I guess, U.S. multi-industrial analyst. We have a full room here. We're here for Fireside Chat with Jenny Parmentier. She's Chief Executive Officer and Chairman, Chairwoman of the Board at Parker. You know, I've covered Parker for several decades. It's been an amazing transformation story, and it just continues to do what it's done for the past 20 years, which I think is a good thing. I think Jenny has some sort of prepared remarks and slides, and then we'll go to Fireside Chat. Thank you so much for being here.
Watch the step. So good morning. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you for the kind comments. It's a pleasure to be here again this year. So just a few slides for those of you who may not be as familiar with Parker Hannifin. First of all, I think you're all familiar with our forward-looking statements and our non-GAAP financial measures. But this is a slide that really shows you Parker Hannifin at a glance. And I think it's, you know, something that we're very proud of and something I like to point out is that, you know, we have been engineering our customer success in the motion control markets for over 100 years now, 107 years this month, to be precise.
We have the number one position in a $135 billion Motion and Control industry. We love this space. One of the things that we really like about being in this space is that we feel that our technology powerhouse of interconnected solutions allows us to serve our customers very well. It's critical to our distribution network, and that is another thing that is really special about Parker Hannifin. It's a competitive advantage. It is our global network of independent distribution outlets. These distributors are our business partners, and they are just an extension of our engineering application expertise and allow us to serve customers well. We believe that we have been as successful as we've been and really see that going into the future because of our decentralized operating structure. We have 85 divisions around the world.
Each one of those divisions is led by a general manager who is responsible for the P&L. Decision-making is made at the division level, where we resource and how we grow future organically is happening at that division level. We really are focused on being top-quartile performers, and one of those aspects is being a great generator and deployer of cash. I think that we've demonstrated that in the recent years, and we are committed to continue to do that into the future. Our business system is the Win Strategy 3.0. It is our guide to operational excellence. I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about the Win Strategy in the Fireside Chat.
And we really believe that our purpose statement, launched not even quite five years ago, is something that we've all aligned around and really will move us well into the future. And that is enabling engineering breakthroughs that lead to a better tomorrow. Looking here, you know, I talked about that decentralized structure and our people, and it is our people, our strategy, and our portfolio, our transformed portfolio, that drives performance. If you look at our revenue from FY 2019 to FY 2024, and we picked FY 2019 to have a snapshot here of pre-COVID and kinda take out all of that noise. But 7% revenue CAGR from FY 2019 to FY 2024, 570 basis points of operating margin improvement, adjusted EPS growth of 13%, and 2x the free cash flow.
So really good performance from our teams, a lot of hard work and, a lot that we're really proud of. Now, having said that, we're proud of that, but we have a very promising future, and we're not done. We are committed to growing our Adjusted EPS to $30 per share and to getting our free cash flow, as you see there on the slide, 20% improvement in our free cash flow. And how are we gonna do that? We're gonna continue to perform by accelerating through Win Strategy 3.0. I do believe that there's plenty of runway left in Win Strategy 3.0, and a lot of room to grow and expand margins.
We have a longer cycle and more resilient portfolio today than we had in the past. This is gonna help us to grow organically. We have a lot of growth that we see in the future tied to secular trends, and this is the reason that we believe that we can grow 4%-6% over the cycle. Okay.
Well, excellent. Thanks so much.
Mm-hmm.
So maybe we can talk about long-term growth targets. Your long-term growth target is for 4%-6% growth through FY 2027. So how does 2024 guidance fit in with this framework?
So, our FY 2024 guidance, our fiscal year will end June 30, is for 1.5% organic growth and 4% total growth. And this is after two years of double-digit growth. So, and that even has, you know, if we look in the past, like I was just saying, 7%, with COVID, so we really feel that that 4%-6% is achievable over the cycle. And there's a couple of reasons for that. I spoke about the transformed portfolio. You know, the acquisitions that we've made over the last several years have been higher growth as well as margin accretive. So we think that puts us in a really good spot. I spoke about the secular trends. Aerospace is an obvious one. We see plenty of growth into the future for commercial and defense.
