We are really excited to have Parker Hannifin with us today. We've got Todd Leombruno, who is the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Parker. So Todd, as I walk over to you, you know, obviously there's still some economic uncertainty out there, but in general, your orders, your industrial orders, have been inflecting positively. Distributor commentary has continued to support what seems like a gradual recovery. So maybe just to get it out of the way, could you update us on whether you've seen any changes in the order patterns here over the first couple of months of the calendar year? And do you continue to think of this recovery as gradual versus firing on all cylinders?
So first, Andy, thanks for having us. We always love coming to this conference. Thank you all for showing up. I know it's the last day of the conference, right? It is Thursday, it's right before lunch.
It's still in the morning, that's good.
So we appreciate your time and attention here. Andy, I don't mean to disappoint you. I'm not here to talk about January or February. We were really proud that our orders turned so positive with the last quarter, our second quarter. We just had our earnings call on the 31st, I believe, of January. And you know, it has been a wonderful time to be part of the aerospace business. Our aerospace orders continue to be robust. We're now on the fourth year of double-digit organic growth in aerospace, and it has really been something that has been transformational for the company.
The industrial side of the business, to answer your question, you know, has been under some duress for the past two years, but our orders turned positive a few quarters ago. That trend has continued. We were really happy to see North America, specifically, pop up to +7%. What I can share is that, you know, we have tried to shift this business to more longer cycle business. That has been driving a lot of those orders in aerospace. You know, we do have a fair amount of exposure to aerospace end markets in our industrial technologies, in the filtration and in the engineered materials business. But we also saw some nice lift from things like power gen.
Really, on the shorter side of the business, construction turned positive, which we were happy about. You know, obviously, the sentiment from the distribution network has also been positive. I would say it's probably equally split between longer cycle orders and shorter cycle orders, and we view that as a positive sign. If you remember, we started our guidance, specifically in North America, we started the year at 1, you know, we moved that to 2, and now we're at 2.5, so, we hope to see that trend continue.
It's helpful color, Todd. So look, I think one thing also that Parker's done a really good job with is sort of price versus cost and managing the tariff uncertainty that's out there well. So maybe just could you talk through what you've done? How should we think about, you know, future impact on Parker's business? Because as tariffs lap-
Yeah
... you might have some tailwinds there. So how should we think about price versus cost in general?
Yeah
... in the second half of 2026 and beyond?
You know, a key element of our strategy, and this is, this is decades long now, has been making sure that we procure parts in the most efficient, strategic manner, making sure we convert them in the most efficient manner, using our tools of lean, and then making sure we get value from those on the price side. So, for decades, we have very much closely monitored input cost and output prices, and our goal has always been to be positive on that. When we went through those inflationary times, you know, the big spike in energy cost and logistics cost and labor cost, you know, it really...
Historically, we've been mainly focused on the material side, but with all those costs kind of spiking out of control, we knew that we had to move to a total cost coverage.
Mm-hmm.
Really, we flexed our tools to focus on total cost coverage. Tariffs, specifically, we always looked at that as just another cost that we would have to control. While the pricing muscle is strong, specifically on tariffs, we didn't just use price as a tool. We have had a local-for-local manufacturing strategy way before it was cool, way before people thought it was the most efficient thing to do. The reason we did that is because we wanted to be close to our customers, we wanted to procure, convert, and invoice in local currencies, and we wanted to keep inventory levels under control, and the best way we thought to do that was through a local-for-local model. That has been helpful when it comes to tariffs.
Our global footprint has allowed us to utilize different, production capabilities, different shipping routes, that, really, the goal has been to minimize the impact of tariffs. And if none of those fail, you know, we have dual sourcing elements in there as well. And if none of those work to, mitigate tariffs, you know, we would pull the pricing, element and make sure that, our commitment to you, our shareholders, would be that there'd be no margin degradation, no EPS degradation as a result of these tariffs that clearly are out of everyone's control. So that's what we've done. I don't think you've heard us call out, any negatives or positives as a result of tariffs. We just consider it another cost that we have to manage.
Todd, so maybe a somewhat related question. I think I'm dating myself, but I kind of remember when the Win Strategy was being born.
Yeah.
You know, and it's been an integral part of Parker for a long, long time now.
Yeah.
Maybe just talk about sort of where you are with the strategy itself, and really around Lean-
Yeah
... and, like, how much more sort of improvement you have-
Yeah
... because obviously, your margins are already pretty high.
