Parker-Hannifin Corporation

Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded, and if you should need any operator assistance, please press star zero. I would now like to turn the call over to Todd Liam Bruno, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Katie. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Parker's Fiscal Year 2026 Second Quarter Earnings Release Webcast. As Katie said, this is Todd Liam Bruno, Chief Financial Officer, speaking, and with me today... is Jenny Parmentier, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. We both appreciate your interest in Parker as well as your time today. Before we begin the call, I'd like to our forecast, our press release, this presentation, and reconciliations for all non-GAAP measures. were released this morning and are available under the investor section on Parker.com. The agenda for the call today has Jenny starting with an overview of our record FY26 second quarter performance. She then will reiterate the strengths of our interconnected technologies. And this quarter, she's going to highlight the distinct value we bring to one of our market verticals. That is the off-highway market. Jenny will also make a few comments on the recently announced agreement to acquire Filtration Group Corporation, and then I'll follow with some details on our strong second quarter financial results. We will both provide some details on the increase to our guidance that we released this morning, and then we'll move on to Q&A, and we'll try to address as many questions as possible within the hour. We know it's a busy day to everyone, so we will stick to the one-hour time slot. Now, I call your attention to slide number three, and Jenny, I'll hand it over to you.

Thank you, Todd, and thank you to everyone for attending the call today. Q2 was another great quarter where our team and our strategy demonstrated our ability to compound performance. We achieved top quartile safety performance with an 8% reduction in our recordable incident rate. This performance is aligned with our goal to be the safest industrial company in the world. Our team delivered record Q2 sales of $5.2 billion, organic growth of 6.6%, and 150 basis points of margin expansion. resulting in 27.1% adjusted segment operating margin. Adjusted earnings per share grew 17%, and cash flow from operations was $1.6 billion. And in the quarter, we announced the acquisition of Filtration Group Corporation. Moving to slide four. Many of you on the call today have seen this slide before, why we win. The win strategy is our business system. We have innovative products that solve customer problems. Our application engineers provide the technical expertise that creates a competitive advantage. And our distribution network serves global aftermarket and small to midsize OEMs. Today, I would like to highlight the interconnected technologies that provide efficient solutions for our customers across all of our market verticals. I'm on slide five now. We have the number one position in the $145 billion motion and control industry, a growing space where we continue to gain share. These six market verticals represent greater than 90% of the company's revenue. We have a focused portfolio, creating distinct value for our customers. Our powerhouse of interconnected solutions cuts across these market verticals and gives us a clear competitive advantage. Two-thirds of our revenue comes from customers who buy four or more technologies, and our growth is focused on faster growing, longer cycle markets, and secular trends. Moving to slide six. On this slide, I would like to highlight how our interconnected technologies come to life in the off-highway market vertical. Parker is a market-leading provider of highly engineered solutions for equipment used in construction, agriculture, and mining applications. Our comprehensive offering of interconnected technologies, deep application expertise, and embedded engineering relationships with OEMs are key to our success. We win with innovative and differentiated product technology, subsystems, and full system capabilities designed to increase the capability and productivity of our customers. Our global footprint allows for in-region delivery and expertise for OEMs, and our extensive distribution network provides aftermarket support for end users. I'm now on slide seven. We are making continued progress on the filtration group acquisition. Integration planning is underway using our proven integration playbook. We expect to close in six to 12 months from our November announcement date. This is a great company with a great culture, and we really look forward to welcoming everyone to the Parker team. The acquisition of Filtration Group adds complementary and proprietary technologies for critical applications while expanding our presence in life sciences, HVAC and refrigeration, and in-plant industrial market verticals. The combination of Parker Filtration and Filtration Group creates one of the largest global industrial filtration businesses and increases Parker Filtration aftermarket sales by 500 basis points. We will leverage our business system, the WIN strategy, to achieve approximately $220 million in cost synergies, and we expect this deal to meet our disciplined acquisition criteria of being accretive to organic growth, synergized EBITDA margin, adjusted EPS, and cash flow. This strategic transaction continues our investment in high-quality businesses that continue to transform our portfolio, accelerate sales growth, improve profitability, and drive shareholder value. Moving to slide eight. Clarkor, Lord, Exotic, and Megit have been a big part of our transformation. Curtis is still early days, and as I just mentioned, we are very excited about Filtration Group. Over the time period you see on this slide, we have compounded EPS at 16%, and approximately 60% of this has come from the wind strategy and our legacy businesses. while approximately 40% has come from the acquisitions. The acquisition of Filtration Group will continue our track record of accretive acquisitions. I'll turn it back to Todd to review the second quarter highlights.

