Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Parker-Hannifin Corporation First Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star zero. I would now like to hand the conference to your speaker today, Cathy Suever, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead, madam.
Thank you, Joelle. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Parker-Hannifin's first quarter fiscal year 2020 earnings release teleconference. Joining me today are Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Tom Williams, and President and Chief Operating Officer, Lee Banks. Today's presentation slides, together with the audio webcast replay, will be accessible on the company's investor information website at phstock.com for one year following today's call. On slide number two, you'll find the company's safe harbor disclosure statement addressing forward-looking statements as well as non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations for any reference to non-GAAP financial measures are included in this morning's materials and are also posted on Parker's website at phstock.com. Today's agenda appears on slide number three. We'll begin with our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Tom Williams, providing highlights from the first quarter.
Following Tom's comments, I'll provide a review of the company's first quarter performance, together with the revised guidance for the full year fiscal 2020. Tom will then provide a few summary comments, and we'll open the call for a question and answer session. Please refer now to slide number four, and Tom will get us started.
Thank you, Cathy. Good morning, everybody, welcome to the call. We appreciate your interest in Parker. Let me start with the first quarter highlights. I'm going to start like I normally do on safety. We had a 25% reduction in recordable safety incidents year-over-year, which is a great start to the year. When you look at it from a safety incident rate, for those who aren't familiar with this is the number of safety incidents per 100 people. We came in at 0.46, which is a top quartile number. Top quartile happens to be 0.5. This is the first time in the history of our company that we came in a top quartile from an incident rate. We're very proud of that. Safety for us is a core value. Zero accidents is not an aspirational goal.
It's really an expectation that we're going to operate the business and lead the business in such a way that we're going to drive a zero accident culture. As you've seen, there's a very strong linkage between safety and business performance, and you can see that if you look at our numbers over the last several years and plotted safety and our financial improvement, you'll see that they went hand in hand. Switching to financial results, Q1 was a strong quarter on margins and on cash against a challenging macro environment on sales. Sales declined 4%, and that composition was a minus three organic, minus one and a half on currency, and a plus 0.5 on acquisitions. Total segment operating margin remained level at 17.0% reported. Adjusted segment operating margins increased 10 basis points to 17.3%.
On a reported basis, EBITDA margin increased 70 basis points to 18.4, and adjusted EBITDA margin increased 110 basis points and reached 19.1%. Really, when you look at it, operating margin or EBITDA margin, really excellent performance at this part of the cycle. EPS reported was $2.60, and on an adjusted basis was $2.76. We had a very strong quarter on cash flow. Cash flow from operations came in at 13.5% of sales. We had a record as far as cash flow from operations in terms of dollars at $449 million, and free cash flow was 12.0%. When you look at free cash flow conversion, that was 118%, really strong quarter on cash. We had a number of exciting announcements in the quarter. We launched Win Strategy 3.0, that's the third revision of the Win Strategy.
This follows the second revision we did in 2015, we launched a new purpose statement for the company. We closed the LORD and Exotic Metals acquisitions, so we've been busy in the quarter. We're really excited to welcome the LORD and Exotic Metals team members to the Parker team. The joint integration teams have been working hard in preparation for the closings, and they're hitting the ground running as we speak. As you heard me talk about, the acquisitions are transformational to Parker's portfolio, really strengthening engineering materials and aerospace with high growth, high margin businesses that will definitely be more resilient over the business cycle. Our global Parker teams are very energized by all these announcements between the Win Strategy, purpose, and these acquisitions, so we're excited about the future. Now, switching to the outlook. We revised guidance for FY 2020.
We've seen a market shift within the last 90 days that's reflected in weakened order entry, primarily driven from macro conditions and trade uncertainties. When you look at total sales for Parker in FY 2020, they're expected to be flat year-over-year at the midpoint. With guidance now, these are all midpoint numbers, at -6% organic, -1% for currency, and +7% on acquisitions. Segment operating margin guidance is now at 15.2% as reported at the midpoint, and the adjusted midpoint is now 16.3%. I would just call to your attention, there's two important impacts on there when you look at it from a partial year, is the amortization of the two deals. From a partial year standpoint for FY 2020, that impacts us by 70 basis points.
When you look at it in a full 12 months, there's 100 basis points of deal amortization as a headwind on margins. Business realignment expenses are expected to increase to $40 million. This is reflective of the current macro conditions. This was $20 million in the prior guide. Of course, our guidance now includes LORD and Exotic Metals Forming for the balance of the year. We'll go through discussing markets and the guidance assumptions in more detail during the Q&A. Let's switch to cash flow and margin resilience. Hopefully you saw on the cash flow numbers in my comments just a moment ago, cash flow was very strong, record numbers. When you look at the operating and EBITDA margin performance, I'm going to compare it to 2015 and 2016, so the last downturn we experienced.
I'm going to look at this legacy Parker-Hannifin without acquisitions. That allows us to do an apples to apples comparison. FY 2016, which would have been the worst year in that downturn, on an adjusted operating margin, was 14.8%. Then FY 2020 guidance is 16.6% at the midpoint. When you look at that delta, that's an improvement of 180 basis points. On adjusted EBITDA, in FY 2016, it was 14.7%. Our current guide at the midpoint is 18.2%, that's a 350 basis point improvement. Clearly raising the floor on margins when you compare the 2015, 2016 downturn to what we're experiencing now. We fully anticipate to do double-digit cash flow from operations for the full fiscal year, like we've been doing for the last 18 years. Really, this performance is driven by a combination of factors.
