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Earnings Call: Q1 2019

Jan 29, 2019

Operator

Thank you for holding. Welcome to Rockwell Automation's Quarterly Conference Call. I need to remind everyone that today's conference call is being recorded. Later in the call, we will open the lines for questions. If you have a question at that time, please press star one. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Steve Etzel, Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasurer. Mr. Steve Etzel , please go ahead.

Steve Etzel
VP of Investor Relations and Treasurer, Rockwell Automation

Good morning. Thank you for joining us for Rockwell Automation's First Quarter Fiscal 2019 Earnings Release Conference Call. With me today is Blake Moret, our Chairman and CEO, and Patrick Goris, our CFO. Our results were released earlier this morning, and the press release and charts have been posted to our website. Both the press release and charts include reconciliations to non-GAAP measures. A webcast of this call will be available at that website for replay for the next 30 days. Before we get started, I need to remind you that our comments will include statements related to the expected future results of our company and are, therefore, forward-looking statements. Our actual results may differ materially from our projections due to a wide range of risks and uncertainties that are described in our earnings release and detailed in all of our SEC filings.

With that, I'll hand the call over to Blake Moret.

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

Thanks, Steve Etzel. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on the call today. I'll start with some key points for the quarter. Please turn to page three in the slide deck. I'm pleased with our results for the quarter. Organic sales were strong, up almost 6% and well above expectations. From a vertical perspective, growth was led by consumer and heavy industries. In consumer, food and beverage and life sciences were strong. Heavy industries growth was led by mining, pulp and paper, and metals. Oil and gas grew slightly above the company average. Within transportation, automotive was down about 10% in the quarter, weaker than expected, and tire was up low single digits. In the quarter, logistics grew 7% organically, and process grew 5%.

Revenue from Information Solutions and Connected Services, which is a measure of adoption of new value from The Connected Enterprise, once again profitably grew double digits. Commenting on regional performance in the quarter, North America, which for us is the combination of the U.S. and Canada, grew 6% organically. We saw good growth across a wide range of industries, with the exception of automotive, which was weak. EMEA was down slightly in the quarter. Growth in consumer verticals was offset by declines in heavy industries. Asia grew 4%, with most countries in the region contributing to growth. China sales were up mid-single digits. Latin America sales were up 20%. We saw good growth in Brazil, and Chile was strong due to increased mining activity. As you may recall, last year, we won a big order with Codelco, and we are starting to see this in our results.

I'll make a few additional comments about our Q1 results. Adjusted EPS was up 13%, and segment operating margin was up 40 basis points year-over-year. Book-to-bill performance for our solutions and services businesses was a strong 1.12 in Q1. We grew backlog in the quarter. Patrick Goris will elaborate on our first quarter financial performance in his remarks. Let's move on now to the macro environment and our current outlook for full-year fiscal 2019. We see continuing uncertainty due to trade tensions and geopolitical risks. However, forecasts continue to call for industrial production growth. We had a good first quarter, and project quoting activity was strong. With one quarter behind us, our full-year outlook for organic sales growth and adjusted EPS guidance remains unchanged. We continue to expect our fiscal 2019 organic sales to be up 5.2% year-over-year at midpoint of guidance.

Currency is now expected to reduce growth by 1.5 percentage points. Including the revised impact of currency, our fiscal 2019 guidance is sales of about $6.9 billion. Our guidance for adjusted EPS remains a range of $8.85-$9.25. Now I'll turn it over to Patrick Goris to provide more detail about our Q1 results and our 2019 sales and earnings guidance.

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Thank you, Blake Moret, and good morning, everyone. Before I go through our results and outlook, I want to mention that we made some reporting changes starting the first quarter of fiscal 2019. We outlined these changes in today's press release, and I will cover them briefly when I get to slide nine in the deck. For comparability purposes, fiscal 2018 numbers have been recast to conform to fiscal 2019 reporting. With that said, we'll start on slide four, key financial information first quarter. As Blake Moret mentioned, we had a good first quarter of the fiscal year with reported sales up 3.5%. Organic growth was 5.7%, about 200 basis points better than we expected. Currency translation was about a two-point headwind to sales growth, worse than expected. Segment operating margin was very strong at 22.8%, up 40 basis points compared to last year.

A margin tailwind from good organic growth was partially offset by higher investment spending. Earnings conversion, whether you include or exclude the impact of currency, was between 30% and 35%. General corporate net expense of $22 million was down $2 million compared to last year. Adjusted EPS of $2.21 was up $0.25 compared to the first quarter of last year, an increase of 13%. The year-over-year increase in adjusted EPS is primarily due to the benefit of higher sales and lower share count, partially offset by higher investment spending. As expected, the net impact of tariffs was a small headwind. First quarter adjusted EPS performance was significantly better than we expected, given stronger than expected organic sales growth and somewhat lower than expected investment spending. Free cash flow was $170 million in the quarter, or 63% of adjusted income.