Thank you, Jenny. This was another strong quarter of record performance. I'm on slide 10, and we'll start with just a summary of the Q2 results. We are proud to once again set new records for sales, adjusted segment operating margin, EBITDA, net income, and EPS. Sales were up 9% versus prior. Organic growth was positive at nearly 7%. Currency was favorable 2%. Acquisitions were favorable by 1.5%. And divestitures were a 1% headwind. Just to note, it's been now 12 months since we've completed those divestitures. This was the last quarter that we will have a divestiture adjustment going forward. Moving on to margins, segment operating margin was 27.1%. That is up 150 basis points from prior year. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 27.7. That's an increase of 90 basis points from prior year. And net income was $980 million. That's 18.9% return on sales. Just fantastic ROS performance. And lastly, adjusted earnings per share were $7.65. That's up 17% versus prior year. When you look at the quarter, this was just another quarter in which our team delivered high single-digit sales growth, solid margin expansion, and all of that resulted in mid-teens EPS growth. We do remain confident that we're going to be able to deliver another record fiscal year in 2026. If we move to slide 11, this just displays the walk on adjusted EPS. You can see it was a clean quarter. That delivered that 17% increase in adjusted EPS. Segment operating margin continues to be the main driver of our EPS growth. Dollars increased by $190 million, or 16%. That added $1.15 of our EPS growth. Share count was 16 cents favorable. That was really driven by the discretionary share repurchases that we completed over the last four quarters. And corporate G&A and income tax were favorable by just one penny. Other was unfavorable by 18 cents. That's really primarily due to foreign currency exchange that happened at the prior year period. That did not happen this year. That was a prior period item. And interest is just slightly unfavorable by 3 cents, and that is driven by just slightly higher average debt balance. That was offset slightly by lower interest rates. The adjusted EPS of 765 is a record, and it's really driven by strong growth and great margin expansion. I really commend our team members around the world for just stellar operating performance across the company. It is a pleasure to be able to share these results. If we go to slide 12, let's take a look at the segments. Starting with orders for the company, they're very strong. Orders were plus 9 versus prior year. And a positive note is order rates were positive in all of our reported businesses. Backlog increased to a record $11.7 billion. This was another quarter of strong incrementals for the company that created the record margins across the board and that 150 basis points of margin expansion. Really nice to see. If we look at North America, sales were approximately $2 billion. Organic growth was positive of 2.5%. That was slightly better than our expectations. The slightly better was driven by strength in off-highway and the aerospace and defense verticals in the North American businesses. Adjusted operating margins reached a record 25.4%. That is up 80 basis points from prior year with incrementals of 52%. And orders in North America took a big jump and increased to plus seven compared to the prior year. And a notable driver there were a few multi-year aerospace and defense orders within those North American businesses. Nice quarter for the North American businesses. International sales were up to a record $1.5 billion. That's up 12% versus prior year. Organic growth for the quarter was 4.6 in the international businesses. In the Asia pack, organic growth was the strongest at plus 9%. And Europe turned positive in the quarter to plus two. We were really glad to see Europe turn positive. And Latin America is just down slightly, 3% versus prior year. It was really positive to see Europe turn to positive organic growth. We were glad for that team to see that finally make the turn. When you look at margins, our record was achieved, 26% margins in the international businesses. That's up 190 basis points from prior year. And that margin expansion came from great improvements in productivity and just solid operational execution across all of those businesses. Orders improved in the international businesses to plus six, with positive orders both in Europe and Asia pack. Nice quarter for the international team. And lastly, aerospace continues to perform exceptionally well. Sales for the quarter were a record $1.7 billion. That's up 14.5 percent versus prior year. Organic growth was 13.5, and that was driven by great strength in the commercial markets, both OEM and aftermarket. Margins are up significantly. Adjusted segment operating margin increased by 200 basis points and reached 30.2 percent for the aerospace system segment. Again, great productivity. The higher volumes actually helped productivity in that business. This was another strong quarter of commercial spares and repairs volume, and all of that translated to a fantastic performance on the margin line. Order rates remain impressive in aerospace at plus 14. Backlog also increased plus 14 and reached a record $8 billion for aerospace for the first time in the history of the company. Aerospace and defense remains robust, and that's really led by commercial markets. Great performance across all of our businesses. Glad to see these results. If we move to slide 13, you can see our year-to-date cash flow performance. Cash flow from operations, $1.6 billion. That's 16% of sales. Free cash flow came in at $1.5 billion. That's 14.2% of sales. Just to note here, the first half, there's a slight drag from working capital and the timing of some tax payments. We expect that to be a first half only issue. I think everyone knows this, but as a reminder, our free cash flow is second half weighted. We remain committed to free cash flow conversion of greater than 100% for the year, and we'll talk a little bit more on guidance. We are increasing our guidance on cash flow for the year. Okay, that's the details on Q2, and Jenny, I will turn it back over to you on slide 15 to talk about our increase to guidance.