The new Win Strategy, which we introduced in 2015, is propelling our performance. All the previous restructuring activities we've done, which has positioned us to be a more agile and lean operating company. Let's move to slide five and talk about the future. We're very positive about the future, and I think we are absolutely poised to generate nice earnings growth after we clear these near-term macro conditions. A couple things influencing our confidence on the earnings potential. Win Strategy 3.0 and the purpose statement represent some important changes for the company. Plus, we've added two great businesses via these acquisitions. Actually, in my view, the timing of these acquisitions couldn't be any better. During the soft part of the cycle, there's clear advantages here.
We have the capacity to digest these much easier than when we were digesting Clarcor, as we were trying to ramp up the base business as well as digest Clarcor. When you look at the timing, when you look at the integration teams hitting their stride, it's about the same time the markets will start to turn for us, approximately nine months. Both of those factors will drive earnings growth as we look into the future. We're going to be hosting an Investor Day, March 12th, 2020, in New York City. During that Investor Day, we're going to showcase Win Strategy 3.0 and the purpose statement, so give you a lot more color on the key strategic changes for the future. We're going to highlight all six operating groups. In the past, we've highlighted one group, and last time, we highlighted three groups.
For the first time ever, we're going to give you insights to all six groups. You'll see the entire company. We'll go through the three last acquisitions, Clarcor, LORD, and Exotic. Just a quick reminder, which is on this page that you see, the winning formula for Parker, our competitive differentiators. The Win Strategy, now 3.0, the third revision of that, which is our business system. You couple that with our decentralized divisional structure. In my view, that's the best of both worlds. You get a centrally led business system that's deployed locally with that closeness to the P&L. The breadth of our portfolio technology is very interconnected. Strong intellectual property, long product life cycles. Very balanced between OEM and aftermarket, with the best distribution channel in the motion control space. Low CapEx requirements to actually generate growth and productivity.
All this ends up culminating in being able to generate a lot of cash and being able to deploy it on the best behalf we can for our shareholders. We have a lot of confidence in our ability to achieve the FY 2023 financial targets. I just want to thank all the global team that's listening in for their hard work, their continued and dedicated effort, and I'll hand it back to Kathy for more details on the quarter and the guidance.
Thanks, Tom. I'd like you to now refer to slide number 6. This slide presents as reported and adjusted earnings per share for the first quarter. Adjusted earnings per share for the quarter were $2.76 compared to $2.84 for the same quarter a year ago. Adjustments from the fiscal year 2020 as reported results totaled $0.16, including before-tax amounts of business realignment charges of $0.04, acquisition costs to achieve of $0.04, and acquisition transaction-related expenses of $0.14, offset by the tax effect of these adjustments of $0.06. Prior year first quarter earnings per share had been adjusted by $0.05. The details of which are included in the reconciliation tables for non-GAAP financial measures.
On slide seven, you'll find the significant components of the walk from adjusted earnings per share of $2.84 for the first quarter of fiscal 2019 to $2.76 for the first quarter of this year. We benefited $0.02 per share in operating income from Exotic Metals Forming Company since closing on that acquisition September 16th. For legacy Parker, a $166 million decline in sales contributed to a $0.15 reduction in operating income. The teams did a great job of controlling costs with lower volume by sustaining a 15% decremental margin for the quarter. Incremental interest expense on the debt borrowed for the two acquisitions resulted in a $0.15 decline in the current earnings per share.
Interest income from the pre-acquisition investments of that cash benefited the current quarter $0.09. Lower other expense of $0.13 came from several one-time gains in the current year, and by not repeating several one-time losses from last year. Lower corporate G&A contributed $0.01, while fewer favorable discrete tax benefits in the current quarter resulted in a higher tax rate, causing $0.12 of incremental tax expense. Finally, a lower share count benefited the quarter $0.09. Slide eight shows total Parker sales and segment operating margin for the first quarter. Organic sales decreased year-over-year by -3.3%. Currency had a negative impact of -1.5%. These declines were partially offset by a positive impact of 0.6% from the September acquisition of Exotic. Despite declining sales, total adjusted segment operating margin improved to 17.3% versus 17.2% last year.
This 10 basis point improvement reflects the operating cost improvements teams have been working hard on, combined with additional positive impacts from our Win Strategy initiatives. On slide nine, we're showing the small benefit Exotic had on the first quarter FY 2020 results post-close on September 16th. You can see they contributed $21 million in sales and $3 million in operating income on an adjusted basis during this brief stub period. Exotic results are included in the Aerospace Systems segment. Moving to slide 10, I'll discuss the business segments, starting with Diversified Industrial North America. For the first quarter, North American organic sales were down 3.2%. Currency had a small impact on sales of negative 0.2%. Even with lower sales, operating margin for the first quarter on an adjusted basis was an impressive 17.3% of sales versus 16.6% in the prior year.
