All right, I think we're gonna get restarted here. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Brian Brophy. I'm a research analyst here at Stifel. Very pleased to have MSA Safety join us today. We have Lee McChesney, the CFO. Lee, welcome.
Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having us.
Absolutely. So for those less familiar with MSA, can you give us an overview of what you do, some of your key products and markets you serve?
Yeah. Thank you, Brian. Sure, I'll hit some quick points here for sake of time, but the company is a 110 years old, based in Western Pennsylvania, and we're all about safety, as the name may imply, MSA Safety. I always like to tell our first product was basically to keep people safe in mines. It was basically an electric cap light for mines. Two mine engineers and Thomas Edison created the product, and that really began our journey about keeping people safe so they can go home each and every day to their family and to their communities. That mission is what we've been following here a hundred and ten years later. Certainly over the last ten years, we've had a focus strategy really around three businesses.
So, you know, we're proud to certainly really protect firefighters all over the globe, what they wear, what they use to breathe. So it's a large business. It's a business that almost doubled in size over the last decade. Next up is the detection business. Now, the detection business, think about, there's a fixed component to it, and there's also a portable piece. So basically, imagine protecting people to make sure they don't breathe things they shouldn't breathe, or some type of thing that could lead to a combustible event. So we make all types of sensors in different applications across many diverse industries. Big second of our business as well. And then finally, you know, industrial head protection and fall protection as part of our industrial PPE are our two biggest categories there.
We're certainly known for our hard hats. Depending on where you are in the world, very likely that if you go... you look at a job site of some sort, or, you know, any type of environment where work's done, you know, they're probably wearing an MSA hard hat. But the business we've really been focused on growing even more over the last several years has been the fall protection business, and we do that because still today, falls are the number one thing that really every company is trying to come to grips with, how do we improve that scenario? So we do all that in those three businesses. I think I started with the mission. I mentioned the businesses. Where we focus, how we do this, is really by focusing on innovation. Again, as a company, only focused on safety.
In many cases, if you go to those segments we're in, we're known as having really, probably the best solution out there, and it's why we've, you know, we really have a strong market position in all those areas, and that's really ultimately how we serve that mission, keeping people safe. Just keep coming up with better ways to protect people.
That's great. Yeah, we're gonna dive into each of those segments you mentioned. First, wanted to start it off with safety standards.
Obviously, safety is a really big part of the story.
Yeah.
Can you talk about the regulatory environment around safety standards, compliance standards? Are they changing over time, and what does that mean in terms of growth driver for your business?
Yeah, sure. So, I mean, safety regulations are certainly helpful to our business. You certainly have seen a combination of, you know, some increasing standards based on some events that maybe have happened in the world on an unfortunate level. But you also just see broadly more focus on safety, so, protecting the employee. So I think that was even happening kind of pre-COVID. I think COVID's even accelerated that more today. So again, whether it's being mandated by, you know, local or federal law, or it's frankly, a company saying, "Hey, our safety standards around the globe are gonna be the same." So that site, no matter where that plant is, has to have the same safety standard. We're gonna ra-...
You know, we're gonna really rally the organization around that, so we can improve our safety, you know, our safety rates and things like that. You know, that, that again, that is a positive, and I think we don't really care, you know, where the source is. We, we just love the fact that there's more focus on safety today, and I'd say there's just a broader evolution as well, where, you know, it used to be a little bit just, "Hey, let's make sure if something happens, people are protected, make sure they're wearing the right gear." There's a lot of also focus on how do we prevent these incidents from ever occurring. So yes, we'll protect them in the case they do, but let's really cut down on these incidents from ever occurring.
And, you know, things like our detection line are really helpful. So just some really good trends overall as we look forward.
That's great. Yeah, gonna dive into the segments here. So starting off with fire safety, wanted to talk about the SCBA replacement cycle.
Mm-hmm.
Can you talk about where that is today? Obviously, we saw a big surge in the cycle post 9/11.
Mm-hmm.
Another surge post the G1 announcement and introduction about 10 years ago. Typically, firehouses talk about replacing SCBA every 12-15 years.
How do you think about the replacement cycle today, and how should investors be thinking about it?