Yeah.
ability to continue to have, you know, greater than 30% incrementals.
... Yeah, I remember when the first Win Strategy was out, too. You know, it's been now, you know, roughly 26 years that we've had a version of the Win Strategy. And, you know, what I've been telling people this week is the reason it got the name Win was, we created it at a time when the company was not winning, right? We were doing okay, but we weren't clearly differentiating ourselves in the space when it came to things like operational excellence, like growth, like, earnings per share growth and cash flow growth. So that's how it, how it's got its name. And, it has been unbelievably powerful. I think it has structurally and culturally changed the company.
We've been able to post some numbers that have really convinced our team members that this is a never-ending journey of continuous improvement. We've been doing Lean specifically that entire time, and I would tell you, when they say it's a journey, it really is a journey. If you could sit in some of our meetings, you would think that we were just learning Lean and just learning how to take waste out, because it constantly changes, it constantly evolves, whether it's the products you're making, whether it's the lead times that you need to meet, whether it's the cost structure that you need to meet. And I would tell you, it's. I'm unbelievably proud to be part of the team that is never satisfied with whatever our most recent Lean Kaizen is.
So, you know, I would tell you, all of these tools are at various stages of maturity. Some businesses may be more advanced with a series of tools, others may be advanced with a different series of tools. As we've brought these acquisitions into the company, right, we've done some pretty significant transactions. If you go back to Clarcor, Lord, Exotic, Meggitt, which was the largest ever. Now Curtis, we had Exotic Metals in there, and soon to be the Filtration Group. You know, we have shared those tools of the Win Strategy with those new team members of ours, and all of these businesses that we acquired were already good businesses. Each one of them got significantly better when they executed the tools of the Win Strategy. So, you know, this will never stop. We're on version 3.0.
Will there be a 4.0? Yes, but there's still enormous runway to go on our current version.
Todd, so I'm sure you don't want to guide to fiscal 2027 on the stage, so I won't ask you officially to do that. But I will ask you about sort of the puts and takes, right?
Yeah.
You know, industrial is sort of ramping in orders slowly. You know, maybe some people asking about more difficult comps in Aero. So how do you think about sort of this, you know, shorter cycle maybe getting a little bit better-
Yeah.
... longer cycle, still staying the course? When you think about, can you-- You know, the 4-6 is your framework.
Right.
Why shouldn't you be in your framework? Let's ask it like that.
Well, you know, we're guiding to 5% organic growth at the midpoint, so we're right in that 4%-6% range for FY 2026. I think you guys all know that ends in June for us. I'm not going to guide for FY 2027. We've got six more months before we do that, but your thesis is intact, right? Aerospace continues to be great. You know, it's hard to continue double-digit organic growth in that business-
Mm.
Just because of the comps get tougher.
Mm.
But I will tell you, the pure, pure sales dollars will continue to increase, so we like that. There's starting to be signs of life on the industrial side of the business, right? I think the longer cycle nature of that business is already intact. And, you know, we've been vocal. We've started to see construction turn a little bit. We've started to see some in-plant and industrial equipment, some positivity around that. Things like power gen have been really great. Things like anything electronic has been really good, and we expect that to continue. So, you know, to answer your question, I don't see why it wouldn't be in that framework.
Got it, and probably your favorite question around margin targets-
Yep.
because, you know, you are three years ahead of schedule, when you're guiding to 27-27.4 for this year-
Yeah
-as a margin. But operating leverage really hasn't helped you that much, at least on the-
Yeah
... industrial side. So maybe talk about what tracked ahead of your expectations-
Mm-hmm
... and why wouldn't it continue to do so?
Yeah.
Again, I'm sure you don't want to set a new target here today, although you can-
Yeah
-if you'd like.
Let me just start by saying, you know, we, we do have a set of FY 2029 as our long-term targets.
Yeah.
It is a combination of targets. It's growth 4-6 organically, the margin target you called out, 27%.
Yep
... adjusted segment operating margins, a 28% adjusted EBITDA margins. We want to grow EPS at a 10+ CAGR every year. We want to get to 17% free cash flow. We want to keep that dividend record going.
Mm.
