not aligned with our core products and we are not the best owner. It's a great team and we are confident that they will be successful in the future. Next slide please. These are the four key messages we presented at our investor day in May. We are positioned for growth with our interconnected technologies and the secular trends. We have demonstrated that when strategy, our business system is compounding our performance and driving us to top quartile. Operational excellence, years of driving a continuous improvement culture through our lean tools creates growth and expands margins. And we have confidence in achieving the fiscal year 29 targets launched at our investor day in May. Next slide please. And as a reminder of what drives Parker, safety, engagement and ownership are the foundation of our culture. It's our people and living up to our purpose that drives top quartile performance, allowing us to be great generators and deployers of cash. I'll turn it back to Todd to review our outstanding fourth quarter results.

Thank you, Jenny. It really was a fantastic year for the company. On slide nine, I just would like to take some time to talk about the fourth quarter. Q4 was an exceptionally strong quarter for the company. Once again, every number in this gold box on this page is a Q4 record. They also happen to be the highest levels of performance that we experienced this fiscal year. Total sales growth was up nearly 2% from prior year. We reached almost $5.2 billion in sales in the quarter. Organic sales were positive at roughly 3%. That was a little bit better than what we were expecting with our guidance. The investitures were just very slight, unfavorable impact and currency really turned into another headwind, almost 1% unfavorable on currency. If you look at adjusted segment operating margins, Jenny mentioned this, but we did improve them, 130 basis points from prior year. For the first time in the history of the company, we generated .3% segment operating margins for our quarter. Same story with EBITDA margins. The increase was a little bit greater, 190 basis points. For the quarter, we did .3% adjusted EBITDA margins. You look at adjusted net income, $884 million of adjusted net income. That is up 12% from prior year and that is a 17.0 return on sales. Earnings for share, Jenny mentioned this as well, $6.77. That was up $0.69 or $0.11 from prior year. It was just really an exceptionally strong quarter. It was a great way to finish the fiscal year, really driven universally across the globe by our engaged team members. It was really just a nice way to finish the year. That is another data point on Parker being able to deliver on our commitments. If we jump to slide 10, this is just a bridge on that 11% improvement and adjusted earnings for share. Again, the story is very similar to what we saw all year. Strong operating execution continues to drive earnings for share growth. If you look at segment operating income dollars, we increased by $90 million or 7%. That is basically $0.54 or 80% of the EPS growth quarter over quarter. We have talked a lot about this already, but the aerospace system segment once again is really responsible for over 90% of the earnings for share growth when it comes to segment operating income. The diversified industrial North American businesses made up the rest. If you look at some of the below segment operating income line, corporate G&A was $0.16 favorable in the quarter. That really again was a result of some favorable items from the prior year just not repeating. Interest expense favorable again, $0.17 versus prior year. That really is the result of our successful deleveraging efforts that we have been working hard on all year. Tax was unfavorable $0.12 against the prior year and that was really just from slightly higher operating tax rate and of course the higher EBIT. Other expense and share count were just both a bit higher than last year, but really the story here has been consistent throughout the whole year, strong operating execution, driving margin expansion, really keeping an eye on cost controls and being disciplined with our debt pay down. Just a nice way to finish the year. If we jump to slide 11, let's look at the segment performance. You can see again margin expansion across every business here. Really proud to see that. Incrementals for the company and really every part of the business were incredibly strong. Order rates inflected positive. It's 1% that's positive. We're really happy to see that. And our backlog remained at near record levels. We have $10.9 billion in shippable backlogs. That was a nice way to finish the year. Let's look at the diversified industrial segment, specifically in North America. Sales volume really remained strong. $2.2 billion in sales. Organic growth was negative three, but that was a full point better than our expectations. Softness in North America continues to be driven by off-highway markets and transportation markets. But despite those lower volumes, we were able to increase adjusted segment operating margins by 150 basis points, and the North American businesses achieved 25.0. That is a record. It is all driven by operational execution, executing the wind strategy, and really working hard to deliver for our customers. Order rates in North America also did improve to flat. That ends our negative string of -over-year order declines, and we were really happy to see that. If you look at the international businesses, sales were slightly over 1.4 billion. Organic growth was down .5% the prior year. Again, that was also better than our forecast. Off-highway markets continue to be soft. If you look really across the regions, in Europe, we were negative five. In Asia, negative one, which did slightly improve from Q3. And Latin America just continues to be robust at 19% organic growth. Same story on the margins. Margins increased 60 basis points in the quarter. Our international businesses generated .9% segment operating margins and really just continue to be focused on simplification, productivity improvements, and I'm really happy to see this in the continued margin expansion from those international businesses. Order rates in international finished at minus one, with positive order rates in Asia driving the majority of the improvement. So nice to see that improve from Q3 as well. But if we look at aerospace systems, right, that business continues to shine. Sales reached a record $1.5 billion in aerospace. First time we've had $1.5 billion of sales in our aerospace business. Organic growth, 19%, with double-digit growth across all the platforms within aerospace. Operating margins, a brand new record, increasing 130 basis points to 27.1. And it really is driven by great volumes and unbelievable strength in the aftermarket businesses. Aerospace orders still remain strong. We did get the highest dollar level of orders for the year. And order rates continue to grow at plus 7%. So all things are looking up in aerospace. We're going to the next slide, slide 12. I just want to highlight our cash flow performance for the year. We finished FY24 with record cash flow performance. CFOA increased 14% to a record of $3.4 billion. That's 17% of sales. Free cash flow, nearly $3 billion. That's also a record. That was 15% of sales. It's also a 15% increase from prior year. And we did achieve a conversion of 105%. I really just want to thank our team. This has been a lot of effort by a lot of people across the company. Really made some nice improvements in working capital. Really nice efforts on AP and AR. But I really want to note this year we were able to reduce inventory by over $120 million. Really showcasing the efforts and focus that we've had on supply chain excellence. Across the globe, we continue to focus on being great generators and great deployers of cash. If we jump to slide 13, you can see what we did with all that cash. We reduced debt by over $800 million in the quarter. $800 million in the quarter alone. And since closing MEGAT, we have now reduced debt by over $3.4 billion. We had a target to reduce debt by $2 billion in the fiscal year. We hit that target. And if you look at our leverage ratios, gross debt to adjusted EBITDA is now 2.1 times. And net debt to adjusted EBITDA is now 2.0. So it's exactly what we had forecast. And it really wraps up just a solid Q4 and a great fiscal year. So with that, I'm going to hand it back to Jenny. And I'm going to get to what I know everyone is focused on. And that is our outlook for FY25.