North America continued to deliver improved margins, which reflects the hard work dedicated to productivity improvements, as well as synergies from Clarcor and the impact of our Win Strategy initiatives. Moving to Diversified Industrial International segment on Slide 11. Organic sales for the first quarter in the Industrial International segment decreased by 8.7%. Currency had a negative impact of -3.9%. Operating income for the first quarter on an adjusted basis was 15.9% of sales versus 17.0% in the prior year, a decremental margin of 25%. The teams continue to work on controlling costs during the more difficult drops in volume by utilizing tools of our Win Strategy initiatives. I'll now move to Slide 12 to review the Aerospace Systems segment. Organic revenues increased 8.2% for the first quarter as a result of growth in all of the platforms, with the strongest growth in military OEM and the commercial aftermarket.
In addition, the Aerospace Segment sales increased $21 million or 3.7% from the addition of the Exotic acquisition. Operating Margin for the first quarter was 20% of sales versus 19.5% in the prior year, reflecting the impact of higher volume in all the platforms, lower development costs, and good progress on the Win Strategy initiatives. On Slide 13, we report Cash Flow from Operating Activities. Cash Flow from Operating Activities was a first quarter record of $449 million or 13.5% of sales. This compares to 10.3% of sales for the same period last year after last year's number is adjusted for a $200 million discretionary pension contribution. That's a year-over-year increase of 25%. Free Cash Flow for the current quarter was 12% of sales, and the conversion rate to Net Income was 118%. Moving to Slide 14, we show the details of order rates by segment.
As a reminder, these orders results exclude acquisitions, divestitures, and currency. The Diversified Industrial segments report on a three-month rolling average, while Aerospace Systems are based on a 12-month rolling average. Continued declines in the industrial markets drove total orders to drop 2% for the quarter end. This year-over-year decline is made up of a 6% decline from Diversified Industrial North America, 10% decline from Diversified Industrial International orders, offset by a very positive 22% increase from Aerospace Systems orders. The full year earnings guidance for fiscal year 2020 is outlined on slide number 15. This guidance has been revised to align to current macro conditions and now includes the impact of the LORD and Exotic acquisitions. Guidance is being provided on both an as reported and an adjusted basis.
Total sales for the year with the help from acquisitions are now expected to remain flat compared to prior year. Anticipated full year organic change at the midpoint is a decline of 6%. Currency is expected to have a negative 1.1% impact on sales, and acquisitions will add 7.4% to the current year. We've calculated the impact of currency to spot rates as of the quarter ended September 30, and we have held those rates steady as we estimate the resulting year-over-year impact for the remaining quarters of this fiscal year. For total Parker, as reported segment operating margins are forecasted to be between 15.0% and 15.5%, while adjusted segment operating margins are forecasted to be between 16.0% and 16.5%. We've not adjusted for the incremental amortization of approximately $100 million, which we will incur for the remainder of this year as a result of the two acquisitions.
The full-year effective tax rate is projected to be 23%. The first quarter tax rate was favorably impacted by discrete items, which we don't forecast. We are anticipating a tax rate from continuing operations of 23.3% for quarters two through four. For the full year, the guidance range for earnings per share on an as-reported basis is now $8.53 to $9.33, or $8.93 at the midpoint. On an adjusted earnings per share basis, the guidance range is now $10.10 to $10.90 or $10.50 at the midpoint. The adjustments to the as-reported forecast made in this guidance include business realignment expenses of approximately $40 million for the full year fiscal 2020, with the associated savings projected to be $15 million. Synergy savings from Clarcor are still estimated to achieve a run rate of $160 million by the end of fiscal 2020, which represents an incremental $35 million of year-end savings.
In addition, guidance on an adjusted basis excludes $27 million of integrated costs to achieve for LORD and Exotic and $200 million of one-time acquisition-related expenses. LORD and Exotic are expected to achieve synergy savings of $15 million this fiscal year. A reconciliation and further details of these adjustments can be found in the appendix to this morning's slides. Savings from all business realignment and acquisition costs to achieve are fully reflected in both the as-reported and the adjusted operating margin guidance ranges. We ask that you continue to publish your estimates using adjusted guidance for purposes of representing a more consistent year-over-year comparison. Some additional key assumptions for full year 2020 guidance at the midpoint are a split first half, second half of 47%, 53% for all sales, adjusted segment operating income, and adjusted EPS. All three we expect to be split 47%, 53%.
Second quarter fiscal 2020 adjusted earnings per share is projected to be $2.22 per share at the midpoint. This excludes $15 million of projected business realignment expenses and $167 million of acquisition-related expenses and costs to achieve for both LORD and Exotic. On slide 16, you'll find a reconciliation of the major components of revised fiscal year 2020 adjusted EPS guidance of $10.50 per share at the midpoint compared to the prior guidance of $11.90 per share. Starting with just the legacy business, a $0.10 per share beat in the first quarter is quickly going to be offset by the challenging macro conditions facing the rest of the fiscal year. A drop of nearly $800 million in forecasted sales at the midpoint is driving a decline of $1.44 in operating income for the rest of the year.
Interest expense in our previous guide included the interest on $2.3 billion of bonds we were holding for the acquisitions. Since then, we have borrowed additional term loans and commercial paper to complete both acquisitions. Now that both acquisitions are closed, we've allocated $0.72 of interest expense to the acquisitions, which includes the interest on the bonds, the term loans, and the new commercial paper, causing a relief of $0.29 of interest expense within the legacy business. Also in our previous guide, we had an assumption of earning $0.35 from interest income on the cash from the bonds. That cash has now been used for the acquisition, so the other expense line, which includes interest income, has been reduced going forward.
