Okay, well, gonna go ahead and get it kicked off here. Thanks for joining us this morning. My name is Luke Junk. I cover vehicle tech and mobility for Baird, and we're very pleased to have CTS with us today. CTS is a leader in products that sense, connect, and move, sold into many end markets, including transportation, aerospace and defense, industrial, and medical. Joining us for today's presentation, we have Kieran O'Sullivan, CEO. You can send me any questions that you've got via the web portal. I'll work them in as we have time. But with that, I'll turn it over to Kieran for the presentation today.
Great. Thank you, Luke, and good morning, everybody, and thank you for joining us. You can see hopefully my presentation's gonna move forward here. Hang on. Yeah, good. You can see the safe harbor statement here, but just while you're looking at that, our focus on growth, our strategy on growth is focused on diversification across end markets of medical, industrial, aerospace, and defense, but also on electrification and leveraging our balance sheet. So if you look here, you can see the profile of the company. Our revenue in the last 12 months, $550 million, down from where it was in the prior year, mostly driven by softness in end markets in non-transportation.
And while our mix of businesses was more like 50/50, transportation and non-transportation, back over 12 months ago, you can see now non-transportation is reduced to about 45% of overall revenue, and we see that as a temporary thing. It's gonna be with us for a few more quarters, but as the end markets correct from inventory in industrial, aerospace and defense, and medical, we'll see that correct over time. And our adjusted margin, EBITDA margin of 22%, you know, lower than where we've been. We've been as high as 23%. And our revenue, 53%, mostly in North America, 22% in Europe and Asia, in that 25% range, sometimes closer to 30, and you can see the end market mix here as well.
But our strategy is focused on products that sense, connect, and move, and that's where we deploy our talent and where we deploy our capital, and later on, I'll get back into how we deploy that capital in a little bit more detail as well. You can see here, we're targeting 10% growth. We haven't delivered that consistently in the last year, obviously, with the down market, but targeting 5% organic and 5% through acquisitions. The important thing to know about us is that we make highly engineered products for our customers, and we've a long-standing customer base. And the mega trends in terms of automation, healthcare innovation with minimally invasive procedures, and electrification are those secular tailwinds that we're working with as well.
We have a strong new product pipeline in each of the end markets from eBrake to medical and some other things that we're doing, and I'll come back to that in more detail as well. From a diversification perspective, we're deploying most of our capital in non-transportation markets, but we wanna have a strong and healthy transportation market, so we are deploying capital like we did last year with a small acquisition in Switzerland on EV technologies that we believe will sustain over time. Now, I know many of you are reading out there that EV has softened, and what's gonna happen next? It's...
You know, when I look at it, I look at the world of ESG, and I say, "Okay, there are different things that have happened in that ESG framework over the last few years," but one thing is for sure, sustainability will continue to be strong as part of ESG. When I see the electrification trend soften a little bit, we still believe as a company, this is the direction that the transportation market will continue to grow over time. We've got a strong balance sheet and cash flow, which can support our organic investments and our acquisitions, and we have an open buyback that we announced in our last earnings call as well. Good footprint globally. We really think that's important for serving our customers on a global basis. Strong leadership team, good execution, and good organizational capabilities.
We are focused on a kind of four initiatives internally as a company: profitable growth, that's organic, acquisitions, and pruning the portfolio as appropriate, but also focused on closer relationships with our customers, so we're solving their problems in the smartest way. An operation we call continuous improvement in terms of driving as a manufacturing company. You've always got to be driving improvement in costs and quality and innovation. And then, of course, focusing on the organization with talent and culture, and culture is an important part of sustaining a company over time, especially in the last few years, post-COVID, as we've had to deal with many, many difficult situations. That culture of the company becomes so important in terms of sustaining our capabilities over time. If you look here in terms of the secular themes that we're focused on, it's automation.