Thank you, Todd. At our investor day in May, we introduced the six key market verticals of our business that you see on this slide. This slide represents our FY25 sales growth forecast for each market vertical, resulting in organic growth of 2 to 5%. We are providing a realistic guide for fiscal year 25. At the midpoint of this guide, we have aerospace at 8.5%, industrial North America at 2%, and industrial international at 1.5%. We are confident in growing EPS, achieving mega synergies, and continuing our track record of expanding margins. I'll get it back to Todd to review the guide in a little more detail.

Okay. Thank you, Jenny. So I'm now on slide 16. And let me share some of the details of the FY25 guide. Reported sales is forecast to be in the range of 1.5 to 4.5 or 3% at the midpoint. That will equate to approximately $20.5 billion in sales. That is really supported by outside support in our aerospace businesses. Total sales for the company are modeled at 48% in the first half and 52% in the second half, so right in line with what we've historically done on sales splits. If you look specifically at organic growth, we are forecasting organic growth in the range of 2 to 5% or .5% at the midpoint. And we're expecting high single-digit growth from aerospace, roughly 8.5%, and a gradual recovery in the industrial markets throughout FY25. For the North American businesses, we are forecasting organic growth of 2% at the midpoint. And for the international businesses, we are forecasting growth of .5% organic at the midpoint for the full year. If you look at the mix on organic growth, it's .5% first half, .5% growth second half. And I will note that this guidance does include sales from the recently announced Aclu-Vestiture that Jenny mentioned. We are expecting that to close sometime in the second quarter, and we will give an update once that closes to the impact it has on the company. We are based on June 30th currency spot rates, and we're forecasting that to be a slight headwind of about a half a percent or $100 million on currency versus prior year. Jenny mentioned margin expansion. 50 basis points of margin expansion is our plan. And in FY25, we're going to get that by continuing to do exactly what we've done over the last couple of years, is really implement and advance the wind strategy. Adjusted segment operating margin guidance is 25.4 at the midpoint. There is a range of 20 basis points on either side of that. And segment operating income is split 47% first half, 53% second half. If you do the math on incrementals, we're expecting slightly at 40% incremental margins. That's a little bit higher than what we normally have had just based on the growth in aerospace and, of course, continued mega synergies. A few additional items on the guide. Corporate G&A is expected to be approximately $230 million. Interest expense is $450 million. That is a reduction of approximately $50 million from FY24. And other expense is expected to be about $5 million. Tax rate, we are modeling a 23% tax rate. And full year as reported EPS of $23 or adjusted EPS of $26.65. Both of those figures are at the midpoint. And the range on those, both of those ranges is $0.35 on the high end and the low end. And if you look at adjusted EPS, it is split 47% first half, 53% second half. In respect to cash flow for the full year, we are giving a range of $3 billion to $3.3 billion. That is $3.15 billion at the midpoint. That will be approximately .3% of sales. And, of course, we expect free cash flow conversion to be greater than 100%. If you look at the far right column on this page, you will see some specifics, specifically about Q1. And these are all at the midpoint. Reported sales we are forecasting to be plus one. Organic growth is .5% positive. Adjusted segment margins of 25.2. And adjusted EPS is expected to be $6.05. As usual, we have provided several other details for guidance in the appendix. If you look at slide 17, this is a very similar story to what we just did in FY 24. Segment operating income is the main driver of our EPS growth. That is $1.51 of EPS growth. We will continue to have lower interest expense as a result of our great cash flow generation and our deleveraging efforts. That will add $0.34 to EPS. If you look at the tax rate, that will be an unfavorable number. Just a reminder that that will be a 23% model tax rate. That is a headwind of $0.41, really compared to a favorable rate that we had in the full year of FY 24. Corporate G&A is slightly unfavorable, just $0.06. Other expense is $0.10 unfavorable. And share count is just another headwind of $0.07. If you look at that all in, that is our walk to the 2665 midpoint or 5% increase year over year. With that, Jenny, I will hand it back to you and ask everyone to reference slide 18.