On the industrial side of the business, we see, obviously, following those secular trends as well: electrification, digitization, clean tech. We really feel that there's a lot of upside here. And then also I would say, you know, the mega CapEx projects. A lot announced, a good portion of those started, and we're starting to see where some of our distribution partners are starting to play in that. So we feel real comfortable about the 4%-6%.
Excellent. And maybe just a sort of big-picture question, but can you please talk about the decision to move away from. You know, before you were sort of thinking about yourself as IP play, right? And you sort of moved away from the IP-driven target to a through-the-cycle number. What drove that decision?
Well, we're a different company today, right? It's a different portfolio. We are more longer cycle now than we've ever been, and we feel like we're less tied to that, and we really can hit that 4%-6% over the cycle. If you look at the businesses where we've concentrated the acquisitions, we had an on-purpose plan to double the size of aerospace, filtration, and engineered materials. And if you look back, pre-acquisition on those, FY 2015, those three made up about 40% of our revenue, and today they make up about 60%.
Okay.
So, really a shift to longer cycle, and we believe that, in the future, 85% of our portfolio will be longer cycle aftermarket and tied to the secular trends. We'll grow differently.
Gotcha. You know, I'm sure that's the question you've been getting, but I have to ask it. So long-term margin targets, and yes, you are having an analyst day coming up. But you know, you have margin target 25% in FY 2027. 2024 guide is for 24.3% at the midpoint. So just, you know, can we just talk about how do you think about long-term margin trajectory?
Yeah. So, you know, so first of all, you know, as I was going over the performance on one of the slides, you know, this is, this has all been due to the win strategy, right? All of our teams implementing and executing on the win strategy, getting, you know, getting the win strategy, implemented early with the acquisitions we've done. So we're, we're really proud of that performance. And I've said, you know, publicly several times, as I just mentioned at the beginning, that I'm confident that we can continue to expand our margins. You know, 80% of this margin performance to date has come from the legacy businesses, 20% from, from acquisitions. So I think that's really speaks to the power of the win strategy and our continuous improvement culture.
So I think those are things that, they're never gonna go out of style at Parker. It's something we're always going to be really strong at. You know, having said that, in the last 10 years, we've put out 3 new targets. Each one, we've exceeded and then increased the target. We've said in the past that, you know, 25%, which is the FY 2027 target, is, not an exit ramp, it's just a mile marker. So, we'll expand further. Stay tuned.
Yeah. No, I, I appreciate it. And it's May sixteenth, right?
Yes, May sixteenth.
There we go. So, maybe you just sort of, sort of talk about EPS, CAGR. So what's included in the 10%, you know, sort of EPS CAGR target?
Yeah. So 10% is our goal over the cycle, and as you know, we've done better than that, right, in the past. But 10% is the goal over the cycle. Any future acquisition would be incremental to that. So we feel really confident that we can hit that 10%.
Okay, so 10% includes what you've done already-
Correct.
But if you go beyond mega, that would be on top of that?
Yes.
Gotcha. That makes sense. You know, let's maybe just sort of talk to more nuts and bolts. So pricing, I know you don't disclose price, but just maybe can you walk us through the current pricing environment? Just what do you think about sort of stickiness of the pricing? Because we, as we do our survey work-
Mm-hmm.
It's sort of directional. I think it is coming down, but it sort of has been stickier than we would have expected.
Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I expect it to be very sticky. And I'll, you know, maybe just go back in history a little bit. Strategic pricing is a muscle that Parker has built over, you know, almost two decades now.
Right.
It's part of the original Win Strategy. It's, you know, something that we've been doing for a long time. During these extraordinary inflationary times of the last couple years, you know, we had that muscle built. We had to, you know, get even stronger. You know, it was total cost of inflation, and it was several things at once. It wasn't just material, you know, it was labor, it was energy, it was transportation. So we went out early and often.
You know, we had the processes in place and the measures in place to see it coming real time, and we reacted quickly. I would tell you, now we are in more of a normal pricing environment, you know, where we have the, the regular distribution prices and, and price increases and, you know, what we might do with OEMs on a one-by-one basis. So it's a normal environment. Having said that, we're still in inflationary times.
Right.