We look at that holistically as a series of targets. We have clearly outperformed on the margin target. We are right on top of that 27% target. You called it out, it is three years early. You may say, "Geez, how did you get there three years early?" The clear answer is aerospace has been an unbelievable engine. We did not model three years of double-digit organic growth. We did not model a 50% aftermarket OEM mix. And, to be honest, we, with you, we've outperformed on the Meggitt synergies. We got those faster and sooner than we expected. And, the combination of those two businesses made our legacy aerospace even better. So, that was something we didn't expect to see come so soon.
But if you look at the industrial side of the businesses, you know, those businesses are operating at record margins as well. To your point, we've had two years of negative top-line growth in those businesses. I would tell you, for however long you've tracked Parker Hannifin, there has never been a time where the top line has been negative, and we've been able to not just maintain margin, but expand it. It really has been an unbelievable amount of work from the team. You know, Jenny became CEO three years ago. She was crystal clear in her belief that we could expand margins. The opportunity that she saw across the company, she was very clear about, that we can do everything better.
No matter how well we're doing it today, there are opportunities for improvement, and the team has really delivered on that. And, you know, the 27 is not the end target. We would like, like to get there for a full year before we start committing on new targets. But rest assured, there's gonna be a new target.
It's helpful, Todd. Maybe just digging in a little bit on sort of what you're seeing. I think you answered this question already to some extent, but I'm just curious, right? I think you said it's, like, kind of balanced, right? Short cycle industrial recovery-
Right
... and also long cycle within Industrial, right-
Right
... is kind of helping you. Are there markets that you're starting to see turn, though, that are holding you back right now?
Yeah
... like the trucks, the ags of the world? Like, how do you think about that?
You know, what we've started to say is, construction has been a nice, turn-
Yeah
... positive. Things like power gen have been,
Yeah
... positive.
Yeah.
Things like commercial HVAC has been positive.
Mm.
We've started to see positive activity through the distribution network.
Mm.
Sentiment there has been positive for some time. In both channels, the distribution and the OEM network, we feel like inventories have been managed to levels of demand, so they're kind of pulling on demand. We're starting to hear, like, little pockets of selective restocking, right? Not anything material, but we're starting to hear that from our conversations with distributors, and we take all of that as a positive. Ag has still got a ways to go. A lot of these things are muted recoveries.
Mm.
So we are not expecting or waiting for some kind of rapid increase. And we're kind of managing each technology, each product based on the demand that we see. We've never had better visibility than we have today.
Mm.
We've never had better tools to help us forecast and analyze the business. You know, what I love about our decentralized structure is, each one of those P&L owners is adjusting their capacity and their cost based on the demands of those businesses.
To your point on visibility, Todd, because you have such good visibility, like, I'd like to ask you about, like, mega projects.
Yeah.
Like, when I sit here with other managements, you know, they tell me, "Oh, you know, like, we really haven't seen any unlocking of capital decisions-
Yeah
... outside of data centers, of course." You know?
Yeah.
How would you sort of respond to that? There's BABA out there, too-
Yeah
... reshoring. Like, are you seeing any of that-
Yeah
... stuff?
It is hard to kind of pinpoint that. You see all these things. We've got various tracking mechanisms-
Yeah
... of it. Parker Hannifin loves that because we benefit in all cycles of that. We have some discrete examples of wins from these mega projects, from infrastructure builds. You know, what I tell everyone is, it has helped keep us where we're at. Without all of that stuff, we'd be, you know, much less positive, in many cases, negative.
Mm.
So that has been a positive drive. The data center builds are real. There's activity going across there. I don't want you to think that Parker Hannifin is going crazy on data centers, but it is, it's a nice positive bit of growth in those businesses that are challenged in their other markets.
Got it, and, you know, your comments on your distribution network, we know it's a strength of Parker's, and to your point on visibility, it's very interesting to me, right, 'cause I think you've talked about them being positive for a while-
Yeah
... right?
Yeah.
But then they started to see better sell out.
Yeah.
You know, maybe a couple quarters ago, it started. Can you walk me through that?
Yeah.
Like, has sales gotten better?
Good
... over the last few quarters? And you did mention maybe some-
Yeah
... limited restock.
It-
Where is that?
Yeah, you know, we've been saying gradual recovery for some time now.
Yeah.