Thanks, Todd. As mentioned at our investor day and demonstrated in our results, this is a different Parker. We will add more than $10 to EPS and generate an additional 50% free cash flow by FY 29. Our performance will continue to be accelerated from the wind strategy. We have a longer cycle and more resilient portfolio. We will experience growth from secular trends, and we will continue to be great generators and deployers of cash. Next slide, please. We are very proud to be celebrating 60 years on the New York Stock Exchange, and we'll ring the closing bell next week on Wednesday, August 14. I'll turn it back to Todd to get us started with Q&A.

Yeah, okay, Kevin, we are ready to open the lines for Q&A, and we'll take the first person in the queue.

Certainly. If you'd like to be placed in the question queue, please press star 1 at this time. And as a reminder, we ask you please limit yourselves to one question, one follow-up, then return to the queue. If you'd like to remove yourself from the queue, please press star 2. Our first question is coming from Julian Mitchell from Barclays. Your line is now live.

Hi, good morning. Maybe just a first question around the first quarter outlook. I think first off, maybe to talk about the organic sales guide a little bit, I think you're dialing in a bit of a deceleration from the June quarter -on-year, even with better orders. So maybe just any commentary around kind of very recent demand trends, any big movement -to-month. And then sort of on the firm-wide P&L for Q1, you're basically saying flat EPS dollars -on-year, but with sales growth and margins up. So is there something below the line moving around?

Yeah, Julian, this is Todd. I could take that. You know, there is some seasonality just going from Q4 to Q1. If you look at our historical sales splits and our historical earnings split, what we're modeling here is in line with what we've historically done. Our organic growth guide for the total company is plus one for the quarter. That is driven by aerospace, which continues to be a low double-digit organic growth is what we're expecting in aerospace. But in the industrial businesses, both in North America and international, we are still expecting that to be down from prior year. So it's low single digits, but it's still down. We expect that to improve throughout the fiscal year. And this is just our best look at a roll-up. So you're right. It's a little bit of a soft industrial environment, but really offset by strength in aerospace. If you look at margins, you know, what we just did in Q4 was an all-time record for the quarter. We are guiding to 25.2%. That would be a Q1 record for the company. So it is not an easy number there. It really is. It would be a record. And to do that in light of some softness on the industrial side of the business, we're pretty proud about that. You know, there's some -the-line stuff that just, you know, is a first-quarter phenomenon, but nothing abnormal. We are experiencing earnings per share growth and net income growth in Q4, and that really supports what we see throughout the balance of the year.

That's helpful. Thank you. And then maybe my follow-up would be around slide 15, so you have that very helpful color on the end market, verticals outlook for the year. Maybe just any context you could give around sort of, you know, maybe fourth quarter rates in some of those end markets. And I suppose in plant and industrial, I'm particularly focused on, seems like the CAPEX environment is getting a little bit worse out there. Just wondered what you're seeing in that implant and industrial piece, please.