Finally, within the legacy business, we are anticipating a slightly higher tax rate for the rest of the year, which will drop earnings per share $0.03, resulting in revised legacy Parker adjusted guidance of $10.50. Exotic is estimated to contribute $0.28 and LORD $0.44 to operating income for the year, inclusive of the additional combined $100 million amortization expense we will be incurring. Offsetting this will be the $0.72 of interest expense related to the debt for these acquisitions. All in, this leaves $10.50 consolidated adjusted earnings per share at the midpoint for our guide for fiscal 2020. On slide 17, we show the impact the acquisitions will have on both an as-reported and adjusted basis.
On an adjusted basis, the acquisitions lower operating margin to 16.3% for total Parker from 16.6% for legacy Parker, impacted by $100 million of amortization expense. For adjusted EBITDA margins, the acquisitions provide 50 basis points of improvement, moving from 18.2% for legacy Parker to 18.7% for total Parker. For those of you building forecast models, we've included more details regarding the LORD and Exotic impact on the total year guidance in the appendix. If you'll now go to slide number 18, I'll turn it back to Tom for summary comments.
Thank you, Kathy. We're very pleased with our progress. We are going to perform well with this downturn, as demonstrated by our cash flow performance and raising the floor on operating margins. We're well on our way to being that top quartile company that we want to achieve and being best in class. Just a reminder of where we're trying to drive to, we want to transform the company to achieve the targets we've set out in FY 2023 of growing organically 150 basis points greater than global industrial production growth, segment operating margins of 19%, EBITDA margins of 20%, free cash flow conversion greater than 100%, and EPS CAGR over that time period at 10%+. Again, thanks to everybody, all the global team members around the world for your hard work.
With that, I'll hand it over to Joelle to start the Q&A portion of the call.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press *1 on your telephone. To withdraw your question, press the # key. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Nathan Jones with Stifel. Your line is now open.
Morning, everyone.
Morning, Nathan.
Tom, it seems like you guys have taken maybe a bit more negative outlook going forward over the next three quarters here than some of your peers have. I think you mentioned you were planning on three more quarters of a downturn here. Can you just maybe talk a little bit about what's going on in the end markets and your expectations, around why you're thinking this downturn is as long as you guys seem to have built into guidance here?
Yeah, Nathan, it's Tom. I'm sure this is the question top of mind for everybody. I'll start off with going through what was behind the guide, then I'll finish with a summary of end markets. It starts first with our Q1 orders, and you've seen that -2 total company, but in particular, -6 North America and -10 internationally. You got to look at other external indicators that are typically flow through in our orders, 3-6 months out, those things like the ISMs and the PMIs. The U.S. ISM at 47.8 for September, that was a 10-year low, as everybody knows. Europe's PMI of 45.7 for September, and of course, Germany, our third largest country, at 41.7, obviously feeling the impact of the trade-related uncertainties. Asia PMIs are weak.
Part of what influenced our forecast was the trend of orders through the quarter. August and September were about the same, but they were weaker than July. As you look at October, while October's not done yet, we looked at October on a daily basis, we saw further softening from that August and September rate. Put those factors into also our bottoms-up latest look from the divisions, in our view, yielded a more challenging macro environment. I'll peel back the organic piece a little bit more, and I'll give you some of my thoughts as to why we did what we did. You've seen organic at the midpoint at minus 6%. That composition is North America at minus 6%, International at minus 11.5%, and Aerospace at plus 4.5%. The first half, second half organic is both minus 6%.
Minus 6 for first half, minus 6 for the second half. Given that organic growth was minus 3 in Q1, that implies that our low point or the bottoming out of Parker-Hannifin is somewhere between Q2 and Q3 in this guidance. We also looked, remember, I talked about the pressure curves last time, and we had baked in about a 15-month duration. This now looks like it's an 18-month duration, a whole fiscal year. That's the difference versus the prior guide. When we look at the 4 phases of growth that we've talked about in the past, the end markets are definitely moving through those phases. The largest phase is now in phase 4, decelerating growth at 48%. That last quarter, that was at -10. That's encouraging that they're starting to move through that.
When you look at phase three, which is accelerating decline, that used to be 67% last quarter, now it's 28%. That's also an important point. All these things are signaling some kind of a bottoming for us about the midpoint of our FY 2020. Maybe now just to kind of walk on the prior guide to the new guide. The prior guide was minus one and a half at the midpoint. Again, I'm talking about organic. The new guide's minus six, so that's a 450 basis point step-down. Our orders stepped down 200 basis points. Again, I'm focused on the industrial piece where North America and International stepped down 200 basis points.
We have to try to project out those ISMs and PMIs I just described that are pretty negative, and they're going to flow through into orders anywhere over the next couple of months to maybe a maximum of six months. Also looking at the October orders, that weakened from what you see in September. That kind of made up the balance. You got 200 that's already declined with orders. The balance 250 made up of that, projecting those PMIs and ISMs into our future orders and what we saw in October. That kind of gives you a walk down. Maybe if I give you comments on the end markets for Q1, I'll start with the positives. Aerospace continues to be very strong. Lawn and turf, forestry, and marine, and pretty much all the others are negative.