We're almost getting tired of saying it. What we do like to see is the order trends turn positive, that organic growth has turned positive, so we like that. You know, still an enormous amount of challenges out there, from interest rates and tariffs and, you know, certain end markets still being under pressure. We feel like we're closer to the growth cycle than any kind of negative cycle. But I keep going back to our belief is it's gonna be gradual. It will start in these selective markets, and the others will pull through.
Got-
I think we're seeing evidence of that.
Got it. So I'm gonna open up to the audience in a second, but maybe I wanted to turn to the international markets for a second.
Mm
... you know, Asia's been pretty strong for you guys.
It has, yes.
Led by electronics and semicon. You know, it's been mixed for others.
Yeah.
Maybe talk about what Parker does maybe better in those places.
Mm
... or is it mix or, you know?
Well, again, I mean, we have, we're in region for region. That is true of our Asia Pacific region. You know, there's nothing we make in Asia that we ship to other regions. You know, it's, it's pretty much in the region for the region. The electronics businesses has come back. You know, it has been a challenge in Asia Pacific post-COVID. You know, that has historically been a growth engine for us. The way Asia opened up after COVID, you know, it slowed growth. Where we have won is on those electronics, on semicon. Where we have won has been, you know, construction equipment is coming back. You know, what we have seen there is a lot of positivity from our team, you know, being able to serve locally-
Yeah
... local customers. It's been a plus.
Got it. And then I think you mentioned Europe posted its first organic growth after seven quarters of decline.
Yeah, Europe is more challenged-
Are you excited?
We are excited about it. There's still a long way to go. Some of the comps are, you know, a little bit easier when you've got seven quarters of negatives there. But the team is very much focused in Europe. They know what they've got to do. They are adjusting the businesses accordingly, and they're focusing on where we know we can win, where we can continue to expand margins. You know, that alone, Europe has been negative for seven quarters.
Mm.
They're posting record margins, right? So, that is something that Parker Hannifin of 3, 5, 10, 15, 20 years ago would never have been able to do, and it's really around rallying around those Tools of the Win Strategy, taking actions that are difficult, in a timely manner, not waiting for things to get better, but adjusting the businesses, demanding of value from, customers, and, just taking control of, the environment that you're in.
Got it, and then I do think historically you've had a particular strength in Latin America as well.
Yeah.
Maybe you took a step back a little bit in your Q2. Anything?
Yeah. I mean, Latin America, I, I've been unbelievably impressed with our team there. It is a small piece of the total-
Mm
... company. But, you know, the last few years, they have really figured out how to operate in that region, right? It's probably the most challenging region from a currency standpoint, from an inflation standpoint, from a demand standpoint, and they've done unbelievably well. This is a tougher year for them, challenges in Brazil. But again, the team is, if you looked at historically, these are all-time high margins, and, I love that they're taking actions and, and taking control of the, demand environment.
One more before I open it up to the audience. Like, you did talk about data centers, Todd.
Yeah.
So, you know, obviously, it's still a relatively small part of the business, but, you know, certainly at this conference, one of the themes is that it's really been a wave again.
Mm-hmm
... of big orders. It's not just, you know, you have direct exposure, but you also have power gen exposure.
Absolutely, power gen-
Maybe talk about, you know, how much Parker now is exposed-
Yeah
... 'cause it seems like there's multiple avenues.
You know, what we've tried to do is we've tried to simplify the way we talk about the company. We've kind of shown six major market verticals. It is not yet one of those six major market verticals, so it is still small for us. But what we love about it is this is existing technologies that we have being applied in these applications that are bringing value to those customers. And we hope someday that it does become one of those market verticals that we talk about. And the other thing is it pulls all those other technologies that we have. It helps on the construction side of the business. It helps on the filtration side of the business. All of those things are positives when these large projects take shape.
Yeah. Questions from the audience? Any questions?
None?
Oh, luckily, I have a-
That's a finger scratch.
Oh, well, it's just the stretching. Okay. So, let's move to Aero then.
Yeah, sure.
you know, supply chains seem like they're getting better-
Mm
... but it seems like you've been able to navigate better than peers. So-
Yeah
... I mean, I think it's a good time to talk about your focus on supply chain-
Yeah
... and why you've excelled. You mentioned in the beginning that part of the reason for the good margins you have is Aero, so we're all kind of focused on-
Yeah
... you know, how much better can it get?