Yeah, so it's certainly important to note, it can certainly, in the end, as each new standard comes out, it goes actually to some of the things we just talked about. There's likely an error that's been identified for, and, you know, that has the benefits from a safety perspective, maybe from an ease of use unique, right? In the end, these standards come together by getting input from the manufacturers, and then ultimately, the users, the firefighters, the representatives coming together and defining what the standard is. So you, as you said, this happens about every five or six years. You mentioned in 2014 , there was a pretty significant change in what was required to sell a, you know, an SCBA that met that standard.
That was, in the end, a really good thing for us. It required, you know, quite a transformation in what the SCBA did. Ourselves and Scott were initially really the only groups that could meet that standard, and that was certainly, I think, good for both groups. Though, what will happen, as you noted, every six years there will be a change, so that we are coming to a point just about this year, where there will be an alignment on a new standard for the SCBA. You know, that will get announced. There's a period of time for transition. What we see right now is it's one that's more incremental than a significant one.
So, you know, if you're in the marketplace today, you would still, you know, still likely buy what's available today. But at some point, you know, you could have a pause where you might say, "I'm gonna wait until, you know, everyone's providing something at that next standard." 'Cause generally, you know, the larger departments don't wanna be really more than two specifications out with what their, you know, a firefighter is using and things like that. So it will come to market. It will not have the same effect as it did in 2014 . Maybe the next one after that will be, but, you know, there's things in there about cleaning, your ease of use, and things like that. You know, we're ready to meet that standard as soon as it gets finalized here.
That's great. Yeah, that's really helpful. Just wanted to talk about the funding environment as it relates to fire safety. What is the general environment at the moment? Y ou guys have also talked about AFG funding, a little bit of timing movement there- potentially impacting the back half of this year. Can you give us an update there?
Sure. Sure. Yeah, so around the world, you know, funding for firefighters is typically coming from a, you know, a mix of different governmental sources, so it could be at the federal level. Again, it varies by country. In some cases, the fire department's part of the military. In some cases, you know, it's obviously local. But you have funding at the federal level. You have funding at the state level, sometimes the city level. Big sources in the largest market today, you know, certainly a federal component, and then there's obviously dollars at the local level. We just talked about this recently in July. The dollars for the Assistance to Firefighters Grant, which is a big dollar flow that we have in the U.S., was the dollars were just released for use this year.
This year, it's a little bit later than it was last year, but I wouldn't say it's, you know, unusually late compared to, you know, an average year or things like that. That can be a little bit challenging this year versus last year, 'cause it just closes down the timeframe of how quickly can the dollars be released, people place orders, you know, can we manufacture in time and, you know, get a certain amount into the third quarter and the fourth quarter. In the end, the projects will come because the dollars are there. The other thing that was good with that funding approval, there was also subsequently an agreement to really keep that same dollar flows occurring for the next three years.
So, you just broadly across the globe, you know, firefighters are usually supported, you know, no matter what's going on with the economy. So it's a good thing for us because it means this, that part of the business for MSA is fairly resilient. So borrowing maybe some of this timing that can happen from quarter to quarter, if you step back for us, you know, that environment really gives us this, you know, this mindset where we can have more mid-single-digit growth consistently in the firefighter business. So, at this point, funding is, funding's secure, and just gotta navigate the market in terms of timing and things like that.
Yeah. Another topic I wanted to talk on timing.
Mm-hmm.
You announced a large win with the Air Force on the SCBA side.
Yeah.
Can you give us a sense of size of that order, cadence? How much have you realized to date? How much is left? How does it impact comps and growth rates?
Yeah.
How should we think about that?
Sure. So, you know, like a lot of groups, there's an interest to have a standard. You know, a lot of things done in a safety standard are by organizations, whether they're government organizations, whether they're corporations, safety is really about establishing a standard, making sure people follow that standard. One of the things that certainly the Air Force is trying to do is to find the next standard, and then universally, across any Air Force base you went to, make sure you have the same breathing apparatus for all the firefighters to use, 'cause certainly you can imagine people ebb and flow from different sites, depending on what's going on. So what's happened to date is we did win the first tranche of $35 million last year.