Probably the best way for me to summarize the others is to take them into major buckets. Distribution, I recognize, is not a market, but it's an important channel for us. Distribution actually got a little bit better. I'm talking about going from Q4 to Q1 year-over-year. It came in Q1 at about a -2, and in Q4 it was -2.5. That composition in North America got better. Europe stayed about the same. Asia Pacific got worse. The industrial end markets stayed relatively the same. Both were -9 in Q4, -9 in Q1. The mobile market is where we saw the step-down. Mobile markets went from a -3 in Q4 to a -6. In particular, what stepped down in mobile was ag, construction, heavy-duty truck, and material handling. That's a quick run through.
That's at the global level, what I was describing as far as the end markets and what caused us to move the guidance like we did.
I appreciate the transparency and the color there. Just moving away from things that are happening in the short term here, I'm sure there'll be plenty of questions for that on you. Maybe you could just talk a little bit about what's changed in the Win Strategy 3.0 from Win Strategy 2.0.
Yeah, I'd be happy to do that because that's going to be very exciting for the company. Obviously, when we have you all together, we'll go through this in a lot more detail. If I would just paraphrase the key points. Underneath engagement, we're going to continue to expand that whole ownership concept with the idea that the more people we have thinking and acting like an owner, the better the company's going to perform. A big change on engaged people is Kaizen, and we'll take you through all the things we're doing on Kaizen as far as our approach to it, who we're working with, and the results we're seeing. Under customer experience, a lot more emphasis on digital leadership, and we'll expand what we mean by that.
A new metric, which is not too dissimilar to what we had before, but we have a new metric called composite likely to recommend, which is going to be a mixture of on-time delivery and feedback from our customers and distributors. Underneath profitable growth, we have this new strategic initiative called Strategic Positioning, which we'll give you more color on. New Product Blueprinting underneath innovation, two new metrics for innovation, Product Vitality Index and gross margin for that product vitality, and we'll explain more about that when we're in person. Underneath simplification, a very new, powerful concept called Simple by Design, where we focus on simplifying the design of our products to reduce the bill of material complexity, the inventory and planning and scheduling complexity, and the ability to produce it.
Recognizing that about 70% of our product costs are tied up in how we design it. We will talk a lot more about that when we have you all there. We'll be somewhat careful on Simple by Design because I don't want to teach all my competitors how to do that, but we'll give you enough color so that you all know that it's real and that there's some big enhancements to the company, both on a growth and a margin standpoint.
All right. I appreciate all the color and all the transparency there. I'll pass it on. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Nathan.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Ann Duignan with JPMorgan Chase. Your line is now open.
Hi, good morning. I'm not sure that there are any questions left after all of that, the color. You gave us global end markets, industrial versus mobile. Would you mind breaking those up by region, please, or any notable differences across the major markets that have declined ag, construction, heavy duty, material handling?
Yeah, Ann, it's Tom. I'll give you the high points by region. North America was about 3% organic decline. On the positive side was machine tools, heavy-duty truck, forestry, and lawn and turf. Flat was distribution and automotive. On the negative side, we had low single digits was mining, telecom, and life sciences. Mid-single digits decline, these are all declines, refrigeration, mills and foundries, and tires. Switching to the mobile markets, mid-single digit declines was construction and marine, and mid-teen declines was ag, material handling, and rail. Again, I had mentioned that distribution fared better in North America than any of the other regions as far as how it performed. In Europe, came in about a -7% for the quarter. On the positive side was refrigeration, power, semicon, life sciences, and oil and gas.
On the negative side, starting with the industrial end markets, we had a couple that were greater than 20%. Mills and foundries, machine tools, obviously Europe being more export sensitive, feeling the impact of trade uncertainties. Those are very trade-centric type of end markets. Mid-teen declines was mining, tire, and rubber. Distribution came in around -4.5%, about the same as it was versus prior period. Mobile, we had low single-digit declines in construction and ag, and about 10% in heavy-duty truck and auto. Actually, mobile fared okay in Europe. The industrial end markets suffered worse in Europe. In Asia, on the positive side, Asia came in a 12% decline for Q1. On the positive side were oil and gas, mining, and marine. All the declines, distribution was down about 5.5%.
On the industrial space, we had about mid-teen declines on mills, refrigeration, machine tools, greater than 20 on some of those big secular end markets like power gen, semicon, and of course, telecom being somewhat impacted by the Huawei challenges. Then on the mobile side is where we saw some of the steepest declines, greater than 20 in construction, ag, material handling, and rail. You can see that mobile feeling the worst in Asia Pacific. That's a quick spin to the regions.
Just as a follow-up, I think you've already answered this, but are you seeing any signs of, I hate to use the word we use every time when we're coming up, but any green shoots anywhere?
What has been nice is that distribution got a little bit better, so we like that, the fact that that went into phase 4. We had a number of other things move into phase 4, automotive and life sciences and oil and gas. Actually, power gen and semiconductor, even though they're down mid-teens for us, the fact that they went into phase 4. I always like when things move into phase 4, because then you know, guess what the next phase is? Accelerating growth. That's encouraging. We still had the ones that were strong and continue to be strong, like Aerospace. Lawn and turf is, you're seeing some seasonal help there. Forestry, with all the paper-related goods tied to e-commerce, has continued to be strong. Those are what I would say is indicators.