Well, I will tell you, I hear less and less noise about the entire supply chain today than I did a year ago, two years ago, certainly three years ago. And, you know, part of that is, you know, when you have three years of organic growth, you're able to invest, you're able to add capacity, you're able to deliver. But we've also partnered, you know, with our customers. I would say, the relationship between the aerospace customers and the aerospace team has never been more robust, never been more intense. Adding Meggitt to the portfolio helped with that. We got bigger with every one of our aerospace customers.
We have more content on every platform than we did before, and we can do more for those customers than we've ever been able to do, from a design standpoint, from a product improvement and retrofit standpoint, from a global service standpoint, and it's really been meaningful for the customers. I gotta tell you, I think it's gonna bode well for us when we get into the next generation platforms. You know, we've never been able to do more for our aerospace customers than we can now. On the supply chain side, you know, our team has been working with that channel to share some of the tools of the Win Strategy to help them be able to deliver to these demand levels. So we view it as a partnership.
We have a partnership with our customers. We have a partnership with our supply base, and I, I would tell you, less and less noise that I'm hearing, as a result of all of that effort.
And Todd, you mentioned Meggitt went better than expected. So like, you know, what sort of lessons learned, you know, as you continue to do deals? 'Cause you have, you-
Well, we'd love to do a deal and then roll into three years of double-digit organic growth.
That does happen.
That was probably the biggest lesson that we've had.
Mm.
You know, all of these transactions have been unique. All of them have been unbelievably meaningful. I think we have gotten better at identifying potential targets, at building relationships with potential targets, on being able to clearly identify how we can make these businesses better. Every one of them has been a great business. We just made it better, and we've made it better using the same tools that we've used to make the legacy business better. And, you know, I would tell you the alignment we have across the company. I've been there 34 years now. It's never been stronger. And when you're able to post numbers like this, you get a lot of alignment on continuing to make changes, and it really has been an unbelievable driver of our performance.
The other thing that we've done is because these things have been sizable-
Mm
... we've been able to create integration, an integration team for each one-
Mm
... that, we've taken our highest talent people from across the business. So it hasn't just been aerospace people integrating Meggitt, it has been our highest talent people from across the entire business, and we have paired those with, team members that have came from those acquisitions. So this wasn't, you know, a team of Parker people coming in and telling you how to run the business, this was a combined team, some Parker people, some people from the, acquired business. And, we set out to integrate, and we had a clear plan on what that model looked like, and we monitor it every two weeks. So this is not, you get a month, you get a quarter, you get six months.
Mm.
Every two weeks, it is a senior-level meeting. Our CEO is in there, our COO is in there, I am in there. Every one of our senior leaders that owns a synergy bucket for the transaction is in there, the integration team is in there, the business leaders from a group that is doing the acquisition is in there, and we get status updates, we find out what the barriers are, we figure out how to remove those barriers, we make sure they have what support and what tools they need, and we'll see you in two weeks. So this is the way we've been able to do it, and it's been very successful. So that's something we didn't do in the past, because we would do a lot of smaller ones, and it was-
Mm
... hard to kinda, you would, you know, they would get-
Just-
... lost across the business-
Bring 'em in.
... and so forth.
Mm-hmm.
That's exactly what we're gonna do with the filtration business.
Yeah.
What we love about the filtration business is, again, technologies that we know, very complementary, customers that we know, end markets that we are familiar with, and, you know, this is gonna make us one of the largest industrial filtration offerings on the planet, which, you know, what, what can you not do when you have scale? It becomes really powerful. So we're excited about that. We saw a clear path to the $220 million in synergies that we called out, and I would tell you, our team is already assembled. We are talking with Filtration Group team members. Obviously, we're two separate companies until close, so we're running those businesses separately, but, there's already progress being made.
I should just ask you about that now, 'cause you brought it up, Todd. Like, so initial progress, you are talking to them a lot.
Yeah.
So, like, any sort of initial findings on that 220, like, seems like, again, given your process-
Yeah
... I'm not gonna tell you it should be a slam dunk, but-
Yeah
... you tell me.
Well, I don't wanna get too far ahead. We'll, we'll share more of that when the time is right.
Yeah.
But I would tell you, we feel very confident in the, in the number.
Mm.
When you look at this business, you know, our plan is to combine that with our existing filtration business.
Mm.
You know, we talk about 85 discrete P&L owners that run those businesses, that make those decisions every day. We think this is gonna fit very nicely, where there's not gonna be any additional businesses. Those will all complement our existing businesses-
Mm
... extremely well.