That came through our results in the third and fourth quarter of last year and the first quarter of this year. And then we had built into our outlook there would be a second tranche. Because we won the first tranche, you're gonna standardize around that, seemed like a safe assumption. But like always, the timing can be a little bit flexible. So, right before we had our second quarter earnings release, we got notification we won another $28 million of business from the Air Force. And right now, we're just working through when that will ship. So we had, you know, obviously a generic assumption in our math. We don't give out quarterly guidance. We kind of give out more bit longer term. So we know the $28 million is coming.
You know, some will be in 3Q, some will be in 4Q, maybe even some will be in the first quarter of 2025. But, and we're delighted that we were selected to do this, and, you know, we're focused on making sure we deliver it to the, the government schedule, and then there's always a part of this where it's making sure they come up to speed, you know, training-wise and things like that, so that, you know, as soon as they're, they want to, you know, we help them really get ready to bring it to market.
Yeah, that's great. That's a really helpful color. I wanna pivot, stay within fire safety.
Mm-hmm.
Talk about turnout gear for a second. What are you seeing from a growth standpoint there?
Yeah.
It also seems like there's been a discussion for a while about firefighters potentially getting two sets of gear.
Mm-hmm.
Some of the PFAS impact is playing into that as well. Maybe that's something you can touch on, but what is driving some of the factors in turnout gear that we're seeing today?
Sure. So, give you a bit of history. So if you go back 10 years ago. You know, we are primarily, from the firefighter perspective, really focused on the breathing apparatus. And what we've done over the last decade is add a couple acquisitions. So we added here in Europe, we added Bristol for their gear, and then we added Globe in the United States. And loved the characteristics of the business, right? So, you know, imagine in the past, we would go and, you know, help them on the SCBA front. You know, the gear is a regular interaction. You know, you may interact with a different department quarterly through our distribution network on what they need to keep that going. So we like that.
Number one, just the kind of recurring nature of that business. It's a deeper relationship with the end user. That business has been really a good growth driver for us. So, there have been a couple of challenges from the supply chain over the last few years. You know, it's amazing, you might not think that reflective material or certain threads would be challenged by the COVID era, but they certainly were. So other than that, we've had a really nice growth out of that business. It's actually been probably one of our faster-growing categories over the last several years. Now, you know, I think there's a mix of reasons. That's you know, competing in the marketplace and, you know, trying to win market share.
But as you said as well, there has been more focus on the idea of cleaning the gear more often. So certain parts of the world, certain cities in the world, have a protocol where they have a second set of gear. Again, in order to wash the material, you need to have a second set of gear 'cause you gotta be ready every any day of the year. And I think, you know, we have seen that come through. I think there will potentially be more of that over time here. Now, you mentioned, you know, the topic of PFAS as well. So today, to meet the standard for safety, you know, so that that gear perseveres through a fire, protects the firefighter, and things like that, you know, it's a very high spec.
So in the U.S. today, to meet that spec, we have to buy from third-party suppliers who make materials, you know, a vapor barrier layer that has PFAS added to it, to hit that standard. You know, we are trying to do everything possible to work through a PFAS-free solution. At this point today, there's a couple companies saying there's some material coming out that will do that. I think that will be a transition that happens over the next few years. Certainly, when that happens, you know, I think there'll be a transition over time to, you know, using that type of material, and then according, I think there'll be, you know, a continuation of this idea that, you know, maybe every firefighter should have a couple sets of gear as well.
So that could be certainly a good commercial opportunity in the long run as well.
Yeah, it could be, could be a nice replacement cycle for you guys there, as well as growth in the TAM. So, wanted to pivot a little bit, talk about detection.
Mm-hmm.
What are some of the markets that product addresses? What are some of the major opportunities you see in that business?
Yeah, so no, perfect. So, detection business, a big, been a big part of our journey the last decade as well. It's a group that's almost doubled in size, certainly some really strong organic growth. It's been our fastest-growing segment organically, and then we've done some nice acquisitions, some really meaty acquisitions in that group as well today. To keep it simple, really anything other than probably kind of residential consumer, you know, there's potentially an opportunity for a detection solution. Again, imagine you know, energy creation, utilities, you know, food processing, really any type of you know processing area where you could have an exposure to something you shouldn't breathe or something that could become flammable, you know, that's what we're focused on.