When we look at Industry 4.0, what we're doing in terms of IoT applications and factory automation, what are we doing on passenger safety, where you're reducing accidents and deaths on the road? And that's where our passive safety products come into play. And then, more recently, in the last number of years, we're focused on defense automation with unmanned underwater applications, and we're seeing this as a strong growth area for us as we go forward as well.... On healthcare innovation, improved diagnostics with ultrasound, but also with therapeutics and what we're doing in that area. Minimally invasive applications, which means the patient can recover much faster in a shorter period of time in the hospital, and then right down to patient experience in terms of what we do in terms of incubators, temperature-controlled or dental equipment, what we do in that application as well.
And then finally, on sustainability, in terms of electrification, what we're doing in terms of light vehicle, reduced emissions in commercial vehicle applications and then also looking at scarce resources like water, how we measure and help improve in those areas with the products we have in terms of sensors and transducers as well. Moving to the next slide. Again, a little bit of a busy slide, but I wanna really simplify this for you. If you look at what we have as a capability as a company, what is the value we bring to our customers? It's primarily around magnetics and advanced ceramics. So when you think about magnetics, it's what we do, it's we package sensing in safety-critical and harsh environments.
That's what we do, whether it's in the passive safety, whether it's on the chassis, whether it's connected to the drivetrain, and our products are, for the most part, diagnostic from the powertrain. That'll change a little bit over time. And then, if you come below that, you see the advanced ceramics. And what people don't understand about us is that we have three technologies: bulk processing foundry that we have in Albuquerque, New Mexico; tape casting that we have in a few locations in Europe; and then single crystal, which is primarily for medical and defense applications, which we have in the Chicago area as well. So you can see here the different technologies.
I won't go through them all here, but the key theme is a competence in magnetics and advanced ceramics for application in transportation, medical, aerospace and defense, and industrial applications as well. On the next slide, you can see the evolution of our company over time. You can see our revenue here back in 2017 was $423 million to $550 million last year. First of all, we had some softness in the market in 2023. In 2022, we were higher than the $550 million. But the real theme that we're bringing out here is that transportation was 65% of the portfolio, reduced to 55%.
Over time, we believe transportation will be less than 50% of the revenue of the company as we grow more in industrial, aerospace, and defense, and medical markets. We believe two things: number one, we're gonna have a strong transportation and a healthy business as we go forward with our, with our products and our applications. But also, we believe we can command a higher premium in those non-transportation markets, and the multiple of the company, as we expand those markets, will increase over time, and that's something we're very focused on as part of our strategy to grow the company in revenue, but also to grow it in terms of quality of earnings and the valuation we get for the total company as well. Moving into each of the end markets, you can see here the industrial market, close to $3 billion opportunity for us.
A few areas that we focus on, sustainability with our HVAC applications, mostly temperature sensing in this case. Micro-positioning for applications in the semiconductor is one example of what we do with our microactuators. Smart metering for scarce resources like water, where you've got products that were more like mechanical impellers being replaced over time by our fly-by-wire applications using ultrasonic technology. And then industrial actuation, really powering industrial printing, not just on packaging, but on ceramics as well. And we've talked in the last year that we've seen some softness in the market for these products in both China and Europe, and we're seeing that slowly starting to rebound as we get into 2024 here as well. But you can see here, we're focused on efficiency, on material capability, and then integrating into sensors and transducers as well.
Moving to the medical markets, again, about a slightly smaller market, about $1.5 billion, and you can see our growth rates as well. Strong growth here around the ultrasound modality, but also again, backed by our competence in ceramic materials. And to give you just a few examples here, intravascular ultrasound, where you're getting in to the arteries and measuring the buildup of plaque to predict what's gonna happen here and help patients. High-resolution ultrasound, not just in the fixed applications, but over time, this will move more and more into mobile applications for full 3D video capability. On the bottom left, you'll see here wireless pacemaking, where our products are used. A smaller market for us, but eliminating the need for wires and the complications for surgery and recovery as well.
And then finally, on the right-hand side here at the bottom, you can see drug applications. So using our ultrasound technology to drive the therapeutics, or in this case, the drugs that are needed to the infected area, be that a tumor or something else, that the doctor and the surgeons are trying to heal in a very, very targeted area, which is where our application comes into play as well. Then moving to the aerospace and defense. And just maybe a reminder for the audience out there, we're primarily defense. We have some aerospace, but primarily defense.