For us, what we're signaling with this guidance is a bottom forming for us. I can't call a bottom for anybody else, but a bottom for us is somewhere in the middle of our fiscal year.
Okay, I'll leave it there in the interest of time and get back in queue. Thank you, appreciate it.
Thanks, Anne.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Joel Tiss of BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
Hi, how's it going?
Hi, Joel.
I just wonder, on the last discussion and super-duper color there, can you just give us any sense of how you take, it feels like things are a little worse now or maybe in the next couple of month future because of inventory reductions. How do you take the amplification of that in the near term out of your forward guidance? I'm just curious how to think about that.
Joel, it's Tom again. The destocking, it's always a tough question, but the one area where we do have good data on is North America distribution. You've heard both Lee and I talk about this in the past, that the destocking has been improving by about 100 basis points, and that's actually what happened again. To refresh people's memory, in Q3 of 2019, it was down 300 basis points of destocking. Q4 was 200 basis points, and now Q1 was 100 basis points. We had guided to that we felt distribution was going to, at least North America, was going to get into somewhat of equilibrium at the end of the calendar year, so the end of Q2. We clearly are seeing destocking at the OEMs, especially the mobile OEMs destocking.
How long that takes to play through is very difficult because we don't have the kind of visibility into that that we have with the U.S. distribution. What we're guiding to, and it's very hard to split end market demand versus destocking. What we gave you is kind of our view all in of this impact.
Just like a strategic question and not so much thinking about a forecast, just thinking about how do we think about Parker-Hannifin's earnings resiliency going forward, like beyond the obvious, okay, aerospace is a bigger part of the company. Some of the ways that you guys think about it, that could help us. Thank you.
Yeah, Joel, Tom, that's a good question, and I'm actually glad that you asked it because we've been working very hard at this, as you might imagine. There's a number of factors. First, it would start with some of the portfolio moves that we've made over the last number of years, Clarcor, LORD, and Exotic. Let me give you some for instances. When we look at our order entry, without getting into things that I don't want to disclose publicly, our filtration platform is holding up much better than the rest of the industrial platform, and that was by design with Clarcor, with its density and aftermarket. It's living up to its billing, what we had hoped for. LORD is coming in with about a 4% organic growth, and that compares to what we just told you, guiding to a minus 6 for Parker.
Exotic's growth is coming in around 11%, that's better than Parker and better than Parker Aerospace. You get some portfolio things that we're doing that drives resilience and enhanced organic growth. You've heard us talk about what we have been doing on distribution, growing international distribution in particular, we've changed that mix from when we started with Win Strategy 2.0. We were at 35% international mix on the distribution, now it's 40%. That doesn't seem like a lot, moving that number 100 basis points a year is meaningful, that enhances margins, it provides more resilience, again, because our channel there is servicing primarily aftermarket. We're doing a lot of things on innovation, which we'll give you a lot more color with 3.0 when we see you all in March.
The new Product Blueprinting, Product Vitality Index, our gross margin that we're tracking on these products are all designed because when you look at our innovation growth, it is growing faster than the base business, so it's going to hold up better in a downturn. The things we're trying to do to drive customer experience are really important because you can't really grow with a customer if you don't give them a good experience. Then all the things we've been doing operating-wise, simplification, lean supply chain, et cetera, and now Kaizen to make the company more agile and just a better operating company. Those would be the things that I would say in the top line, and then just from an operating standpoint, how we're going to get to those FY 2023 targets.
Great. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Joelle.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Jamie Cook with Credit Suisse. Your line is now open.
Hi. Good morning. I guess just a couple questions. I guess the first one, just understanding the guide, the implied international adjusted margins, I guess fall off a little more than I would've expected in the remaining nine months of the year. Understanding there's a lot of moving parts, is there any way you could sort of help us with what the puts and takes are there besides increasing M&A? Just, obviously, the cash flow in the quarter was very strong, and as we are in sort of a slowdown here, leverage becomes more topical. Just, Tom, how we should think about cash flow for 2020, whether there's any structural improvements we should be looking for. Thank you.
Jamie, let me start. I'll have Cathy add on as far as debt and maybe comment on cash flow. One thing I want to try to make sure everybody understands, this new guide has got still some really good decremental margins in it. If you benchmark companies, which I know you all do this, a -30 decremental is still best in class decremental. I'm just going to read to you total decrementals for the company, Q2 through the rest of the year. Q2, and these are approximate. These are at the midpoint. There's going to be a range around these numbers. 27% decremental. Q3, a 28% decremental. Q4, a 23% decremental. We end up with a full year at about a 25% decremental.
Those are really, I think, very excellent performance given that if you look at industrial, it's going to be down -6% North America and -11.5% on International. That's why International's a little bit worse on its decrementals. North America's coming in around 24%, and International's at 29%, and it's because it's about a 2x difference on volume, that's creating a lot more challenge. Then in addition to the volume side, International has currency, which we've always struggled to identify currency impact on financials, and we've basically decided not to try to communicate that because you can't get a consistent number with it. We do all know that when currency becomes a headwind to us, it becomes a pressure point on margins. That's another factor for International.
On cash flow, and I'll hand it over to Cathy, I would have shareholders rest assured that that 18 years of 10% plus CFOA is going to turn into 19 years because we've got a proven track record of being able to work working capital. These operating margins, like you heard me talk about in my opening comments, are 180 basis points better than our last downturn. We have better operating margins, and we'll work the working capital like we normally do. Cathy, do you have anything to add on this?