Sure, Julian, I'd be happy to do that. So if you look at implant and industrial equipment, it improved from negative low single digit in Q3 to neutral in Q4. And as you can see on the slide that you're referencing, our FY25 guide is forecasting neutral in the first half, low single digit in the second half, resulting in a low single digit for the full year. If you look at transportation, it was mid single digit negative in Q4, and that was primarily driven by automotive cars and light trucks. We are forecasting low single digit negative growth for transportation in the first half, mid single digit growth in the second half because we expect automotive to return to growth then. Work truck strength continues and heavy duty truck is positive now, so full year is at that low single digit growth. If you look at off-highway, it was high single digit negative in Q4, and we are forecasting the same for the first half, neutral for the second half, and mid single digit negative for the full year. Inside of there, we expect ag to be double digit negative this year, offset by construction, low single digit positive. So that's some color there. And then energy is forecasted to be low single digit for fiscal year 25, neutral in the first half, mid single digit in the second half. HVAC was low single digit negative for Q4, but it is improving. We are forecasting mid single digit growth for the first half. This is driven by a recent regulation change on refrigerant. And the second half growth forecast is at low single digit growth, but that's dependent on how fast some of these manufacturers get through their inventory and ramp up production under the new regulation. So for the full year, we have them at low single digit.

That's great. Thank you.

Thanks, Julie.

Thank you. Next question is coming from David Razo from Evercore IS. Your line is now live.

Hi, thank you. My questions are on your comfort with the organic sales guide. We have one and a half percent in the first quarter. We can back into 2Q, right? It's three and a half percent. So that two percent faster growth in 2Q from 1Q, the impression I get, that's coming from industrial going from, say, down one and a half, two percent in the first quarter to going slightly positive. And I just wanted to get some color on why do we see that turning flat to positive in 2Q? The comps get a little easier in North America, but just any color around that, particularly in the mix of orders. Are you seeing it more from distributors? Is it the lack of D stocks maybe from a year ago with the manufacturers? Just trying to get more comfortable with that delta on year over year growth for industrial 1Q and then getting essentially slightly positive for 2Q. Thank you.

Yeah, so I'll take that, David. So as some of the things that Todd mentioned earlier, total company order rates did go positive to one percent in Q4. Industrial North America improved to zero in Q4 after being negative four. So that was a positive sign, and as Todd mentioned, that did end five quarters of negative order entry. International orders improved to negative one from negative eight, and that was driven by Asia Pacific. When you look at the channel, that D stocking in the channel started over a year ago, and we believe that it has pretty much played out. We see the distribution trend going up, but I would say it's not a step change yet. We aren't actually seeing them add inventory. But these are all the things that are placed into our guide. Todd mentioned also the backlog remains strong. Q4 flat with Q3, dollars at near record levels. So all of these things are baked into the guide and the reason that we feel good with the organic growth numbers we have in the first half. All right. Thank you for the question. David, I

agree with everything Jenny said there. As usual, your math is spot on. You mentioned the comps. Compster are two percent easier in Q2 than against the prior. So it's a little bit of all that stuff, but I just wanted to call out the comps. The reason

I asked is it doesn't seem like there's much pricing, new pricing for July 1. So I'm just trying to figure out what's the incremental bump made. You're saying there's a little bit of comp and obviously we may have some tech up. We're back to a

normal pricing environment. So it's more about those comps getting easier. If you look at North America, Todd mentioned that we expect Q1 to be flat to Q4, but that gradual industrial recovery is what we have really baked into the guide. And the growth uptick mainly in the second half is on easier comps.

And follow up, if you could indulge me with one question, you don't have to answer it, but I'm curious the verticals that we're now breaking out. We know the margins in aerospace, obviously they're highlighted separately, but the other five verticals, would you give us a sense of kind of force rank highest to lowest, the margins between those five just so we get a sense of the mix looking at it in this format?

No, we're not going to disclose that,

David. All right, I tried. All right, thank you.

You did.

You know, I would tell you, just look at those, the diversified industrial segment, those margins are, you know, they're record levels. The international businesses are not that far off from the North American businesses, and it's really just a factor of some softness in Europe and Asia kind of going through a recovery mode. But the margins are strong across all of those verticals,

David. All the businesses are performing really well in margin expansion.

Thank you. Next question is coming from Scott Davis from the Nellis Researcher Line is now live.

Hey, good morning, Jenny and Todd, and congrats on another great year.

Good morning, Scott. Thank you. Thank you.

I know it's probably hasn't, the answer probably hasn't changed much since the analyst day, but perhaps you could give us a little bit of an update on M&A and what you're seeing. I think, you know, you clearly have balance sheet space to probably step up and get a little bit more aggressive. So just a little bit of an update would be helpful, I think. Thanks.