So getting back to aerospace aftermarket,
Yeah
... you know, again, it's been strong. Expected to grow low double digits in FY 2026.
Yes. Yes.
So, you know, again, you kind of mentioned this, the law of large numbers is several years in a row of this. So, you know, how do you think about the growth drivers on that side of the business for you guys? How much has continued sort of innovation, self-help, gonna lead to continued strong growth in that?
I mean, it's, it's all of the above, right? Air traffic has been tremendous. You know, people have had concerns, "Oh, as this OEM ramps, are you gonna have pressure? Is your aftermarket gonna go down?
Yeah.
We are glad the OEM is ramping. You know, these are the investments that we've made, you know, years ago. We are ready to deliver those higher levels-
Mm
... of sales. And, you know, we always say this internally, the reason we like the longer cycle business is because you have great visibility. When you know what you have to ship and you've got great visibility, you can do that in ways that are way more efficient than you can when you don't know what you need to ship or the quantities change. So we believe that there's enough self-help improvement that we have, that we're not gonna have any issues as that mix shift changes to be more OEM and slightly less MRO. Meggitt was a structural change to that mix. You know, that added 800 or 900 basis points of aftermarket mix to our aerospace business, and that has continued to be robust. We have combined our support organization.
Meggitt had a support, service MRO organization. We had a support, sales, and service organization. That is now one global organization. We go to market as Parker Aerospace. We're able to do so much more for customers than we did before, and that will continue to be a growth driver.
... So Todd, to that point, you have 20% growth dialed in for 2026 commercially-
Yes.
Right? Like, but-
Yeah, think about that, and we're at record, record margins within aerospace.
That's pretty big, right? That's what I'm saying already. Like, so, you know, do we just kinda, do we still ramp up from here? Like, you know, again, you mentioned sort of mix, but it's already growing pretty fast in 2026.
You're saying ramp up margins?
OEM, like growth.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, we expect that to continue.
Yeah.
For sure.
Yeah, and so, like, as that happens then, you just said, like, you've enough sort of self-help to sort of-
Yeah
... offset the mix that we see.
Correct. Yep. Yeah, and that's in the aerospace business. Obviously, people have asked on the industrial side, "Boy, when volume comes back, are you gonna have to inject a whole bunch of new costs into the business?" The answer to that is no. You know, the best way we convert earnings per share growth is by having a great top line.
Right.
And there's nothing we can't do when that top line is growing. You know, we're agnostic on where we take costs out of the business. We are relentlessly driven to do everything that we do better, and the tools that we have in this Win Strategy have been proven, and I have great confidence in them.
Todd, to that point, like-
Yeah
... if industrials does inflate-
Yeah
... you know, if we go more than 2.5% growth-
Yep
... you know, the tendency is to think very good operating leverage. Like, how much do you balance sort of that versus, you know, plugging more money back into the business investments, all that kind of stuff, ramping that up?
You know, we've been asked a couple times today, "Hey, you know, have you done anything different on the investment because of the volume challenges or the tariff issues?
Yeah.
The answer really is no. We're in this business for the long term. We have designed it to be CapEx light.
Mm-hmm.
You know, we, we've committed to 2.5% of sales. That's roughly 50 basis points better than what we've done, historically, and that 50 basis points is all around safety. It's all around productivity, automation. There's some technology in there, and, you know, we think it's the right number.
Got it, and then, lastly in Aero, just to ask you about defense, Jenny, on the call, talked about, you know, maybe not seeing proposed stimulus of EMEA yet impacting-
Yeah
... 2026, but it seems like there's a lot of money out there-
Yeah
... slashing around.
Well, there's certainly, there's certainly a lot of talk about it. You can't go anywhere within Europe without them being positive about defense spending. It's a net positive for Parker Hannifin. It's probably a year or two out, would be my guess. We're well suited on, you know, the Eurofighter program, you know, obviously, F-35, we've got great content on. So, we're looking at that as a positive, and, I'm confident that's gonna come. I think it's just gonna take a little bit while. It's not a short-term shot yet.
Todd, it doesn't seem like you have any perturbations from, you know, U.S. government, like shutdowns, partial shutdowns, things like that, you know, U.S. defense.
You know, it's just... Listen, what we have learned is that, you know, the world is a complex place.
I think we've all learned that.