Jamie, we finished the quarter end at a leverage gross debt to EBITDA of 3.6. We did bring in a small amount of additional debt in the form of term loan to close LORD this past week. It's going to go up slightly. If you look historically, we do have a great track record of managing the working capital very well during a down cycle. We're pretty confident. In addition to that, both LORD and Exotic have a history of very strong cash flow, stronger than Parker, so they will be great contributors to it, and we're confident. We will be at a level that we were with Clarcor when we closed that deal, and we brought that down very quickly, and we feel that we can do the same even though we are seeing things slow down.
Keep in mind, we do carry about $1 billion of international cash. Our net debt to EBITDA was actually 2.1 at the end of the quarter.
Okay, thank you. I appreciate the color.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from David Raso with Evercore ISI. Your line is now open.
Hi. Thank you. Just looking at the organic growth first half, second half. Obviously the second half, a big change from used to be up one to negative six now. Can you take us through your thoughts on how you see orders playing out underneath that decline? It seems like the second quarter, you're expecting the biggest organic decline, but the second half is still pretty healthy at down six. Healthy meaning a large decline. I'm just trying to get a sense of how you're viewing the order patterns underneath that negative six in fiscal second half.
Yeah, David, it's Tom. That's where the forecast gets more and more challenging, is the further that you go out. We really were trying to project some of those macro indicators that I mentioned in my comments, the U.S. ISM, Germany's number, Asia's PMIs, the rest of Europe PMIs, et cetera, recognizing that as we plotted those historically, they tend to lag and impact our orders three to six months out. We know we saw a weakening in October, which that's going to influence Q2, and then these other macro indicators three to six months out starts to impact the second half. That was the thought process behind that, but it does become more challenging as we try to figure that out because our backlog outside of Aerospace doesn't carry us out that far.
We had to kind of look at historical trends and lagging periods between these macro indicators and what we do.
Yeah, I'm just trying to think how you thought about managing your own inventory through the end of the year, and that interplay between, okay, the second half's a lot weaker than we thought, but we do see some bottoming process and that's how we're managing, be it not even just inventory, but how you're thinking about pricing. That usually gets announced Jan one and so forth. Is it fair to say at this stage, you're not thinking of the orders improving much in the back half fiscally? It's just the comps get a lot easier. I think for a lot of people seeing the cut to the organic is, obviously not pleasant. If you felt the orders were improving in the back half to some degree, you can call it temporary. Because the way you're speaking to the business is, it's kind of a temporary macro environment.
I know it's hard to call. I was just curious to have some sense of where your head is and how you're managing the company for that fiscal second half. It doesn't sound like you're planning for orders to be, say, up in the latter part of the year. Is that a fair assessment in how you're trying to manage?
Yes, David, I think that's fair. We would project that orders would continue to be weak because our orders, organic growth and orders are typically within a month or two of each other when you plot it historically. For us on inventory is never good. It's a waste when you're running a lean operation. We're continuously, whether we have volume going up or volume going down, we're looking to optimize inventory, period, all the time. The Kaizen efforts that we're doing in unity with our Parker-Hannifin lean process, will continue to work at managing inventories down. Now, obviously, when orders go down, you need to update all your planning tools, your Plan for Every Part, which is part of our lean system. We're doing that. Then on pricing, I'll let Lee comment on pricing, what we're doing with that.
Well, David, maybe I'll put price and cost together. I would say cost inputs, it's a mixed bag. There's some going down, some going up. From a price cost standpoint, as always, we just try to stay margin neutral, and that's what we're planning going forward.
Okay. Just to make sure, just to wrap up here. The first quarter organic was in line with your expectations, maybe 20 bps even better. I actually thought the orders weren't even that bad in the first quarter relative to some of the fears out there. Obviously, you took a big chunk out of the rest of the year on organic sales and even your thoughts on orders. The surprise, I guess, must have really been this last month that you really thought to see at least some beginning of bottoming process. Is that fair? It's really been the last month that really drove the change in the guide.
David, it's Tom. There's two things. You're right, October, but then also the sequencing we saw within the quarter, the fact that August and September got worse from July. We were starting to see a weakening through the quarter, then another step down in October. That's why we changed the guide.
All right. That's helpful. I appreciate it. Thank you.
Okay. Thanks, David.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Andrew Obin with Bank of America. Your line is now open.
Yes. Good morning.
Morning, Andrew.
Just a question on cash flow, and it's not more a question, but a lot of companies that do deals have shifted to reporting sort of cash earnings, given a massive discrepancy between your cash flow generation and reported earnings. Have you guys considered moving to reporting cash numbers? What has the feedback been from your investors?
Yeah, Andrew, it's Tom. It's a good question, and we have thought about it, and we have reached out to shareholders, and it's been pretty uniform from shareholder feedback saying, "Don't make that change." To continue to, obviously, we will adjust for one-time costs and the things that we'd normally be doing, but other than that, continue to report on a GAAP basis. If you think about it creates a bigger hurdle that the business needs to absorb to generate returns on behalf of the shareholders. I think that was the feedback I heard from shareholders, is we want you to incorporate that bigger challenge into how you run the place. It's a good comment. I know there's been good companies that have made that change. At this point, we've elected to stay with what we've been doing.