Thanks, Todd. This slide shows our updated fiscal year 26 organic sales growth forecast by market vertical. So in aerospace, we are increasing our forecast from 9.5% to 11% organic growth. We continue to see strength in commercial OEM and aftermarket. In plant and industrial remains the same. at positive low single-digit organic growth. Recovery continues, while customer CapEx spending does still remain selective. Distributor inventories are stable, and our distributors are ordering to their demand. In transportation, our forecast stays the same at mid single-digit organic decline. Demand challenges persist in both truck and auto, which is partially offset with some strength in aftermarket. We are raising our outlook in off-highway from neutral to positive low single-digit. This is based on construction and mining growth while ag remains under pressure. We are maintaining energy at positive low single-digit growth with robust power gen activity offset by upstream oil and gas, which remains soft. And we are maintaining HVAC and refrigeration at positive mid-single-digit growth. We see strength in commercial HVAC refrigeration filtration, and aftermarket. As a result of these changes, we are increasing our organic sales growth guidance from 4% to 5% at the midpoint. Back to Todd for some more guidance details.

Okay, thanks, Jenny. If you turn to slide 16, you'll see some of the details that we're talking about. Based on what we've done in the first half, strong orders, we are raising our full-year guidance really across the board here. Reported sales are going up to the range of 5.5% to 7.5%, more 6.5% at the midpoint. We expect currency to be a favorable 1.5%. That is based on December 31 spot rates. Previously completed acquisitions and divestitures basically offset each other at 1%. Jenny just mentioned this, but we are increasing organic growth to the range of 4% to 6%. That is 5% at the midpoint. If you look at the businesses, aerospace is being increased to organic growth of 11%. In the diversified industrial segment, in the North America businesses, we are increasing organic growth to 2.5%. And finally, we are increasing international organic growth to plus 2%. Adjusted segment operating margins, we're raising guidance there by 20 basis points. to 27.2 for the full year. That will now be a forecasted increase of 110 basis points for his prior year. And the forecast for incrementals for the full year is 40% full-year incrementals. A few other items just to note. Corporate G&A remains unchanged at $200 million. Interest expense slightly tweaked down by $5 million. We're now expecting that to be $415 million for the year. and other expenses down slightly to $85 million. On tax rate, the guide for the second half is forecasted to be $22.5. The full year tax rate is expected to be $22.1. That's with a second half of $22.5. And finally, when we look at EPS, we're raising EPS to $30.70 at the midpoint. That's an increase of 12.3% versus prior. And the range on that adjusted EPS is plus or minus 30 cents. I mentioned it earlier, but we are raising our full year free cash flow guide to a range of 3.2 to 3.6 billion. That is about 3.5 billion at the midpoint, with conversion greater than 100%. Looking specifically at Q3, Reported sales are expected to be nearly $5.4 billion. That is approximately 8.5 percent up. Organic sales growth we are expecting 5 percent. Segment operating margins we are expecting 27 percent. And adjusted EPS for the quarter is expected to be $7.75 percent. Each one of those is an increase to our prior guide. As usual, additional details can be found in the appendix here. And that is a wrap on our guidance. Jenny, I'll hand it back to you for slide 17.

Thanks, Todd. Just a reminder on 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-portal performance that allows us to be great generators and deployers of cash.

Okay, Katie, we are ready for the Q&A portion of the call, and we'll take the first one in queue.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star 2. So others can hear your question clearly, we ask that you please pick up your handset for best sound quality. Our first question will come from Jamie Cook with Truist Securities. Your line is open.

Hi, good morning, and congratulations on a nice quarter. I guess two questions, Jenny. You know, first, when I look at your technology platforms, if we look at, you know, the technology platforms within diversified industrial motion systems, flow processing control, and filtration and engineering materials, I think it's the first quarter since June of 2023 where you saw positive organic growth across all three technology platforms. So just wondering, do you think that's something specific to Parker Hannafin? Do you think it's more a function of the cycle? Just very encouraging signs there. And then I guess my second, you know, follow-on question to that is, it's, you know, the first quarter, too, that, you know, filtration has seen positive growth. Just wondering how you're thinking about that relative to the acquisition that's coming on filtration group. Signs that you bought that at a bottom, or is there any reason why, you know, you know, they wouldn't be seeing, understanding they're more aftermarket and a little different in market mix, why they wouldn't be seeing, you know, positive momentum there as well. Thank you.

Well, thanks, Jamie. Thanks for the question. So, yeah, so first of all, you know, we do think that, obviously, you're right, those businesses did see positive organic growth, and it's great to see. The teams have worked very hard for that and they're performing well. You know, I would say that it's a combination of what we're seeing in some of our short cycle businesses that we've pointed out. While all of them are not returning to positive growth, we did see, you know, some nice improvement in off-highway. And then, you know, I would say the aerospace business that sits inside of these industrial businesses is performing very well. So to that point, what you said, some of this is specific to Parker and some of it is seeing some of this short cycle business return. You know, our distribution did have low single digit organic growth in the quarter. So we're encouraged by what we see, encouraged by the orders, so I think that's part of it. Your filtration group question was a long one, so I'm going to ask you to repeat that for me.