Yeah, you're right. Not a lot different, but, you know, obviously, you know, we still have some debt to pay down. That's still our focus. But when we look to acquisitions, you know, we're always working the pipeline. Those relationships and maintaining and building those relationships is really important to us, and we've been doing quite a bit of that. You know, we're looking for those things where we are the clear best owner with the interconnected technologies and building on the secular trends. But, you know, the one thing that I say the most is that, you know, we're looking for deals that are creative to growth, resiliency, margins, cash flow, and EPS. It really has to tick all of those boxes. And in some cases, it really is based on timing. So we like all of the eight core technologies, and we see opportunities to build on the entire portfolio. We have different businesses that we're looking at of all sizes. So the question that I get a lot, too, is, you know, you've built with each one. Is the next one going to be, you know, bigger than Megat? And that's, you know, that's not something that, you know, we're focused on. We're focused on the right deal with all of that criteria that I just mentioned.

Okay. And, Jenny, the portfolio optimization and the small divestiture, is the lens here that you guys are looking at, the, you know, the slide 15 lens that, you know, the key market vertical stuff that's outside of that verticals, or is there a, or is it more a function of kind of margin, growth potential, and kind of more traditional metrics?

It's the latter. We have to see that it's, you know, part of our core technologies, our core product offering. You know, obviously, this business was an aerospace, and that's a market that we're very fond of. But it's the future profile of the business, both margin expansion and growth.

Okay. That makes a ton of sense. Thank you. I'll pass it on. Appreciate it.

Thanks, Scott. Thank you. Our next question is coming from, from Bear Jelani, is that live?

Thank you. Good morning. I guess one of the things that kind of stood out to me over the past couple of quarters within your industrial technology platforms is that motion systems and flow and process control kind of behave the way we would sort of expect them to in the kind of industrial downturn we're experiencing, you know, this whole down, high, single-digit revenue type. But your filtration engineered materials platform has been pretty remarkably stable. So I guess my question is, looking back, why has that been the case? Is this sort of different than what you've seen in prior downturns? And is there an impact on margin from a mixed standpoint within your industrial business from this filtration business hanging in there a little bit better?

Yeah. So thanks for the question, Mick. So, you know, if you think back to the on-purpose strategy that we had with our acquisitions to double the size of filtration, double the size of engineered materials and aerospace, we've done that with the last four acquisitions. So if you take filtration, for instance, you know, with the acquisition of Clarkor, we greatly increased our aftermarket exposure and filtration. And that business has become more resilient than it was in the past. And when you look at Lorde into engineered materials, you know, that's where we picked up a lot of that longer cycle business. And so you see those two groups behaving a little bit differently than the other two that you mentioned. That is definitely the main reason.

And the margin impact?

The margin impact is accretive, just like, you know, the criteria that we give to the acquisitions that we would do in the future. These have been, those have both been very successful deals where synergies were hit and they continue to use the wind strategy to improve margin.

Mick, let me give you a little color on this. If you're worried, we agree with you, the top line has acted exactly as we expected it. But I would tell you the margin expansion has been equally generated by all of these businesses. When you look at that record that we put up for the quarter, 25.4, that motion systems platform, that flow and process control, those were equally contributing to those margin records.

Wouldn't have happened without those

two

areas.

And when you look at the cash that we generate, those businesses are stellar cash flow generators as well. So it's all part of the mix. It's all why we love the portfolio as it sits and it's helped generating all-time record numbers.

And those technologies are very important part of our portfolio and, you know, participate in the secular trends that we talk about.

Thanks for the color. I'll pass it on.

Thank you. Next question today is coming from Jamie Cook from Truett Security. Your line is not live.

Hi. Good morning and congratulations on a nice quarter and guide. I guess my first question, Todd or Jenny, just looking at the implied incrementals for the year, the 40 percent, it's a very good incremental margin above your targeted range on lower organic growth relative to your longer-term guide. So is there anything unusual in the mix this year that would allow you to have above average incrementals on a lower organic growth versus your targeted range? And then I guess the follow-up question is, you know, once you get to the four to six percent organic growth, like why shouldn't your incremental margins be better than that, just given what we're seeing already today? And then, Jenny, you're probably not going to want to answer this, but I'm going to ask it anyway. You know, the order surprised me both on industrial North America and on international. Anything you can do to talk to, like, the cadence of what you saw, you know, since April and where were there, did the orders outperform your expectations as well? Thank you.