Thank you. Just a question, as your numbers have decelerated, what has the feedback been from LORD and Exotic? What have they experienced relative to expectations when you announced the deals?
Andrew, it's Tom again. Actually, they've held up really nicely. LORD, the outlook that we've just given you is coming in about a 4% organic growth. We had in our model about 5.5%. That's what I verbally said during the announcement. That was kind of our 5-year CAGR. If you think of everything that's going on, that's changed from when we made that announcement to today, that's pretty good. Again, that 4% positive compares to -6% for Parker. That's why we like LORD so much. That's why we bought them. It's accretive from a growth standpoint. When you look at Exotic's coming in a little over 11.5%. In our model that we built for the DCF, we had about a 7.5% CAGR. That's held up nicely.
I would say two things, a little better F-35 sales, and we modeled a more conservative 737 MAX. We modeled Exotic going down to 42, but Boeing has not done that yet with Exotic and probably won't because Exotic, with its long lead time for materials. When you look at what Boeing's done when they're managing supply chain, the rest of Parker Aerospace is, for the most part, at 42. As they've managed long lead time type of suppliers, Exotic being one of those, they've kept them at 52. Because of obvious reasons, you can't ramp back up with that kind of long lead time. That's part of why they've overproduced on the revenue. In a nutshell, both acquisitions holding up on revenue, both acquisitions coming in at the EBITDA level that we expected. Actually, LORD slightly better on EBITDA margins because we pulled in $15 million.
The $15 million that Kathy referred to in her comments is the synergies for LORD. We were able to pull them a little bit earlier than we thought.
If I may squeeze just one in. Auto exposure with LORD, you did comment that auto is bottoming. Was that referring to sort of the old Parker exposure, or was that referring to LORD's exposure as well? That will be it for me. Thank you.
That was total Parker. That was based on Q1, so we didn't have LORD in Q1. Their auto has held up better than our auto has, so pretty comparable.
Thank you.
Thanks, Andrew.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Andrew Casey with Wells Fargo Securities. Your line is now open.
Thanks a lot. Wanted to go back to the decrementals that you talked about, Tom. Were those all in, including the acquisitions over those Parker-Hannifin legacy?
Parker-Hannifin legacy without the acquisitions. Andy, trying to do it with the acquisitions is apples and oranges. Acquisitions are not in the prior period. We've got the $100 million of intangible amortization. The margins is, when you look at it all in versus prior, are basically nonsensical. You can't really read anything into it, which is why I gave you the ones without it.
Okay. Okay, appreciate that. Basically, over the long term, you had talked about 30% incrementals. The decrementals you gave were lower than that, which is good. When you embed the two new acquisitions, that seem to be a little bit similar to Clarcor or a little bit more resilient. Would the downside over the long term relative to the mid to high 20% decremental that you gave kind of even shrink further?
Well, I think there's definitely that potential because, to your point, they will be more resilient. They're higher margins as well, so they should help us with that. We're going to work to make them even better than they are today. The whole goal of these is to take the best of what we do and the best of And of course, now we is now all of us, and the best of what the acquisitions had and make it even better. I still think, again, for purposes of modeling, I don't want to get too far over my skis. I would just encourage you to continue to use the ±30. It's still best in class. Of course, our goal is to try to do better than that.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Okay. Thanks, Andy. Joelle, I think we have time for one more question.
Thank you. Our final question comes from Jeff Sprague with Vertical Research Partners. Your line is now open.
Thank you. Good morning. Hey, just two from me, if you don't mind. Just first back on the acquisitions. At the time they were announced, I thought LORD's run rate sales were about $1.1 billion, and Exotic was about $450 million. When I look at what you laid out here, it looks like they're both actually kind of on an annualized basis, tracking flattish, not up. Is there something in timing, or do I have those bases wrong?
Jeff, it's Tom. I think the main thing We gave it was based on calendar year-over-calendar year. Now these numbers are in our FY and Parker's fiscal year, so the prior periods are not comparable.
Those growth rates you gave us, though, Tom, were for the year in your plan or just in the quarter, those organic-?
Yeah, the growth rates I gave, Jeff, were for our FY 2020, so it'd be comparing the period of time they're in part of Parker FY 2020, and then using the same Parker fiscal year in FY 2019 for them, so we had to go back and kind of reconstitute that with the two acquisitions.
Just one other question on incrementals, if you don't mind. Perhaps it goes to the FX point you were making, Tom, but the decline in 6% organic sales decline is about $650 million in sales. I think Kathy said $800 million, if I think about it on a core basis. $1.44 of EPS headwind would gross up to like $230 million. That's like a 35% decremental on the core business, if I think about it relative to the walk that you gave us where you showed kind of legacy Parker-Hannifin versus the deals. Am I missing something there or is it FX?
Yeah. Jeff, it's the FX differential. The number I quoted was top line total drop that we had in our guidance for the second, third, and fourth quarters. When you're quoting organic, you're probably correct that it's closer to $600.
Okay, great. Thank you for that color.
Okay. Thank you. All right. This concludes our Q&A and our earnings call. Thank you to everyone for joining us today. Robin and Jeff will be available throughout the day to take your calls should you have any further questions. Everyone have a great day. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.