And some of those cost drivers, they're not gonna reverse, right? I mean, labor's not gonna reverse. And so I think they're gonna be sticky, and, you know, we've always had the strategy not only to have a good rigor around pricing but to really create that value for the customer, to have that value, reflected in the price, and, and thus be the customer's first choice.
Well, we recently just to follow up we recently had a sort of meeting with one of your peers, and the CEO sort of said that I think— And we've heard it actually from multiple companies, that he said, for him, labor costs, actually the growth is gonna be higher than material costs. And he said it's sort of, he hasn't seen that in a long, long, long time-
Right.
if ever. And he said: "Well, that's why I think pricing is just gonna be permanently higher, because I have to adjust for that." Would that sort of be your experience as well?
Yeah, I mean, I, I agree with those comments. I think that is one of the components that makes it stickier than what we've seen in the past.
Gotcha. And just second half 2024, and just to remind folks, second half 2024, it's fiscal first and second quarter for you.
Mm-hmm.
Calendar first and second quarter.
Right.
So just so folks know. So what are your expectations for price cost, for the next, I guess, six months reported?
Well, it's, you know, it's the l ike I said, it's a normal pricing environment.
Okay.
No, you know, I don't see any significant changes other than things that we might be working on, you know, as we speak, but back to a normal pricing environment.
And, you know, this is something, and I know we sort of discussed, I think it's sort of this pie chart that you have as your first slide. I think really speaks about all the hard work that you guys have done at Parker over the years, sort of, moving the portfolio. But, you know, you have moved to i t's a much more long-cycle business than it has been. Right?
Right.
Does this sort of require a different playbook for managing the business as you are, right? You do have more visibility than you would have maybe a decade ago. Does this change how you sort of manage the business on day-to-day business, day-to-day basis, given that you do have a lot more visibility?
You know, I would tell you that, you know, first of all, the portfolio has changed, but we like all eight of these technologies, right? Two-thirds of our customers buy four or more of these technologies. So we are mindful of continuing to serve our customers as we always have. You know, having said that, I would tell you, it doesn't require a different playbook. Now, with each update of the Win Strategy, we're on Win Strategy 3.0, you know, we've introduced some new tools. We've had some new initiatives that help us from an organic growth standpoint, something we're very focused on. Some of those tools would be what we call the Growth Triangle.
So that's where we partner an account manager, a product engineer, and an application engineer with a growth customer, and work very closely with them, not only to ensure that we can gain share, but that we'll be on future platforms. So that's an organized effort, and that's been very successful. We have tools like Simple by Design that make us more agile and really control the cost, allows us to apply to existing products and to new products as well. We also have changed our incentive plan. So our short-term variable incentive plan for all of our team members has changed from a RONA, return on net assets, to an annual cash incentive plan. So we have nearly 65,000, nearly all of our team members on this plan.
You know, unlike RONA, if you are a team member anywhere in Parker, if you're, you know, at the plant level, even to your value stream level, you can understand what makes up your, your incentive plan, because it's simply revenue, earnings, and cash. So very powerful to have the whole company aligned around that, because even at the value stream level, you know what your shipments need to be that day, right? You know that, inventory is cash. You know that scrap or lower first-time capability is going to take away from that. So it's, it's really great alignment. It's metrics that can be looked at all levels of the organization, and it, it really helps us run the business better and drive organic growth.
Yeah, no, I was gonna sort of ask my next question, and, you know, I guess I was just gonna comment as we look at you outside, you really start. You look a lot like sort of best-in-class operators that we cover, like ITW and AMETEK.
Well, thank you.
You know, and you know, and those stocks actually traded much higher multiples. We are in print saying that, so. So maybe just focusing on industrial, sort of going through the business units in industrial, Motion was up 50 basis points, Flow and Process Control was down 4%, and Filtration Engineered Materials up 1.5 percentage points. Can you just talk about the performance of the three different subsegments and what's driving the divergence in just industrial Motion, Flow and Process Control, and Filtration Engineered Materials?