Just less than $1 billion, good growth rate here, and mid-single digits, and the focus that's helping us is that increase in defense that unfortunately, some of it's driven by what's going on geopolitically at the moment, but it's a very solid market for us. Also expansion into European tier ones here for the defense market through some of our acquisitions that we've done in the last few years. You can see here some of the applications, primarily with underwater sonar, and they're both forward-looking arrays and towed arrays. Space temperature applications in mission critical satellites, and then in terms of defense, in radar applications for our ceramic products, in anti-jamming applications. Finally, on aerospace, where we have some sensors and transducers in the vibration applications as well.
So a really good, solid market for us, and we've been very clear on our last few earnings calls that what we're seeing both in medical on the last slide and in defense, solid growth, expected continued growth in these markets as we go forward. Moving to the transportation side and focusing mostly here on the light vehicle side, you can see here close to a $3 billion market opportunity for us. You know, some decrease in revenue, as we talked about in the fourth quarter of last year, where we had some softness, especially driven by commercial vehicle side of this, and then estimated mid-single-digit growth going forward.
On the middle of this chart, you'll see our traditional products, which go into not just ICE engines, but have been going into hybrid applications and some electrical applications over the last five, 10 years as well. Then on the right-hand side, some of the future products, as an example, e-Brake. So when we look at that application, it opens up an $800 million opportunity for us with the brake as they go by wire. So over time, the booster pumps, the fluids, this application is gonna change, and we've got our first wins in this area with an OEM. We're in discussions with several other OEMs here, building samples as we move forward, so we're very excited about what's happening here.
Also, with our drive pad technology, this is something that you're not gonna see in vehicles until later in this decade. But spending a lot of time with OEMs in terms of the footwell, and as vehicles become more autonomous, how the footwell will become more important from a safe space perspective, but also from a safety perspective, because now you're going flush almost in the footwell with this application. Current sensing has been a really strong growth area for us. We've had a lot of wins in this space, and we have a large pipeline of new opportunities that we're actively working on. This space is changing over time in terms of the need for more precision in what we're doing.
As we look forward, we have some new technology we're not exactly talking about openly there at the moment, but we're sharing it with our customers in terms of not just current sensing, but position sensing and how we combine those with integrated sensors and what we can do from a software perspective. So we're really excited with some of our new technology in this area. And then finally, motor position sensing, which is closely linked, where we talked about our first development awards with an OEM in the last year. So we see this as a great content increase for us as we go forward, adding about $1 billion to our SAM. So a strong focus on this area.
But just also to be clear, as we talked in the fourth quarter earnings call back in February, earlier in February, we talked about we're gonna see softness this year in the commercial vehicle market, which will impact us. We saw a similar softness back in 2019, and of course, we're also dealing with competition as like we are with all vehicle customers as we go forward, too. Then moving to our execution capabilities, our mission is to help our partners develop smart solutions. We want to solve their problems. You can see here we've made a lot of improvements over the last number of years on our adjusted gross margin. That has...
We've spoken very clearly in the last few earnings calls, that has come down a little bit because the mix of transportation has gotten higher, so that's pulled the gross margin down. So want to be very clear, that's going to be a little bit of a headwind for a few quarters, but we're very confident this will correct as we see the rebound in the industrial market in the second half of this year and then into 2025. We've got a strong balance sheet, our free cash flow is strong, about 106% of adjusted net earnings.
You can also see that we're making a lot of investments on the front end of the business, not just with our sales and product teams, but making sure we're adding training to be more effective in this area, and having both resident and application engineers really focused on providing those smart solutions. We've completed eight acquisitions over the last number of years, we feel very good about these acquisitions and how they're performing. I will be rather frank with you here. You know, we didn't get a lot done in acquisitions in 2023, and, you know, when I look at it from a scorecard, from my perspective, it's a red from my perspective. We've got a good balance sheet, and we want to deploy it-...
but we're gonna deploy it on the right acquisitions, and so you'll see us be pretty disciplined in this area, and make sure it's in line with our strategy. And we're not gonna vary from where we are, have been focused and will focus going forward as well. Moving to the capital allocation framework, you can see here not only a strong balance sheet but operating cash flow at a 15%-17% of sales. The leverage ratio 1-2.5. Just to be very clear, we're well below the 1 at the moment, so we're under-levered at this point in time, and it's something we wanna correct with the right acquisitions, which is our primary focus.