Yeah, Jenny, let me start on the incrementals. This is Todd. Thank you for the recognition of the quarter. We appreciate that. You're right. The incrementals are a little bit higher than what we have historically forecast. And, you know, that 30 percent is really kind of over the cycle. So sometimes we think we could do better. Sometimes it might be a challenge on the top line. But the way the math works is a little bit funny, right? Aerospace, with the strong growth in aerospace and the margin profile that aerospace is operating at, it is driving the incrementals for the company a little bit higher than normal. We also are committed to the 300 million in synergies that we have promised for mega. We expect $50 million of incremental synergies in FY 25 versus FY 24. So that's putting aerospace a little bit higher than historically where we've been at. And when you look at the industrial businesses, you know, we still see margin expansion even in a low growth top line environment. So when you put all that together, that's how we came up with the numbers. So we feel really good about that. That the team is energized and focused on making sure that we deliver that.

And, you know, from an order standpoint, Jamie, you know, on the May call I did something that I normally don't do, but made the comment that we were encouraged at the start of the quarter with what we were seeing in orders. And obviously that continued and we saw ourselves get to the order condition that we're talking about today at the end of Q4. So, you know, that played out well for us. But, you know, what we have in the guide today, you know, is supported by, you know, the comments that we've made at those Q4 orders. So no additional color on orders.

Okay. Thank you. Nice job.

Thanks, Jamie. Thank you, Jamie.

Thank you. Next question today is coming from Joe Richey from Goldman Sachs. He's not live.

Hi. Good morning, Jenny and Todd. Terrific year. Not just the quarter, it was a great year. Thank you. I'm going to tackle the margin question maybe slightly differently. And so, look, the exit rate for the industrial businesses were really strong, right, both in North America and international. If you take a look at the 25% North America and, you know, the 23.9 in international, you know, squarely either at the high end of your guidance for this year or the pinpoint for the international segment, I guess, why isn't it going to be better than that? If we're going to expect some growth and typically you guys have shown that you could expand margins even in a no-growth environment.

Well, Joe, I'll start. I'm looking at Jenny. She's smiling. You know, we just a few months ago gave you the FY29 targets. And if you look at this, this is right on track with those FY29 targets. Aerospace, we're going to expand 100 basis points off of an all-time record for that business. And, you know, when you look at the industrial businesses, we're showing margin expansion there as well and really an unbelievably low growth top line number. So we feel really good about that. If you look at the cadence throughout the year, every one of these quarters would be a record margin number for us and it increases. You know, outside of Q2, which is a little bit of seasonal volume, you know, they're aggressive numbers. So that's what we feel today. That's what we have confidence in. And that was kind of all that went into our guide.

Yeah, I would just back that up by saying, you know, obviously it was a fantastic year. It was a fantastic exit rate. But, you know, this guide is realistic and this isn't a slam dunk for our teams. We believe in the win strategy. We believe in our ability to continue to expand margins. But, you know, this is a, this isn't, you know, easy.

Okay, got it. I'm sure you'll make it look easy. But the question is the... We'll

try.

Yeah, so you mentioned that you're still planning to continue to pay down debt. You got your leverage ratio, your net leverage down to two turns. So congrats on that. I know there was a question earlier around M&A. So just talk to us a little bit about, you know, what's the kind of right leverage ratio that you want to get to before you get a little bit more front-footed with capital deployment on the M&A side? And then, you know, is there an opportunity to continue to buy back shares as well? Like, how are you thinking about that priority going forward?

Yeah, Joe, it's a great question. It's something we talk about constantly here. We've been very clear, you know, our target was to get to and operate around a 2.0 net debt to adjusted EBITDA leverage. We got there. We're very proud about that. It was not easy, but the team worked really hard to get there. The way our debt is structured, we have a serviceable debt that goes all the way out into 2026. So we feel good that we will not... We'll be putting our cash to good work as we continue to pay down that debt. But I would tell you, our preference continues to be to deploy our capital optionality towards deals. And Jenny mentioned it earlier. It's going to be the right deal. It's not going to be one that just happens to be available. It's got to be able to grow the top line differently. It's got to be a creditor to our margins. It's going to have to be EPS-agreative, and it's going to have to help generate cash in a way that's different than what the company has been able to generate. And if we can't get those done, we have no worries about deploying that elsewhere. We're going to keep our dividend record going, and our share buyback is $200 million a year. We're going to do that at a bare minimum, and we will be active, I can assure you that.

And, you know, if the timing and the deal don't line up the way we'd like one to in the future, you know, we'll always buy back shares, like Todd said. We believe in Parker.

Great. Thank you both.