No, sorry. My comment was just that, you know, interesting timing, maybe a compliment, that it's the first quarter we've seen positive growth in your filtration group business. Wondering what that implies for the acquisition of the filtration group, you know, implying that potentially you bought that business at a cyclical bottom, understanding there's different and mixed because they're aftermarket. I'm just wondering. You know, there's differences between the business, but could their sales also be improving organically, just like we're seeing within your filtration group business? Thank you.

Yes, we do believe that that will be the case. Now, historically, filtration groups' organic growth from pre-COVID to now has been mid-single-digit CAGR. So this is higher than Parker's filtration group. But many of the areas where we have the complementary technologies in the same markets with some of the same customers that we play, we do see that their growth will be increasing just as it is with ours. So, again, we think that this is just a great fit for Parker because of the complementary and proprietary technologies that it adds and because they play in the markets that we know where we expect to see growth. And, again, they have this decentralized structure that's very similar to Parker. So we see upside here.

Thanks, and congratulations.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question will come from Andy Kapowitz with Citigroup. Your line is open.

Good morning, everyone.

Good morning.

Jenny, could you give us a little more color on what you're seeing by region? I think Todd's comments around Europe were very interesting. Do you see that sort of turn as durable? And then your partners continue to do very well in APAC. Do you see still a good outlook for that in 26 and beyond?

Yeah, so just let me give you just kind of an overview of some of the market verticals by region. So as Todd mentioned, in North America, we're increasing our full year organic growth to 2.5% versus the prior guide of 2%. So again, industrial aerospace and defense growth is very strong. Gradual in-plant industrial recovery, positive sentiment from our distribution channel, continued quoting activity. As I mentioned, CapEx remains selective. It seems like a lot of their customers are prioritizing productivity and automation projects versus large capacity expansion. So we see that increased infrastructure spending will increase in-plant industrial equipment demand in the future. I mentioned transportation is most challenged in auto and trucks. Truck OEM recovery not expected this fiscal year, but will benefit from some aftermarket. And again, strength in construction, off-highway construction while ag still remains slow. Energy, power gen, very robust. Oil and gas is weak with upstream, but midstream is benefiting from some capital spending. HVAC is coming off of a strong fiscal year 25. Residential is down. but is more than offset with commercial HVAC and refrigeration. So this is what we see for North America. So international, we are increasing full-year organic growth to 2%, and that was previously 1%. So they did have a fantastic Q2. This was primarily from some large project shipments that went out. which really helped them. But we are increasing full-year FY26 organic growth for EMEA to low single digits. It was flat in our prior guide. Again, we see gradual improvement in transportation there, primarily on the truck side. We see continued strength in mining and energy, both oil and gas and PowerGen. And then we do see where the proposed stimulus and future defense spending is a long-term positive, but not seeing the impact of that this fiscal year. In Asia Pacific, we're increasing our full-year organic growth to positive mid-single-digit versus positive low single-digit in the prior guide. We're seeing continued strength with electronics and semiconductor demand. In plant orders and shipments, there's some progress there, but it still remains a little bit mixed. We're seeing some mining improvements in China. And I would say that there's still some continued uncertainty from tariffs across these markets. So that's really kind of a recap of what we're seeing in the regions.

Very helpful, Jenny. And then, Todd, you've continued to generate over 40% incremental margin. I know you've said, you know, you're still sort of guiding at 30 to 35. But, you know, as you look forward, you know, how long before, you know, after this good performance do you say to yourself, like, you can do over 40? And when you talk about price versus cost, is it better pricing? Is it execution? You know, what's sort of driving this performance?

Andy, thanks for noticing that. I'll tell you, it's not easy. It's a lot of hard work from our team members every day, every week, every month, every quarter. We are really proud to see what they've been able to put up there. We are guiding the second half at 35% incrementals really across the company. That puts the full company to 40 for the full year. We still think that that's best in class when you look at what's going on across the environment. We're really happy to see the industrial businesses pivot to positive organic growth. You know, those numbers are a little bit muted still. You know, so I think our guide is unchanged when it comes to what we think is best in class on the incrementals. You look at these margins. These margins are all-time highs across every business. It is great to see that work, and that's generating these results.

Strong operational execution.

Yeah. It's a litany of things. I couldn't even give you, like, you know, a list of the top three because it varies by business and it depends on what opportunities exist across each and every business.

Appreciate all the color.

Thanks, Andy.

Thank you. Our next question will come from Andrew Obin with Bank of America. Your line is open.

Yes, good morning. Good morning. Just a question on international growth. I think you may have answered it, but I think if you sort of do the math, it just seems that sequentially the growth is going to slow down to 2% at midpoint in the third quarter. And then I think the guide sort of implies it stays there in the fourth quarter. And I think it sort of alluded to large projects, but just thinking that the comp is similar from second quarter to third quarter, even easier in a two-year stack, would be conservative, or is there sort of specific dynamics taking place in international in 3Q and 4Q?