But also, we are trying to be more disciplined in returning to share value to shareholders, and in the last earnings call, we announced $100 million share buyback program as well. CapEx has traditionally been in the 4% range. A few years ago, it went up closer to 5%-6% as we rolled out SAP for a number of years across the organization. And then we're focused obviously on, on giving back cash to the shareholders, but primarily through acquisitions, but dividend and share buyback as well.
So you can expect us to be disciplined in this, and as I mentioned, in terms of the allocation of capital, we will target some very clear investments through M&A in our mobility of transportation markets, but the larger portion will go into the non-transportation markets, both in terms of medical, aerospace, and defense, and industrial as well. From an M&A perspective, you can see different things here. We're very disciplined about getting a return on investment above our cost of capital within a period of time, usually around three years, making sure the acquisitions are accretive. But you can see here, we're trying to enhance our technology portfolio, expand our product range, strengthen the customer base, and again, very much focused on those end markets.
How are we going to achieve our diversification of having more than 50% of our revenue come from non-transportation markets? An important aspect here also is that we have attractive financials. As you have seen over the last 5-10 years, we've taken our gross margin up significantly. We're not out there looking for businesses that are fixer-uppers. We're looking for high-quality, good-performing businesses with a propensity towards very solid growth as we go forward as well. Just as an example here on acquisitions, you can see here just two examples of how we approach it in the non-transportation space. First of all, our bulk processing technology. In 2016, we added the single-crystal technology, which brought us both capabilities for medical and also for defense now, about 5 years later. So this is a well-performing acquisition.
I continue to be pleased with it. The Noliac acquisition in Denmark, bringing in both tape casting technology, but a focus on Europe in terms of sensors and transducers, industrial, but also into defense applications, and that was further enhanced by the acquisition of Ferroperm from Meggitt back in 2022, bringing in medical therapeutics and European defense. So you can see here how we're building out a platform on our non-transportation across our ceramics technology, and also expanding it into our diversification in industrial, aerospace, and defense, and medical.
On the bottom, you can see this is where we actually take our expertise in ceramics and say, "Hey, we can move into adjacent markets," and now get into sensing technologies and temperature with the acquisition of QTI, bringing us into industrial applications, but then also with Sensor Scientific into medical applications, and then with TEWA in Poland into industrial, but also expanding our footprint regionally in line with our strategy as well. So, a very clear path of how we're doing things. And then in the last year, you're not seeing it in this slide, we acquired maglab in Switzerland in 2023 in the first quarter, which gave us a nice complement to strengthen our focus in terms of current sensing and motor position sensing.
As I mentioned earlier, that's been really performing well for us, and it's been a great acquisition, and it's in the very early stages still. Then starting to begin to wrap up the presentation here. You can see here, our guide for the year revenue in the $530 million-$570 million. So basically, what we're indicating is coming out of 2023, a pretty, pretty flat market in terms of how we're moving forward with the end markets correcting, but again, still solid growth in medical and in defense applications. And you can see here our EPS guide as we go forward as well. So stable medical and aerospace, softness in industrial, and we expect the market to respond in the second half of the year.
We expect commercial vehicle to be challenging for most of the year, and light vehicle, somewhere, kind of flat, maybe marginally down as well, and the tax rate, as you see. Then finally, the last two slides, you can see our long-term framework in terms of revenue growth, adjusted gross margin in the 35%-38%, and scaling on the SG&A as we grow the company, and R&D in the 5%-7% range in CapEx, as I called out earlier in the presentation. Then finally, just to wrap it up here from an ESG perspective, we've got a strong board, a very diversified board, really complementary in terms of helping the leadership in the company. And you may have noticed, we added a new director recently with a lot of strength in the medical area.