Thank you. Next question is coming from Stephen Walkman from Jeffery's. Your line is out live.

Great. Thanks for taking the question. Todd, I just missed it when you said the MAGOT Synergies in FY24.

Oh, yeah. We increased those MAGOT Synergies. I think that was in the second quarter or the third quarter. $200 million is what the accumulated synergies were at the end of FY24. We're committed to the $300 million number. That would be $50 million in FY25 and an additional $50 million in FY26.

Got it. Thank you. And then I'm trying to think just mentally, if I back that out, how much did MIX add relative to sort of other drivers for the margin in aerospace?

Yeah, I mean, everything in aerospace is really booming right now. Aftermarket is especially strong. You know the profile of that business. That is the highest margin business that we have, and it's been really good for us. So, you know, if you look at what they did for the quarter, I think it was 27% margins. You know, if you look at what we are forecasting for FY25, it's another 100 basis points of margin expansion in aerospace. And that gets us, you know, 27.5 ballpark. So, you know, really strong margins in aerospace.

Right. I guess what I'm trying to think about is, assuming that the aftermarket OE MIX kind of normalizes at some point, maybe that's a big assumption. I don't know. But if it does, should we be worried about potential kind of margin headwinds in that scenario?

No, you know, when you look at our team, you know, of all of the forecast tools that we have that we've improved across the company, our best tools remain in the aerospace verticals. And I would tell you, our team, we've had multiple discussions with the team. We feel really good about that. And I, you know, I don't want to speak outside of FY25, but we feel really good about what 25 has in store. Yeah,

we feel very positive about air traffic growth. So we were not concerned about that.

Great. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Our next question today is coming from Nathan Jones from Steele. Your line is now live.

Good morning, everyone. Morning, Nathan. I'm going to go back to the revenue guide for as long as I can remember. Parker has been guiding for a revenue split, one age to two age, 58 to 42. So I wanted to ask, you've got a much larger backlog now than you've had historically, so potentially some better visibility out into that. So I'm just interested on what your visibility into that second half revenue guidance is based on where the backlog is and what kind of macroeconomic assumptions that you've got baked in there. A lot of peers and competitors have been talking about lower capex spending going forward, but it's maybe that's you guys went into the downturn first, you're coming out of it first, but just any color you can give us there.

Well, just to run through it a little bit, obviously for aerospace, as we talked about, we have an .5% organic growth out there. In the first half, it's at 11%, second half it's at 6%, and that's really because the comps get pretty tough when you get into the second half. So obviously we feel really good about aerospace. We have good visibility over, we have a high backlog there, so no concerns there. When you look at North America, as Todd mentioned, we're guiding to 2% organic growth, minus one in the first half. As we've talked about, that's based off of a typical Q1 and based off of what we see today in the orders and the information that we have from our customers. Again, we expect continued softness and off-highway all year and transportation in the first half, so kind of going back to those forecasts for the market verticals. We do expect a gradual industrial recovery, as we've mentioned here, and that's what we have baked in. So again, the growth uptick is mainly in the second half and it is somewhat on easier comps. Those are the inputs that we're looking at. And international, .5% organic growth, again, negative 1% in the first half, second half at 3.5%. As we mentioned, order rates improved, but they're still in negative territory. Our guidance assumes that Asia Pacific turns positive, offset by continued weakness in Europe. So that's what we're looking at right now. Again, softness around end markets in Europe, neutral growth, and the guide for the full year. So that's what we have built into the guide.

Do you need things like interest rate cuts to spur some of that recovery that you're looking for in the second half in various parts of the industrial economy? Kind of what are the underlying assumptions that you've got to inform that expectation?

Yeah, Nancy, this is Todd. Those certainly would be helpful. There's no doubt about it. What we have baked into the numbers is really, again, you've heard us talk about our AI forecast. So we have a variety of macroeconomic forecasts that we're using. There's nothing outside of anything that you're not seeing yourself. It really is driven by great aerospace performance, a gradual recovery in the industrial markets, mainly in the second half of the fiscal year. And that's based off of what we've seen orders do for many, many, many years. We were really glad to see North American orders turn not negative, and we were really happy to see the industrial orders move to minus one. So all of that is what we've been using to build our forecast.

Awesome. Thanks for taking my questions.

Thanks, Nancy. Thank you.