Yeah, so Filtration and Engineered Materials, you know, is doing well. There's, you know, higher aftermarket exposure there, especially in filtration, so that's, that's what's keeping that positive. And then, you know, with engineered materials and filtration, there's some aerospace business in there, right? Some that was there before Meggitt, but some that we put into those businesses because of the technology. So they're seeing, you know, they're seeing the strength of that. And, you know, engineered materials, in particular, tied to electrification, thermal and sealing technologies. So, that's what's, you know, helping out there. The Flow and Process Control side of the business, you know, there's just been a broad-based destocking there, right? And also some softness, HVAC and refrigeration falls in that segment.
Yeah.
as well as semicon, which I think, you know, everybody understands. And then, you know, the motion part of the business, it's also been impacted by destocking and some evidence of some OEM destocking at dealers as well. But, you know, the motion business is really gonna benefit from some of these secular trends as well, electrification and clean tech.
And maybe just to zero in on Flow and Process Control, sort of where are we there? And because we are sort of starting to, you know, I know that you sort of have, you know, the HVAC business quite well.
Mm-hmm.
So where are we there? Because I think there's a lot of debate as to where we are in the cycle there, and also, you know, when do you think the same stuff bottoms?
Well, I'm not calling a bottom-
Yeah.
but I can just tell you that, you know, when we look at the industrial side of the business, you know, and into that segment, as well as motion, you know, we've been North America orders have been negative for four quarters, international for five. We've been in destocking for four quarters now. History would tell you that it goes anything between four and six quarters.
Right.
So, you know, you look at historically, and you would have to believe that that's gonna turn at some point soon. But, you know, we commented on the last call that we expected destocking to go through Q3, so we'll have another good update here in May, but that's where we're at today.
Once again, just sort of, I think a lot of your peers are actually talking about sort of y ou know, I think collectively, you all guys are saying the same, and I wonder if you're reading the same transcripts or you're actually talking to the same customers. But, you know, as I said, I was another one of your peers, and they sort of, sort of they were expecting sort of similar schedule, you know, orders turn positive, maybe. How long is that? Everybody's in a different quarter. So second quarter calendar, and, I guess they're sort of expecting, fourth quarter, sort of orders to actually to turn positive. And, they sort of say they are starting to see a change in customer behavior on the margins.
When they talk to customers, they are seeing actual budget changes. So it's more than: "Oh, it's 4-6 quarters, where..." You know, are you seeing, you know, just based on what you've seen already, are you seeing tangible changes in your behavior and, and their behavior? And I'm also quite intrigued, you sort of said megaprojects, because I think our work sort of suggests if you look when the orders for the megaprojects should come in, just looking at the schedule, what's out there, just calendar 2024 should be a good year.
Yeah.
So maybe if you could expand, sort of any sort of tangible signs of change in customer behavior that you can observe, and sort of what are you seeing sort of on schedule for these megaprojects? Because some of them actually also seem to be being pushed out.
Yeah. I think, you know, you do see evidence of some being pushed out, but you also see more being announced and, you know, a good amount of them being started. You know, when we talk to distribution, their sentiment is positive, right? Very positive. We just had a national sales meeting in December with, you know, 100 of our distribution partners, and very, very positive sentiment about the future. They're very energized by our focus on strengthening supply chain, really getting, you know, making sure we have the right capacity for the demand today and the demand that's coming. You know, some of our distribution partners are participating in quoting in some early stages of these projects.
Some of them have been involved in supporting contractors for site prep for one of the chip factories that's going in. Some are supporting some of the early stages of the EV battery plants. So they're starting to see it, they're starting to talk about it, and we're, you know, really putting a lot of effort into aligning with them so we can quantify that. But it's still early days. It's early days with those mega CapEx projects.
And, you know, on the OEM side, I would say that, you know, what I would see as the good news is we're not seeing, you know, any cancellations or pushouts, you know, of magnitude, right? So I think that's a good indicator as well. You know, there's been some destocking, there's no doubt about that, but I don't think tangible changes. I don't see them in their ordering behavior or their order patterns. I think everyone wants to make sure that they have their demand out there.
Right. And, you know, you sort of mentioned distributors. So what are distributors telling you about their inventory levels?
Well, I mean, they, they're in destocking, right?
Okay.
And I think a lot of the distributors, you know, got smart through the pandemic and the increase in demand that came afterwards and really, you know, working harder to carry the right inventory at the right time.