Yeah, Andrew, it was really, they did benefit in Q2 from the timing of some large project shipments, and that was primarily PowerGen and commercial HVAC filtration, and that was in EMEA. And that, you know, it kind of aligns with, you know, some of the choppiness of the orders from the prior year. So those aren't going to repeat in Q3. So we do, you know, forecast 2%, and that's based on, you know, a continued gradual change. industrial recovery.

Andrew, we basically have doubled the guide there. You know, we were one. We're now basically two. You look at that from what we thought would happen at the beginning of the year, we're pretty happy with what's going on there. The orders are also very impressive, but like we've kept saying is there are a number of longer cycle businesses that just don't necessarily need to ship in the second half of our fiscal year. We'll see those in the out months.

And also maybe sort of nitpicking here, but if you're sort of back into growth by end market, you know, you had a race for off-highway and aerospace and defense, but then the other segment sort of implies a big jump in the midpoint of the guy just to make the math work. You know, can you just comment? We're sort of thinking from plus 10 to, you know, sort of squiggle line 40. Can you comment on that? What's in the other segment if I'm doing the math right?

Yeah, I don't know if I'm following your math there, Andrew. Jenny went through the logic behind the increases that we've seen by market vertical. Obviously, aerospace continues to be stellar. You know we have a significant amount of aerospace in the industrial businesses. That was a driver, and we bumped up off-highway a bit.

Yeah, and one other thing to add, some of what sits in the other, obviously, is electronics. And what you see in there is some data center, which is still less than 1% of our sales, but it's been very strong. It's been some nice growth for us. So that may be part of what you're not seeing in our numbers.

Sounds like a great answer. Thanks so much.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question will come from Joe Ritchie with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Hi. Good morning, everyone.

Good morning.

So, Jenny, great colors always on the end markets. I guess just a broader question, you know, with reshoring and all the investment that's already occurred here in the U.S., like what's your, you know, I know it's hard to have a crystal ball, but like what's your take on what's happening with in-plant equipment in the U.S. You know, what gets it going? What are you guys looking at specifically as kind of leading indicators for the, like, short cycle inflection?

Yeah. So, you know, we get a lot of intel from distribution. And, you know, we continue to say that this is gradual. But the sentiment is still positive. And I've been saying that for quite some time because the distributors do talk a lot about all of the quoting activity. But, you know, I would say in the recent conversations, the CapEx remains selective. And, you know, the customers are prioritizing productivity and automation projects versus large-scale capacity expansion. And you see that in pockets, and that's, you know, why we consider it gradual, because you'll see some in different markets. And I think, you know, we're going to continue to see This gradual recovery, we're going to continue to see better numbers in some of these markets that we've talked about. But I don't know that there's just one catalyst to get this short cycle going. It's really, I think, a matter of taking out some of the noise that really doesn't have anything to do with the business, some of the geopolitical noise, tariffs, and maybe possibly interest rates as well.

Yeah, that makes sense. And then I guess maybe just for Todd, just a quick question. The aero business has been doing great. Margins were above 30% in the first half. The guidance implies a step down in the second half. Just anything we need to be aware of from Mick's standpoint and why they would step down in 2H?

No. We called out the high spares and repairs in Q2. Those are great. The business is high. It's hard to predict that going forward. So, you know, we've not put that into our forward guide there. But I would tell you the activity is robust. The team is doing a great job converting, serving our customers. And, you know, you look at those margins that we're forecasting, it's still showing 60 basis points improvement from prior year. And, you know, it's high 29, you know, mid 29.5 type range. So, yeah. you know, we feel pretty good about giving you a guide with those numbers.

Got it. Okay, thank you both.

Thank you. Our next question will come from Scott Davis with Mellius Research. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning, Jenny and Todd and Jeff. Congrats on the great start to the fiscal and calendar year here, a couple quarters in a row. Thank you. I know you guys don't love to talk about price, but given inflation, like recent commodity prices and some of your input costs, I'm sure even in things that may be derived from things like natural gas and obviously metals, but is it an increasing, are you able to drive price kind of in time? I know in some of your product, it runs through distribution. That's less of a challenge sometimes, but perhaps for a lot of the product goes through OE, it could be a little bit more of a challenge. Is there Some risk mitigation there that's going on at present. Are we being a little too paranoid or are you guys having to color that? That would be helpful. Thanks.

You know, with some of these commodity prices, Scott, we're handling this like we have any other inflation or issues that come about. You know, that pricing muscle is strong. And, you know, we've had a long, long history here of being able to handle these things. But it's ongoing, and I would say that it's, you know, nonstop, right? We have to respond to these things and make sure that they don't impact our EPS. And they haven't, and they won't.

Yeah, Scott, I would just, you know, you obviously are a follower of our margins. You can see our margins in every one of the businesses. posted a record margin number for the quarter. And I would tell you the eyes on cost and the eyes on price, you know, that's a muscle that never goes out of style, Harry Parker. So we're all over it.