Now, we, you know, we certainly have an origin that started out in the energy market. You know, certainly, we, we look forward to kind of the growth in green energy. The good thing for us is our solutions work no matter what form of energy we're going for. In the end, you have to still detect the same type of components. You know, we've certainly done a lot in some of these process industries, in terms of diversifying what we do in the detection business. More recently, we, we got deeper into the HVAC space.
So, you know, just imagine the premise of monitoring refrigerants, making sure there's no leak, you know, trying to do that as fast as possible with our different tools, different sensors, so that you can minimize, frankly, any type of environmental issue, but also there's a significant cost issue to a user as well. I mean, basically for us, detection business is, has been a good growth engine. There's still other categories and other adjacencies to what we do today that could actually drive that organically or through acquisition as well. In our most recent Investor Day, we talked about that business continuing to be our largest growth segment over the next five years as well.
Yeah, that's great. Wanted to talk on one piece of the detection business, your sensor IP.
Mm-hmm.
You guys have talked about how you manufacture your own sensors. Can you talk about why that's so important and why that's a differentiator for you guys?
Yeah. No, I love that. So, I mean, it's interesting, you know. So for really the whole time we've been in this business, the last, you know, more than 10 years, we have prioritized making sure we make our own sensors. And, you know, not only do we design them, but we also manufacture them ourselves. And again, it goes back to this, you know, really the mission of MSA Safety is to really to lead with innovation. And, you know, what's really important, critical to the user is that you have, you know, a sensor that not only detects limits false alarms, but the speed. You know, you can think about examples I said about making sure people don't breathe things, people aren't exposed to combustible vents.
We're known for having sensors that really, you know, we lead the market in that, in that space, and it's because we're fortunate to have people who've been working on this for decades to develop these sensors. It's something we keep very, very safely locked down within our facilities. So it's actually not even openly available to all employees. And 'cause it's IP, and it's also, I'd just say, a lot of trade secrets in terms of how you consistently manufacture it as well.
And what that gives us is, you know, obviously, a marketplace position to have great sensors, but then as this market's evolved into things like we all the way to today, where, for example, you have a fully connected portable solution, again, you have a leading sensor, you have that advantage in the marketplace, but now you've also coupled it with, you know, a leading connected solution as well. So you really kind of, you know, depending on what the user is looking for, you know, we potentially have an offering that really can address anything from just the safety standard to whether it's, you know, documentation, or frankly, we can drive productivity for the end user, 'cause in the end, you know, safety has a burden to it.
So if you can make it a little bit less burdensome to the end user, that's appealing to, you know, to some customers, depending on, again, what they're trying to solve.
Yeah, that's great. Wanted to definitely touch on some of the connectivity opportunities here in a minute. First, wanted to pivot to industrial PPE.
Mm-hmm.
PMIs have obviously been sub fifty for a while now. I think folks would have expected that probably impacting that business on the hard hat, fall protection side. Can you talk about what you're seeing in terms of trends in that end market at the moment?
Yeah, so industrial PPE, I think, is the category that everyone's expected to go negative for the last two years, and it really hasn't. So, you know, a bit of a reminder, last year was actually quite positive in the first half of the year. It did slow down a bit in the back half of the year. And so we thought, this year, industrial PPE would be somewhere between kind of flat to negative, and that was certainly part of our outlook. We've seen it be a bit better than that. And, you know, so, you know, for us, that's primarily, again, head protection and fall protection. And I think it's a combination of two things.
Yes, you know, PMI has been negative, so I think if you're in a part of the world where maybe or a city that's heavy manufacturing and, you know, not getting maybe the benefit from still the continued investment in energy creation, or in the U.S., you have some additional dollars being spent on infrastructure. Those key investments are, in some cases, offsetting what would be naturally a headwind. So I think that's part of it, and I also think for us, as we talked about a little bit earlier, you know, we're focused on innovation. You know, it doesn't really matter what the market's doing. If you have a compelling solution and you have a good supply chain, you can take some shares.
So I think a little bit of all that goes into, for us, why the math has probably been a bit better, which, you know, in today's environment, I think that's a win, because if you looked at past economic cycles, you know, this would be part of the business that, you know, might be a bit more cyclical for us. And it just hasn't been the pressure point that we've seen in the past. So I think good mix of factors there.