Again, from a sustainability perspective, very much focused on electrification, reducing harmful emissions, and what our medical products do in terms of a minimally invasive innovation and applications across the company. Then finally, you know, one thing I'm really proud about is all our employees around the world, for many years, and long before it was popular, giving back to our communities and those less fortunate as well. With that, Luke, I'm gonna pause here and see what questions we have.
Okay, great. Well, thank you for the presentation here. We've got about five minutes for questions here, so I wanna start with your transportation business and EV investments. On the slide here, you highlight the 40 new wins for electrified platforms in 2023. Hoping you could just speak to the breadth of that in terms of products, customers, and ultimately geography as well.
Yeah, Luke, and when we look at it in terms of products, what people sometimes don't realize that these are the newer products, but the traditional products like chassis ride height sensing, accelerator modules, passive safety, they all transfer over into electrified applications as well. And then with e-Brake, we had our first awards on that in the last year. Motor current sensing, multiple awards on that. Motor position sensing, moving in a very positive direction. So, you know, I've never felt better about the portfolio than where we are today for the transportation market. And then from a regional perspective, I would say much stronger in both North America and Europe, but very focused in terms of what we're doing in China primarily.
We're strong with the Japanese transplants as well, but in China, some very selective local OEMs, and then, certain JVs with OEMs out of North America, Europe, and Japan as well. So, but the stronger mix being in North America and Europe, to your question.
Okay. And then, you know, I think you're... It sounds like you're feeling good from a company-specific standpoint around electrification, that there's macro elements going on here as well. I think you've got a target for 25% of your light vehicle sales to be electrified. Can you just speak to what we're seeing in terms of EV moderation right now, just how that impacts your expectations for CTS?
Yeah. So, look, in terms of that 25% goal for all electrified platforms, we're feeling very good about being on track for that and moving in the right direction. To your point, the softness that we're reading about in the markets and in the newspapers, which is real, obviously, and different in each of the end markets or regions, I should say, we're seeing that actually having more of an impact probably in the 2026-2028 period, where, you know, how people are adjusting their new platforms and what they're committing to or not. So that's where we're keeping the closest eye on that. But we're on the right trajectory to keep moving above that 25%.
What about capital allocation? So you spoke to the overall approach of the company, you know, weighted towards, you know, being a consistent acquirer and then returns of capital. What I'm wondering is, you know, your goal to increase EV sales mix while reducing the overall exposure to transportation, maybe we could use the acquisition of maglab last year just as a lens to reconcile those two things, Kieran?
Yeah, we're obviously deploying most of the capital to the non-transportation market. We've been clear on that. But we are very committed to having a strong transportation business, a strong electrified platforms. So the maglab acquisition is just, it's just a really good example. It was a small business with a lot of technical competence, literally zero revenue, maybe a few hundred K of revenue, very light. But the amount of wins we've had with that acquisition by integrating it into CTS, and then the backlog of quotes that we're working on, has been really strong. So we're actually very targeted in the transportation space in terms of what we want to do.
The other thing is, with what we've done in the past and with this acquisition, the innovation center that we have, and dedicated resources to that, is where we get a lot of our capabilities for new products as well. I'll give you an example, not just current sensing, but we've got a technology that we call Cobras technology for combining current position and using software, and to provide greater accuracy in new products that we'll be bringing to the market, probably about two years out. So feeling, feeling really good about what we're doing there.
Okay, great. Well, I think we have time for one more question, so I'll sneak it in here. You spoke to your view on the transportation business this year. Hoping you could also just speak to industrial and specifically channel impacts real time in the first half of 2024?
Yeah, Luke, that's a challenging question because I feel like last year, you know, I got it... I feel personally, I got it wrong in terms of, we started out the year by saying it was gonna be soft, but we should see some recovery, and we came out in February and just gave the very same message. However, what I would say is in these channel markets and industrial, we have seen the inventory being burning down quarter-over-quarter, some of the distributors are in different situations, same for the OEMs in the industrial space. We talked in the last earnings call about some green shoots, but they're too early to call strong positives, but we still see the trend towards the second half of the year improving.
Okay, great. Well, unfortunately, we're out of time. Kieran, thank you for the presentation today, and thanks to everyone that joined us as well. Thank you.
Thank you, Luke. Thanks, everyone.