Fair enough. And then just a quick follow-up. The timeline you give to closed filtration group, kind of six to 12 months, you could drive a bus through that. But what are the major gating factors, just kind of standard antitrust issues that could get pushed or pulled one direction or another? Are there other hurdles?

Yeah, no. Just the standard, you know, regulatory filings and the process that we have to go through.

Okay. Fair enough. Best of luck. Thank you, guys.

Thank you. Thanks.

Thank you. Our next question will come from Steve Tusa with J.P. Morgan. Your line is open. Steve, please make sure your phone is not on mute. We are hearing no response. We'll move to our next. Our next will come from Amit Mehrotra with UBS. Your line is open.

Buddy, I guess I just wanted to ask, I joined a little bit late, so forgive me if this is what I'm going to ask. But I want to talk about the 2Q performance, which obviously was better, and then how that corresponds to the full-year guidance increase. It doesn't seem like you assume much of the 2Q goodness into the second half. And then also – I'm sure you addressed this, so I apologize again, but talk about the North American margin decline a little bit for the full year and what the reason for that is.

I'll answer that question for you, and then Todd will follow up. So there's nothing about the North American margin other than Q2 mix was not as favorable as Q1. That's all that's there. Listen, Q2 is a record for us, 80 basis points of margin expansion, 52% incrementals. The team is performing very well. And for Q3, we increased the margin to 26%, so we took that up. And for the second half, you know, we're not reducing the North America margin.

Yeah, if you look at the second half, as Jenny said, you know, we're basically 26.5 for the second half for North America. That would be an all-time record for North America. and that would put the full year up 80 basis points. So, you know, I just reiterate what Jenny said. Q1 was exceptional. Q2 was a record, right?

Yeah, fair. Okay, totally get it. And then just maybe one other kind of bigger picture question, Jenny, related to that, the pricing commentary, I think to Scott's question. You know, if I just look at Parker's organic growth over the last decade, it's basically averaged a couple percent per year for the entire company. In fact, North American industrial has been a point and a half. And when you incorporate price, it's just the implied volumes are actually down over the last decade. I guess my first question is, do you agree with that observation? Is that a fair observation? And the second, maybe what explains that lack of volume? Or maybe we've been in an industrial recession for a decade. I don't know. But at some point, you know, price and margin get incrementally harder, and we just need to see some through-cycle volume growth. So I'd love to get your perspective on that.

Hey, this is Todd. I'll jump in. Jenny, you could add any color if you like. You know, when we look at what we are doing in North America, first of all, it's hard to look at the company over the last decade because the portfolio has changed tremendously. When you look at the three acquisitions, when you look at where our growth has been, way more engineered materials, way more filtration, and a heck of a lot more aerospace and defense within those industrial businesses. both in North America and international. You know, the company's never been more focused on organic growth. You know, we have a long-term target of four to six. We are guiding four to six this year. So we were right at our target. It has been, you know, two-plus years of choppiness in the industrial markets. So, you know, I would tell you the company's never been more aligned on organic growth. And I'm really proud that we're able to generate these record margins in a not-so-great organic growth environment. So I don't think there's too much to read in there. When you look at what we are doing from a margin and a conversion standpoint, you know, the team is really much driving great performance here.

Got it. Yep, agreed. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Our next question will be from Steve Tusa with Jake Newarkin. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning. Can you hear me now?

Yes, I see.

Great. Thanks a lot. A lot of questions have been answered, and there's a lot of good detail in the materials. Just curious on the construction side, you guys are like a little more positive than others. Is that just like the data center stuff, or are there other things you guys are seeing out there?

I would say that's a small part of it, but we're actually seeing an increase in the construction equipment.

Okay. And then just lastly, on the fourth quarter being a bit below consensus, anything to call out there mechanically as to why the fourth quarter is, I guess, just a little bit weaker than what we would have thought?

You know, I don't think there's anything – Steve, this is Todd. I don't think there's anything specific that we called out there. You know, when I look at what we have laid out here for the fourth quarter, every single number is an all-time record. The fourth quarter is normally our strongest quarter of the year. We are forecasting fourth quarter to be the strongest quarter of the year again. And, you know, I would tell you right now we're focused on Q3 and making sure we deliver our commitments for Q3, but there's nothing that has us concerned about Q4. No, no concerns.

Yeah, okay, thanks a lot.

Yep. Thank you. Once again, that is star one if you would like to ask a question. Our next question will come from Julian Mitchell with Barclays. Your line is open.

Hi, good morning. Maybe just to focus on some of the end market trends. So looking at slide 15, just wanted to understand perhaps, you know, when we look at the far right-hand side column of the full-year growth rates, When we look at Q4, sort of which of those growth rates, as you see it, are most different from the full year numbers, just trying to understand kind of inflections or changes or if it's easier to explain, you know, any color on how the first half trended for those respective markets beyond A&D.