Right.
But again, positive sentiment. Positive sentiment and, you know, but still in destocking.
What metrics do you think your distributors track to sort of figure out when to stop destocking?
I think it's clearly the demand from their customers, right? And what they see happening in the areas where they specialize, right? Whether it's you know, construction, whether it's you know, some of the support that they give to their customers. You know, I think they all have various metrics that they follow, but they're looking at their own inventory, and they have a close pulse on the demand coming in their back door.
Gotcha. And, as we think, I think the filing is constructive on oil and gas and user demand.
Mm-hmm.
So can we just talk about the trends you're seeing there, and just could you remind us how you're positioned across upstream, downstream, and how are you exposed to LNG?
Yeah, so we participate in upstream, midstream, and downstream, so all three areas. Upstream is about two-thirds of the business that we have. I would say that both upstream and downstream have been positive, but downstream has been more positive. So, that's where we see that today.
Do you have any particular exposure to LNG or?
We do. I wouldn't tell you that I would see-
Okay.
Any significant
Okay.
You know, changes or trends there, but yes, we do.
So, you know, I think the other thing is just when I look at the model, I think the margin story, particularly over the past five years, is quite, quite remarkable, and, you know, I think part of it is just when we did the analysis, who did what during COVID? You guys were out there with all the folks. I sort of described it as the best in class, and. But you have been able to grow operating income with organic sales declines in second quarter in Industrial North America and Industrial International. We are getting questions, you know, I think people are worried about potential destocking and maybe change in macro scenario. So how would that dynamic work if there was a steeper downturn than what you're forecasting?
Yeah. So first of all, obviously, you know, in where we're at today, you know, with a forecast of 1.5% organic, 4% total, negative orders, for several quarters, destocking, as you mentioned, you know, we're expanding margins. We're gonna expand margins 140 basis points in this fiscal year, so we're really confident about our ability to do that. And, you know, if we would see, you know, a further decline, we hold the businesses to, a decremental 30. But if you look at where we performed during COVID and in other times, we're much better than that. So, we believe all the tools we have in the Win Strategy, the strong operating cadence we have, we believe we can continue to expand margins.
That's true. That's a good answer. So just, you know, you do have 20% market share target.
Mm-hmm.
Can you just talk about the tools, you know, that you use to drive the market share?
Sure. So 20% is, you know, a longer term aspirational goal, and, you know, first of all, with the transformation of the portfolio, we think we're in a better position than we've ever been to, you know, to achieve that into the future. I already mentioned, you know, some of the work done around the Growth Triangle, Simple by Design™. We also have a tool, New Product Blueprinting, that we've used for quite a while, that helps us. It's a process that helps us partner with our customers and our customers' customers to really truly know what the unmet needs are and what the problems are. This helps us focus on what we need to work on with innovation, and we measure this through a metric called PVI, Product Vitality Index.
So if you look back to where we were in FY 2015, that PVI is the percent of sales that comes from new products. We were high single digits, and you know, now we're, now we're around 20%, a little over 20%. So very strong tool, making sure we have our resources working on the right products. So not only can we grow organically, that 4%-6%, but so we can hit that 20% share of the Motion and Control Market.
Other areas within your industrial portfolio, where you're materially below this 20%, and are these in areas where you're gonna invest more? Are these particular areas for more M&A? You know, because I would imagine it's probably not uniform.
Yeah, so one of the strongest tools that we have, that we added with Win Strategy 3.0, and that we really think is driving organic growth at the division level, is Strategic Positioning. So Strategic Positioning is what each general manager does in their division, segment their business, segment their markets, really determine where they're gonna grow organically, and put the resources there. So every division is held accountable for growth. Everybody has their part of the growth targets. Everybody has their part of the margin targets. So that's a tool that we use to make sure that we're headed in the right direction.
Okay, so let's talk about aerospace, because, you know, this shows that, like, my industrial background. But, you know, Meggitt management has been bullish. You guys have been bullish on Meggitt since. What are the still remaining priorities? What's the key to meeting the synergies? And just, you know, could you sort of size the relative buckets?