You know, we call it VUCA within Parker Hannifin, and whether it's a pandemic or tariffs or supply chain or logistics or energy or anything, what we've tried to do internally is we try to rise above it. We try to focus on keeping our team members safe. We try to focus on meeting our customers' needs and making sure we're doing that and achieving our financial commitments, and that's what's made Parker Hannifin work.
Yeah. So Todd, over the last several years, as you said, you've done some larger deals.
Yep.
So how do we think about it from here? You know, you announced Filtration Group. You'll close it.
Yep.
Your balance sheet is still in good shape. You generate a lot of cash flow.
Yeah.
So how much can you sort of do at once, or how do you-
Yeah
... think about that, you know.
Well, so I love what we've been able to do. The company's never been bigger. We've never been more profitable. We've never generated more cash. Our EPS algorithm is strong. So it gives us a lot of options, right?
Mm.
You know, we're gonna be $23 billion when we close the Filtration Group annual sales. We play in a $150 billion space. The number of potential acquisition targets within that space is very robust. We continue to work relationships, we continue to work that channel. We never stop, whether we're announcing 1 or working on 8, it constantly is something that happens across the business, and we have seen how powerful it's been to the portfolio. We've seen how powerful it has been to our results. But we're not naive to know that anyone will do the same. They're all unique in themselves. We definitely do not wanna have a bad acquisition, so we're not gonna rush into anything. We won't do something just because the balance sheet is ready.
I think you saw us over the last year, we did the largest number of buybacks that we've done in the history of the company, because we felt that was a better use of the capital than doing any of the acquisitions that we could have done at that time period. We were really happy we got Curtis done. We're super happy we got the Filtration Group done, and I think what you're gonna see from us is more of what we've done in the past, thoughtful acquisitions that make sense. There's not gonna be a head-scratcher announcement that, "Geez, why did Parker Hannifin buy this?
Mm.
We're gonna have to have a clear path to synergies to make that business even better than it already is. It's gonna have to be in customers and end markets and technologies that we're comfortable with.
I'm sure you like all of your technology platforms.
We do. We definitely do.
Like, I know you do. But filtration's gonna be large now.
It is, it is.
You know?
Yeah.
Like, Filtration Group will be sort of much larger than sort of flow and motion, for example.
Correct. Correct.
Like, do you then say, "Hey, like I wanna beef up flow and motion," or do you like-
Yeah, I mean, Curtis was obviously a small acquisition, but that was a commitment to bring more electronics into the-
Mm
... motion, systems technology. You know, to be totally honest, transactions in those spaces are a little bit harder because we have such a great market position-
Mm
... that, you know, much of that business we could go get in other ways if we wanted to, versus having to acquire-
Mm
... the market share. There's just been better opportunities in the aerospace businesses, and the filtration businesses, and the engineering materials businesses, but we love them all.
Mm.
Would add to all of them.
Mm.
These technologies are not separate. They are totally interconnected. Two-thirds of our sales comes from customers that are buying four or more technologies. Filtration fits with motion systems, it fits with flow and process control, it fits with engineering materials. When a customer applies these technologies, they all touch each other, they all work together. We believe we are best in class when it comes to building a system that requires all of those elements, and that's why we love all of those technologies.
So last question, Todd. What are the top two or three innovations and structural changes affecting your company over the next five years? And are there any emerging industry trends that are perhaps being overlooked in the current discourse?
Yeah. You know, you know, I mentioned it already, we have been, extremely close to our customers globally. We haven't had to take any flyers on risky things. All of our innovation has tied to an alpha customer. The biggest thing that I would say that we're talking about now is that next generation of, of aircraft.
Mm.
We've never had a stronger presence in aerospace. We've never been able to do more. That is meaningful to those decision-makers in the aerospace and markets because, you know, the value that we bring is greater than we've ever been able to bring before.
Mm.
So, we have never been more set to win those contracts, and that's probably something that we're most focused on. You know, when you look across the rest of the portfolio, the world continues to get more electronic, whether that's in aerospace or other applications, we are gonna be supportive with that. We think there's true value in that, and, you know, those are the two things that we've been driving, and I think that those are great things for Parker Hannifin in the future.
Excellent. Well, we're almost out of time.
Yeah
... so we appreciate it. Thanks, Todd.
This was wonderful. Thank you all for sticking with us through lunch.