Thank you. Next question is coming from Jeffrey Sprague from Vertical Research Partners. Your line is now live.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Hey, a lot of ground covered here. A couple things from me. First, just on the divestiture, Jenny or Todd, I think it sounds like it's kind of part and parcel to your kind of normal process of reviewing the portfolio and assets. But should we view this as largely kind of a one-off and obviously it just kind of came with something you recently acquired or there's, you know, kind of other pieces here and there that could be methodically coming out as, you know, as your margin structure has moved up, right? And your, you know, your threshold for what's good enough rises, does that cause some additional things to shake out of the portfolio? You

know, at Investor Day we mentioned that we would, you know, continue to trim around the portfolio, but, you know, not anything significant. You know, all of our businesses have to perform. Every year we go through, you know, an analysis of our businesses, a best-owner analysis. But again, nothing significant. Jeff, it would be, you know, just some trimming around the portfolio.

And could you also just share with us your view on Aero for 2025 in terms of the big buckets, commercial, you know, OE versus aftermarket, military OE versus aftermarket?

Absolutely. So on commercial OE, we are forecasting high single digits, you know, really big stuff of narrow body rates and wide body ramp up. Commercial aftermarket, low double digits, and again, air traffic recovery, broad-based growth there, been very strong as we've talked about today. Defense OE, mid single digits, you know, an increase, increasing defense budget and continued demand for legacy fighters. And then defense aftermarket, high single digits, and again, pointing to those public-private partnerships we have with the depots, that's really proved to be great growth for us. And again, retrofits, repairs, upgrades. So really, it's going to be a strong year for aerospace, high single digit at 8.5%.

Great. I'll leave it there. Thanks a lot.

Thank you.

Appreciate it, Jeff.

Thank you. Next question is coming from Nicole deBlaise from Deutsche Bank. Your line is now live.

Yeah, thanks. Good morning, guys.

Good morning, Nicole.

I just wanted to ask another question on the divestiture, and we all have the revenue number that was in the press release, but I guess any color on whether the divestiture will be accretive to margins, and can you just confirm that that's all coming out of the industrial North America segment?

Yeah, Nicole, this is Todd. It will all come out of the industrial North America segment, businesses. You know, we do expect that to close sometime in Q2. It will be margin accretive. There's no doubt about it. I'd rather wait until we get the actual close date to give you the exact color on that. Jenny talked about it. You know, it's a great business, just maybe not perfectly aligned with our core products. If you look at the enterprise value that we got for that business, it's $560 million of enterprise value. So there will be a gain on that, and like I said, we'll be looking to share more of that once it finally closes.

Got it. That's really helpful. Thanks, Todd. And then on the outlook for international, it sounds like you guys are expecting Europe to be down again, if you could kind of confirm your thoughts there. And I know it's small for you, but any color on what you're seeing in China. Thank you.

Yeah, so you know, the guide does assume that Asia Pacific turns positive offset by continued weakness in Europe. So the full year for Europe is neutral to fiscal year 24. So just continued softness there. What I would say in China, you know, growth improved to negative low single digits in Q4, and Q4 orders increased due to some project orders. So you know, there's some positive there.

Thank you. I'll pass it on. Thanks,

Nicole. Thank you. Hey, Kevin, I think just in light of time, I think we have five minutes left. Maybe one last question.

Sure. Final question. Today's coming from Brett Lindsay from Azure Security. He's our line is our line.

Hey, good morning. Congratulations.

Thanks,

Brett. Morning. Thank you.

Yeah. Just a question on the margin outlook, but specifically gross margin. So another strong year in 24, but you're now seeing a better mix of secular in these applications. Are you embedding a higher than normal gross margin lift in the 25 outlook as you're seeing some traction here?

Yeah, Brett, this is Todd. Thanks for noticing that. We've been working hard on all elements of profitability for a long time here. When you look at that 50 basis points of segment operating income expansion, the vast majority of that will come in the gross margin line.

Okay, got it. Great. And then I apologize if I missed it. On off highway. So appreciate the color on adverse construction, but was wondering if you could dimension the outlook between OE versus the distribution business and off highway, and what's your level of visibility is on some of the OE inventories. Thanks.

I don't have a good picture of that that I could share with you today, but perhaps we can pick that up in a callback.

I'm going to

leave it there.

Appreciate it, Brett.

Thank you. We reach into our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over for any further closing comments.

Okay, Kevin, thank you. This concludes our earnings webcast. Thanks to everyone for joining us today. As always, we do appreciate your attention, interest, and support of Parker. If anyone's got any more follow-up questions, whether that's on the quarter, the year, or the FY25 guide, Jeff Miller, our VP of Investor Relations, and Yan Hua, our Director of Investor Relations, will be available throughout the day and even tomorrow if needed. I hope everyone has a great day. We appreciate it.

Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference and webcast. You may disconnect your line at this time, and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.