Yeah, no, that's obviously great to hear. Wanted to touch a little bit on fall protection, go deeper there.
Mm-hmm.
You guys have had a leading position in hard hats for a very long time.
Mm-hmm.
Your position isn't quite as strong in fall protection. Can you talk about the opportunities? Where are you positioned currently, and talk about the opportunities to take share?
Yeah. So, you know, and we highlighted this, I think, pretty well a couple of times this year so far. We over five years ago said we wanna really double down in fall protection. And again, the reason why, still the number one issue trying to be solved on job sites. Again, whether it's a construction site, whether it's a distribution center, it's just, it's still the topic at hand. So, we have this expertise, we have this certainly relationships with the market on head protection, so it's a natural correlation into fall protection. So what we've done is really bring innovation to fall protection. And, you know, in many cases, with a lot of things that, you know, people have to wear on a safety perspective, they want it to be more comfortable.
Can you make the ultimate solution be easier to use? You know, we have examples where there's leading edge safety protocol. There's a lot of applications out there requires two people with, you know, quite a bit of strength to put things in place. We've come out with innovation solutions where one person can set it up for themselves. Like, something like that, it's, you know, it's more likely gonna happen from a safety perspective, and it's also driving productivity for an end user and things like that. So we've had success. Now, I would say we've more than doubled our share, but there's still a lot of TAM in front of us, 'cause there's a couple bigger guys in front of us that we can go after.
So we're really excited about that, just from an organic perspective, that we can drive a lot of growth over the next five years. It's certainly from a just available TAM perspective, one of the bigger dollar opportunities, and we're certainly encouraged by the progress we made over the last five years.
Yeah, that's great. Share has certainly been a really important part of the story.
Mm-hmm.
Wanna pivot a little bit, talk about some of your connectivity subscription business. So first, just starting off with the subscription side or MSA +, as you oftentimes refer to it, how does that relate to some of your connected product offerings? What kind of traction are you guys getting there? Where are you having the most success, and what kind of runway is left?
Yeah, so good question. So, again, there's a theme here. We're very focused on leading with innovation. So, you know, our team, about five years ago, said, you know, we have these great, great products in the marketplace. We have this wonderful position, but there's gonna be a natural transition here from just a product to really a total solution. And that really became the foundation for driving this connected solutions mindset, and really, the idea being it could help the fire business, it could help the industrial business, including detection, and, you know, so we went to work. Couple of year journey to get to a good place. Now, why was that?
We're very focused on getting end user feedback and being very careful not to just develop things that were really interesting and cool. Really focused on what the end user says will be a solution to them. So, you know, we've brought some of those to market over the last couple of years. So, you probably heard us, if you follow us in the past, talk about a connected firefighter, a connected worker. You know, certainly we've created unique solutions for each of those spaces. We've even more recently found an application in fall protection so that, you know, someone doesn't go up on a lift, for example, without having a confirmation that they're tied in. 'Cause again, people wear equipment, but I tell you, if you look around, too often, people aren't tied in.
How do you make that really not a choice, but it has to happen, and things like that. So, in the end here, you know, we're seeing different levels of receptivity, which is probably what you imagine. So, I think, you know, we've certainly seen the industrial space. One of the more recent things we've done there is come up with a fully connected portable detector called io4. And, you know, there, in the past, we have a significant business that has portable detectors before, but they weren't connected. We've seen really some really significant interest in that. It, it's certainly a commercial success. You know, we're, we've been for the last, really, now two years, bringing that to market and growing that. Now, we've done that primarily under the MSA+ banner.
So, you know, really, you can think about it from a subscription basis. Something we can extend to different areas, but certainly it made a natural fit here. So if you want that, that latest, fully connected, essentially, you, you buy it as a subscription model, somewhere between two and four years, and you get, from that, you know, obviously all the benefits of having the product, but now you get all the assurances of, you know, if there's any type of issues, we're gonna give you a replacement. But you're also getting into a standard set or a suite of reporting and analytics that we can bring to... You know, we can talk about inventory control. You today, before things like that came along, a lot of this was manually done.