Great acquisition, great team, great products. Couldn't be happier with it. We did announce $200 million by FY 2026. We've committed to $200 million by the end of this fiscal year. So we pulled ahead some of those synergies. Really just has been a fantastic acquisition. You know, early, you know, we have a process. We've developed this playbook around acquisitions, where we put our top talent in, and we really implement the Win Strategy as quickly as we can, specifically, you know, really working in the first pillar of the Win Strategy around engaged people. And then it makes some of that, some of that tough stuff, you know, really happen as quickly as possible.
You know, early, we went after SG&A, and we were able to really get a lot of overhead out of the business. And now it's really, you know, the team's executing the Win Strategy. And one of the things that really helps them get to this point is getting those businesses into division structure, decentralized operating structure, the cadence that goes along with that and really sets them up for success. So, we're committed to that $300 million in synergies. Very happy that we're able to, you know, hit $200 million higher sooner than we thought, so really in a good position.
Are there revenue synergies and opportunities in Meggitt?
Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, first of all, just the aerospace industry being, you know, what it is today, right? Very, very strong. Aftermarket. Picked up a lot of commercial aftermarket with Meggitt. If you look at Q2 alone, the aftermarket was 47%. So really nice aftermarket growth there. And then with this acquisition, you know, there were a lot of complementary technologies, not a lot of overlap. So, you know, we're, we're across the entire plane in a way that we weren't before, and the entire equipment. So we picked up braking, sensing, fire suppression. All of this just gives us a much bigger seat at the table and really bullish about the future. And military as well. You know, we, we see military really growing strong for us into the next decade.
Yeah, and just on military, and once again, we're not aerospace analysts, but, you know, your military business sort of grew 10.5% on a blended basis, and this is faster than what we're seeing at the folks that we cover, GE Aerospace, Honeywell, Eaton, right? More like mid-single digits. Are you gaining share, or does this reflect just different program mix for you?
You know, it's really... We have some really great partnerships with the Department of Defense and repair depots, where we're doing retrofits and upgrades and repairs, so that's a significant growth driver for us, so it's a good position to be in. And we're positioned well for the future, you know, on many of the programs, F-35 and V-280, where you know, we'll be there for the aftermarket as well. So it's a good spot.
And the repairs, this is doing what you have not been doing before, so this is, this is incremental to what the business was doing before.
Incremental to what we've been doing in the past.
Gotcha. And this is another question we get a lot, sort of, and, you know, last time I think we talked about TransDigm, but I'll take it in that direction. So wheels and brakes, you know, the wheels and brakes business, that you divested actually was 38% EBITDA margins. So long term, where can Meggitt margins go?
So we're committed to getting Meggitt to 30%-
Right.
EBITDA, right? So we, we believe that that's achievable. We're well on our way. And, you know, we think we can get the whole aerospace business there, right? So we, we expect aerospace to be, be a leader in the company.
Excellent. You know, top line in aerospace, how should we just think it's just built? Is it just the standard, from that perspective, outgrowth opportunities on the defense, defense budgets, right? But how should we think about growth opportunity on the commercial side?
Well, I mean, commercial aftermarket is obviously a place that we've picked up with Meggitt. You know, we feel like we're in a really good position across all of aerospace, commercial, and defense. We see that there's gonna be really nice growth into the future. You know, some of the things we've already been talking about on both sides of the business, we have a bigger BOM on the plane. We have a larger seat at the table, and those repair depots and those partnerships are really gonna help us with growth into the future.
So just, maybe we can shift to portfolio and M&A, because you guys have been really, really good at sort of portfolio management and M&A. So how do you think internally, what internal criteria do you use as you sort of evaluate whether the target business is a good fit for Parker or not?
Yeah. So we have a very robust cadence around reviewing, building and reviewing our pipeline, right? So that's something that we've done for quite some time. That's how we get the great companies in our portfolio that we have today. So it's very key that they be higher growth, accretive margin with synergies, create shareholder value, higher EPS. We'd like them to follow the secular trends. So all of that criteria is really important to us. We like the aerospace engineered materials and filtration business, but we like all of the eight technologies, and the pipeline has that variety in it, of all those technologies and those of different size as well.