Well, when you look at – let's just look at off-highway, for example. You know, we started off with negative low single digit on our initial guidance back in August, and then we moved it to neutral in Q1, and then we just moved it now to positive low single digit. So that just keeps going up. So that's one that I would highlight. And when you look at – Obviously, you pointed out aerospace. We're continuing to increase that. But when you look at the rest of the markets, the industrial markets, you know, they've remained the same. We've seen some bright spots within them that we've pointed out. But in plant and industrial, still seeing a positive low single digit. When you look at transportation, negative mixed single digit. Like we said, we're not seeing anything right now that would change our mind about that through this fiscal year. And then the same for energy and HVAC and refrigeration. We're maintaining those from initial guidance.

Got it. Thank you. Maybe within A&D, if you could just refresh us perhaps on the end market outlooks for the various pieces for fiscal 26. You know, another company talks about sort of normalization of outsized commercial era aftermarket growth, but I feel people have been guiding for that for sort of three years running now. So, yeah, just any thoughts around the market pieces of A&D?

You bet. So we expect commercial OEM to be around 20% growth. We previously had that at mid-teens. We expect commercial aftermarket to be at low double-digit growth. So we previously had that at high single-digit. So we just had 17% in Q2, and in Q1 that was 13%. So we still see strong commercial aftermarket. We expect defense OEM to be around mid-single-digit growth, which is the same as last quarter. And defense aftermarket is at low single-digit growth. That was previously at mid-single-digit growth, but still, you know, in a good spot, just a small change there.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question will come from Jeff Spray with Vertical Research Partners. Your line is open.

Hey, thank you. Good morning, everyone. Hi, Jeff. Hey. Hi, Jenny. Just want to come back to just kind of orders and sales. Obviously, kind of in the industrial businesses, we've got more long cycle, and we've talked about that a lot, including on the call here today. But I'm also just observing that, you know, orders have outpaced sales now for eight quarters, which I've never seen that long of a run. So maybe you could just speak to, you know, is it reasonable to think that those do reconnect at some point in time where there's just that much more long cycle stuff in the backlog and obviously at some point things will cycle and they'll cross over. But in terms of kind of, you know, them coming together during an up cycle, would you think we could continue to see kind of a persistent gap there?

You know, Jeff, it's a good question. I mean, we're clearly a longer cycle business today than we have been in the past. But it is hard to put a figure on conversion timing as, you know, it really is determined by the customer delivery schedule. We obviously, with higher aerospace and defense in the aerospace segment as well as in our industrial businesses, we do have, you know, a lot of multi-year orders that fall into those buckets. So that definitely has an impact. You know, and what we see from a short cycle standpoint is that, you know, I've mentioned a couple times is, you know, it's a gradual short cycle recovery, some markets sooner than others. You know, in plant, our distribution business, we think they're going to benefit from both CapEx and OpEx. So, again, I pointed out we saw low single-digit positive growth in the quarter, and those long cycle and secular trend businesses, you know, HVAC, Energy, they're continuing to really, you know, be strong. So, you know, record backlog, orders are in a good position, but hard to connect the dots there.

You know, Jeff, on the good side, it is giving us better visibility. It is allowing us to level load our operations. It is part of what's driving the consistency in our performance across all of the operating businesses. And, again, I think... not as much credit is given to the transformation of the portfolio. And, you know, like I said, we are a different company than we were two, three, five, ten years ago. So it's still an important metric. We watch it every day, as a matter of fact. And we're really happy that the orders have turned positive across every business, and it's a positive outlook for the future. Yeah.

Yeah, and we don't have the industrial backlog. I don't think if you could share it, that'd be interesting. But yeah, industrial backlog was down in Q1, right? But it looks to me if it was even flat sequentially here in Q2, then we're starting to get to backlog in industrial also inflecting higher. Is that sort of what you see in the business?

Yeah, I believe that's exactly what we're seeing here.

Industrial backlog has gone up in Q2. Yeah, industrial backlog went up. It remains in the mid-20s, and it grew from Q1 to Q2.

Okay. Yeah, which means then it's nicely up versus last year, which reflects the order versus sales gap. Great. No, I appreciate that color. Thanks a lot. Yes. Good questions, Joe.

Thank you. Our next question will come from Joe O'Day with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Hi. Good morning. I wanted to circle back to the in-plant comments and just customer prioritization of spend around productivity and automation over some of the capacity expansion. I think we've been in that kind of environment for some time at this point. Maybe just spend a little bit of time on what that means for their spend, like the wallet that goes to Parker, and when we think about it on the productivity and automation side versus the capacity expansion side. And if we were to see a pivot toward capacity expansion, what that would mean for you.