So you can imagine the productivity for a supervisor of safety who's overseeing, you know, 50 workers a day on the job site, converting that from pretty much a manual process to really an automated process, can be really valuable. So we're seeing good momentum there. Certainly, it's helped us in fire as well. You know, today, when we sell the SCBA, it has that fully connected capability. We, we've certainly won a good share in the firefighter space. And I often get asked the question: Is it because of the SCA, SCBA? Is it because it's connected? Is it because of the full suite? And I say it's a little bit of all that. Certainly, it's helped there.
And then I would say for the larger departments who are a bit more open to the connected journey, sooner than later, we're seeing them not only buy it because it has that, but they're now, you know, honestly, it's a great amount of data coming in, and we're continuing to refine, you know, what the data set is, how can we use that for good reporting, you know, inventory control, hours of use, and make it easy for them to manage, you know, their fleet of SCBA for all their firefighters and things like that. So with that said, it's still early. It's part of our goal to drive recurring revenue up over time here. So we're in the mid-teens today. You know, we've a goal to get that up to 20%.
That's certainly one of the components that will do that.
Yeah, that's great. Wanted to talk about pricing on some- of these connected products. As you mentioned, there's products, productivity savings associated- with a lot of these. How do you think about the pricing equation, given the value you're delivering on the productivity side?
Yeah. Well, the answer's in your question there. That's pretty good. So, I mean, from a pricing perspective, we, we've always had a mindset to really price based on the value we create for the customer. So yes, you know, our focus on driving a premium solution that can really help kinda continue to elevate the industry, what the solution is, you know, we're certainly gonna factor that into the pricing, but it's not just that pricing on day one. What does it do to help you over time? So, you know, for example, in some of our detection devices today, you know, we've brought out features like auto-calibration.
So, you know, again, if you use our product today, you know, maybe instead of having to go out there monthly to do it, you know, it's auto-doing it, maybe once a quarter, you now have to do that, but imagine you're going to, you know, hundreds, if not thousands, of touch points if you buy the competitor. I mean, that's a real value to the user, and then certainly, if you get into the connected solutions, you know, not only is there a value in, obviously, the potentially elevated safety side, but really there's a productivity element. You know, all the things with safety typically have to be tracked. You can do that, so we're trying to bring that into consideration as you go to market.
So oftentimes, you're right, we are, sometimes a bit more higher priced than someone else on day one, but we can show that over time, that you certainly get all that value and more. And that's, that's always been our mindset with really anything. Certainly, the connected piece of that's just, another way to take that journey to the next level.
. That's great. And you mentioned recurring revenue, about 15% of mix, goal to get it to 20%, hopefully higher longer term. I would assume these are all margin accretive type things you're doing, but maybe you can shed some insight there.
Yeah. So, yeah, a couple of topics in there. So number one, yes, we're in the mid-teens today for recurring revenue. I call that the classic spare parts, services, training, and then certainly the software solutions we've talked about. The goal is to, you know, we shared this in Investor Day, is to get to, you know, start with a number two. I think the one thing we are very cautious on is we're going to follow the market. And just like I touched on some of those connected solutions, some are going to go faster than others. So, but that drive from mid-teen to 20 is certainly the software solutions, but also I'd say it's a bigger focus on just service overall as well, driving that.
Yeah, and I think, you know, generally, what we've been doing, in terms of what it does to margins, there's, you know, everything we're trying to do is, you know, at or above where we are today. Certainly, that's the case when, you know. Why do you like recurring revenue business? Well, because it has the opportunity to be margin accretive, but, you know, again, it adds to this kind of resiliency, you know, that our business already has today, you know, and brings it to the next level. Obviously, things like that, you know, there's less discussion. You're essentially locking in a price agreement for multiple years. As long as you can run your business well, you know, that becomes a margin opportunity for us. That's the mindset.
I think the one thing I would add just to what we talked about is while the traditional definition of recurring revenue is the math I walked you through, you know, keep in mind that the fire business, you know, has this very stable funding model like we talked about. The detection business, and particularly the fixed portion of it, you know, about a third of that is new projects, but once those projects are installed, you know, you ultimately have a customer for, you know, almost a decade because, you know, they're going to buy the spare parts we mentioned before, there's going to be calibration. And then, really, as they do anything to modify that site, as they potentially change and roll out different products, things like that, they're gonna continue to come back to you.