Gotcha. What about culture? Like, how do you think about the culture of the acquired companies?
Very important.
Because it has been, you know-
Very important.
My sense is that culture has been a bit of a secret sauce to your success.
Yeah, very important. You know, one of the great things about Meggitt was, is, you know, they already had high-performance teams. They had a high-performance team culture. So, you know, bringing the two together, putting the real operating cadence and rigor around the high-performance teams and the continuous improvement and the Kaizen culture, really, really powerful, bringing the two together. And, you know, the culture is what really empowers our team members to run their business. So, it's why we make sure that we get the win strategy in right away. We start running the businesses with it and really start showing all of the team members that not only is there safety number one, but there's success as well.
So as you think about CLARCOR, LORD, and Exotic, and I believe LORD, you were intimately involved with that one. So, you know, those have been successful. So what have you learned from these acquisitions?
So, you know, the playbook just gets stronger every time, right? We've learned that you put your top talent as the integration team. We've learned to, you know, really, again, get the win strategy in place, focus on that first pillar, really engaging the people, explaining to them, you know, how the win strategy works, getting them in high-performance teams, getting them exposed to Kaizens at existing Parker facilities right away. It really, really speaks well about the culture and the emphasis on continuous improvement. You know, and going fast, right? Just really going fast and keeping the people first.
Got you. And Meggitt has been bigger. You know, each deal is getting bigger and bigger, and I sort of feel like talking to investors, Meggitt was perceived as a really big deal. Pardon my pun. But, you know, has been anything special about, was there a step change in the process as you've approached Meggitt? Or, you know, is it just evolution of what you've done before?
It's, you know, it's more of what we've done before. Obviously, it was the largest deal we've ever done. The playbook had a lot of improvements made to it, CLARCOR to LORD and Exotic. So we were able to leverage that playbook along with the top talent, and really, really be successful at it. As we've said, it's been great so far, and to be able to save $200 million synergies by the end of FY 2024 is really fantastic work by the team.
How should we think just generally about the M&A environment? Because, A, you're sort of I think you're ahead of your you know, sort of deleveraging-
We are.
Deleveraging targets. You've stated, clearly stated multiple times, that aerospace is a priority end market. I think you sort of talked about performance materials as another area. But you know, what other businesses within portfolio, but you also said we have eight platforms that we really like. So how should we think about the areas of business that you like enough to continue to scale up, and what are the M&A priorities?
Yeah. So, you know, as I've said, aerospace, filtration, engineered materials, we like those spaces. We've seen what they've done to transform our portfolio, get us to a longer cycle business, higher margins, you know, higher growth. So we really like those spaces. But we do like all eight technologies. I mean, if you look at the technologies and the motion and Flow and Process Control side of the business, they are gonna benefit greatly from the secular trends, and from these m
ega CapEx projects.
So we like them all. The pipeline has, you know, a little bit of everything in it. When we look at M&A, we're not trying to just get bigger every time. It doesn't have to be as big as Meggitt or bigger. It just has to be the right business, the right fit for Parker.
I think the market cap today sort of is approaching $70 billion.
Mm-hmm.
I think a decade ago, when you really started a big focus on capital allocation, I think it was like, sort of more like $15 billion-$20 billion.
$ 20 billion yeah.
As you become bigger and bigger, right, how does the scale change your approach to sort of the M&A playbook, you know, for the next 5, 10 years?
Well, you know, I think right now, Parker is very well positioned. The scale of Parker, we're very well positioned, you know, to make the right M&A, create value for our customers and, and really use the win strategy to be even more successful and further transform our portfolio. So I think our scale and our experience, our track record, really serves us well. And, you know, we are ahead of schedule. We'll be, you know, at 2x by the end of our fiscal year, June 30.
But just because in the past we've levered up and levered down to around that level, and then we've pulled the trigger, just hitting that 2.0 doesn't, you know, make us feel like we gotta do a deal right then. It has to be the right deal, right? It has to follow all that criteria that we talked about and, you know, really help us reach our organic growth and our margin targets for the future.
I think we are out of time.
Okay.
So Jenny, it's been a pleasure. Thanks so much.
Always a pleasure. Thank you.