Well, you know, the good news is we participate in both scenarios, right? I mean, when there's any type of – retooling done or upgrading done or retrofitting done, our distribution channel and sometimes many of our divisions participate in that directly. And then some of the examples we've given in the past is when there is capacity expansion that is actually new factory, new building, we're participating from the time that they start clearing the land and all the way through the You know, putting the walls up, putting the infrastructure in. So Parker gets a nice share of the wall in both situations. It is just still a gradual recovery, though. You know, and our distributors, again, positive sentiment, working with a lot of those small and mid-sized OEMs. They're participating in these things. They're ready. They're ready to participate at a higher level. But right now what we have for them is, you know, We see for industrial growth, it's about 2% to 2.5%.

Got it. And then just on your own CapEx plans, you raised the guide a little bit last quarter, maintained it this quarter. It's up about $100 million year over year, so some nice growth there. You know, maybe just elaborate on that and whether there's anything on the capacity expansion side. Is any of that targeted around kind of as you're starting to highlight off-highway a little bit and then some of the activity you're seeing there? Just understand where that higher spend is going.

Yeah, we are definitely investing in our businesses. We have investment around automation and productivity, and we do have capacity expansion on both sides of the business. So it's important to us to be able to keep up the level of service and world-class manufacturing. And as our team use Kaizen tools to improve the processes that we have, we're always looking to make those processes better. So a lot of investment in our factories.

Got it. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question will come from Chris Snyder with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Thank you. So I kind of want to follow up on some of the earlier conversation around cycle trends. You know, you guys have as broad exposure as anybody, both on an end market but also a geographic basis. So just kind of maybe simply, when you look across all this exposure, is there anything that you think will be worse a year from now, you know, where you're seeing signs that there's pointing to next 12-month deterioration? Thank you.

I don't see anything now, or I'm not hearing anything, or I don't see any indicators that would cause us to think that the forecast we have out there now for these market verticals is going to get worse. I don't see anything.

Yeah, Chris, you know, we called out backlog in total. Backlog is a record. Orders have been positive for some time now. Historically, that has been a positive sign for future growth for Parker Hannaford.

Yeah, no, no, absolutely. Just wondering if there was anything that wasn't like stable to improving. And then I guess maybe just following up on that, it seemed like at least a good chunk of the North America order pick up with some of the longer cycle businesses. But did the shorter cycle businesses also see positive rate of change on orders in any color on the specific end marks? I would imagine, you know, construction and some of them were seeing momentum. Thank you.

Yeah, we definitely saw some positive orders in plant and off-highway and energy. So definitely. It wasn't all aerospace and defense, but there were some multi-year aerospace and defense orders that hit our industrial businesses that, you know, really caused that jump from 3% to 7%. But positive orders in plant, off-highway, and energy.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Hey, Katie, this is Todd. I think we have time for maybe one more question before we wrap it up at 12.

Thank you. Our last question will come from Brett Lindsey with Mizzouho. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning, all. One of the follow-up on filtration group, I imagine the teams are already getting a running start on some of the integration and pre-planning. Any early observations on confidence around cost synergies? And then as you've been mapping the combination, any early view on the sales synergy side?

Thanks for the question, Brett. As I said, we're just really excited about the filtration group. So we are very confident in our ability to deliver that $220 million in synergies by the end of year three. Part of our diligence process was several plant visits, and that's what gives us that confidence. We are working with the team. We don't own them yet, so we're building relationships. We're getting that integration playbook going. We have the integration team assembled here on the Parker side and will shortly with the filtration group side, but really feel very confident about the synergies. We didn't model any revenue synergies, but we feel that there's opportunities to utilize the customer relationships that we both have to deliver value to customers. So we think that that is, you know, going to give us some upside. And then, you know, we'll look at the distribution networks and, you know, see what makes sense and learn and, you know, be focused on our organic growth with this acquisition just like we have the last.

That's great. And then just a quick follow-up. So just close the loop on tariffs, so Calendar 25 in the books. Can you update us on what the annualized tariff expense that you absorbed? And as you've progressed through the mitigation measures, is it fair to think that as you get into the second half of Calendar 26 that you do have the potential to drive better than normal incrementals as you're lapping some of that expense pain?

Hey, Brett, this is Todd. You know, the tariffs obviously – have been pretty volatile. I don't want to make any predictions on what's going to happen with tariffs or what has happened with tariffs. I would just tell you, rest assured that we have it covered. You have not heard us call out any negative impact from tariffs. You look at these margins. These margins are all-time records. We're really positive now that a majority of the company has returned to positive organic growth. And we're going to manage whatever happens as it happens and just be as clear and as transparent with our customers as we possibly can be. So that's the way we're running it. That's right.

All right. Congrats on the quarter.

Thanks. Thank you. All right, Katie, I think this wraps up our time here. This concludes our FY26 Q2 earnings release webcast. We do appreciate everyone's time and attention. We thank you for joining us today. If there are any needs for follow-ups or clarifications, our investor relations team will be available as usual. Jeff Miller and Jenna Stuckey will be available for any kind of follow up that's needed. Thank you, everyone, and have a wonderful day.

Thank you. This concludes today's call. We appreciate your time and participation. You may now disconnect.