So it's a pretty good, you know, I don't call it, you know, recurring, but it's certainly repeating business that comes as well. You know, for us, you add up the fire and the fixed piece. Almost 60% of business has this, you know, very sticky, stable nature, which is why, and I bring this up, is, yes, we're an industrial, but we don't have all the same cyclicality that a lot of industrials have because, really, the resiliency we have in our business today. And certainly, the recurring revenue objective potentially only increases that as we go forward here.
Yeah, no, that's great. You guys have certainly transitioned the business away from less of the hard hats, more cyclical stuff over time, which I think is really important.
Mm-hmm.
Want to touch on 2028 financial targets. You recently came out with these targets.
Mm-hmm.
A few months ago, organic sales up 3%-5%, 30-50 basis points of margin expansion per year. Can you—this is really the first time you've put out long-term targets for investors. So I guess, why now? What is giving you guys the confidence?
Yeah. I think it starts in the history. As you said, we had an Investor Day back in May, and we highlighted, go look at us on a five-year basis, ten-year basis, some pretty good numbers, despite a lot of things that happened in the world, right? We had a 5% growth CAGR over that time frame. You know, operating margins moved from the low teens to the low 20s, and we've maintained a really strong return on capital employed. You know, there's been a lot of evolution in the organization. We spoke today about really focusing on these three areas.
We haven't really spoke about the business system coming to life, and that's really, you know, this lean concept to everything we do and really bringing a standard set of work across the organization. So, you know, it's having a global pricing team, that's having, you know, clear productivity standards. It's making sure, you know, the innovation we talked about comes at a, at accretive rate. And certainly, you know, we don't, that's come through in the financials. So why now? Because, you know, the business is really kinda building a momentum. And, you know, what we've put out there, I would note, is the organic objectives for the next five years. You know, what we just shared is certainly in line with what we've just done.
You know, excited with kinda where we are today in terms of that detection and fire business. We talked obviously a lot about the growth we could see in fall protection as well. Then the other complement could be the amount of dollars we have available for M&A. M&A was an important part of our journey as well over the last ten years. You know, that, those goals we put out there didn't include any of the dollars. Really, after you get through a capital allocation strategy that, you know, has us investing in CapEx, has us paying, you know, strong dividend, you know, we still have $1.5 billion to deploy for M&A.
Whether to reinforce those targets or frankly, to take them to a higher level, you know, just a lot of confidence that we got more options at our disposal than we've ever had in our past.
That's great. You got a couple more minutes here. I'm gonna try and squeeze one more in.
All right.
So you've talked about reducing working capital. You've made meaningful improvements there. Can you talk about what the drivers have been? How much runway do you see, and how important is that subscription business growing into driving some of the working capital improvements?
Yeah, so, okay, got you. So, hey, I mean, ultimately, it's one of our messages as well, is we, you know, we certainly had a good P&L story, but we've also had a really good cash flow story. And you know, our view, again, thinking about the business system, is there is always more to do on the working capital element. So you know, the one things we try to bring to life under the business system banner, with working capital in mind, is you know, ultimately, we're looking for driving efficiency or returns in the business. So and yeah, ultimately, keep finding the right level of inventory, continue to look at the data point, continue to flex.
The win is I pull down the amount of inventory I have as a percentage of sales, and I improve my fill rate. You know, I think there's no better example of kind of, you know, living our mission here of keeping people safe. We're not gonna make aggressive bets at the risk of fill rate, 'cause it goes against what we're trying to do here. What that means is, we drive working capital efficiency, and we're very focused on long-term sustainable projects. If you look even just the last year and a half, you know, you haven't seen us rapidly improve any quarter.
It's kind of identify the projects to improve working capital that are sustainable, and let's bring them to life one quarter at a time, and then keep coming up with new ideas behind that and keep working on that. What I said in Investor Day is, you know, we think it's reasonable, similar to the operating margin opportunity, there's probably 30 to 50 basis points of working capital efficiency that can come to life each year and certainly be part of our cash flow story as well. Certainly, your recurring revenue is helpful there. The more you have predictable future, there's less volatility to solve for. I think that's just gonna be a nice enhancement to the journey as we go forward here as well.
That's great. We're out of time here. Thanks, everybody. Appreciate it.
Thank you.
Thanks, Ryan.