During the first quarter, we paid the annual incentives that our employees earned in fiscal 2018. A few additional items to cover not shown on the slide. For adjusted EPS, average diluted shares outstanding in the quarter were 121.5 million, down 8.6 million or about 7% from last year. We repurchased about 1.8 million shares in the quarter at a cost of $292.8 million. This is slightly ahead of pace to get to our $1 billion full year target. At December 31st, we had $860 million remaining under our share repurchase authorization. Slide five provides a sales and margin performance overview for the Architecture & Software segment. This segment had 2.4% reported sales growth. Organic sales were up 4.6% year-over-year. Currency translation decreased sales by 2.2%. For the quarter, segment margin increased 100 basis points year-over-year to a very strong 31.5%.

Operating leverage associated with sales growth was partially offset by higher investment spending. Moving on to slide six, Control Products & Solutions. Reported sales were up 4.5% for the segment. Organic sales growth was 6.6%, and currency translation reduced sales by 2.1%. Growth in our solutions and services businesses in this segment was strong at about 8%. The product businesses in this segment were up about 5% on an organic basis. Operating margin for this segment was up slightly compared to Q1 last year, primarily due to higher sales offset by higher investment spending. As Blake Moret mentioned, book-to-bill performance in our solutions and services businesses in this segment was 1.12 in Q1. Next, slide seven provides an overview of our sales performance by region. Blake Moret covered most of this slide in his remarks, so I will just mention that growth was broad-based across geographies with the exception of EMEA.

We saw good growth in emerging markets, which were up high single digits compared to last year. This takes us to slide eight, guidance. We now predict sales of about $6.9 billion. Our organic sales growth range remains unchanged at 3.7%-6.7%. We updated our currency assumptions, and we now expect the headwind from currency translation to be closer to 1.5%. We continue to expect segment operating margin of about 22%. Our expected adjusted effective tax rate for fiscal 2019 remains about 19.5%. As Blake Moret mentioned, we are maintaining our adjusted EPS guidance range of $8.85-$9.25. With respect to tariffs, we still expect to offset the incremental costs through supply chain changes and negotiations with vendors, as well as targeted price increases on affected products.

Our supply chain and pricing folks have done tremendous work in this area, and we remain on track to neutralize the impact of tariffs for fiscal 2019. We continue to project free cash flow conversion of about 100% of adjusted income. As to general corporate net, we now project it to be about $95 million. As a reminder, general corporate net now excludes interest income. Net interest expense for fiscal 2019 is expected to be about $90 million. Before I turn it back over to Blake Moret, let me add a couple of comments on slide nine. As I mentioned at the beginning of this call, we made some reporting changes effective the first quarter of fiscal 2019.

As you can see on this slide, these changes include the adoption of ASC 606 revenue recognition, as well as the new standard that defines operating and non-operating pension and post-retirement benefit costs. We transferred some business activities from one segment to the other, and we also combined U.S. and Canada into North America, consistent with the way we run this region. Finally, we removed interest income from general corporate net. Our press release provides additional detail related to these changes. In addition, slides 10 and 11 of this deck provide a summary of the changes, as well as a walk for fiscal 2018 first quarter results. Today, updated data books will be available on our website that will include prior year financial results recast to the new reporting format.

After our earnings call, Steve Etzel will be available to cover any additional details and questions you may have about the reporting changes. With that, I'll hand it back to you, Blake Moret.

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

Thanks, Patrick Goris . I'll make some additional remarks related to the execution of our strategy. We are performing well in our key focus areas. There are three components of our growth strategy, which are share gains in our core platforms, double-digit growth in Information Solutions and Connected Services, and a point or more of growth per year from inorganic investments. Core platform performance in the quarter was highlighted by 7% Logix growth. Our strategic partnership with PTC continues to gain momentum. We've had wins across all regions and in our key industry verticals, and the pipeline of opportunities is growing every day. We're also working well with PTC to converge our IoT technology roadmaps. Our pipeline for inorganic investments remains robust. Yesterday, we announced the acquisition of Emulate3D, a U.K.-based software company whose products digitally simulate and emulate industrial automation systems.

This software enables customers to virtually test machine and system designs before incurring manufacturing and automation costs and committing to a final design. Emulate3D was a member of our partner network, and we've seen customers benefit by combining their solutions with our technology. Emulate3D software will become part of our FactoryTalk Design Suite. For each of the components of our growth strategy, we have the financial flexibility to execute, all within the capital deployment framework described during Investor Day. An industry where this strategy is delivering tangible results is life sciences, where we've had several years of good growth. Pharmaceutical companies benefit from our multi-discipline Logix control platform, which addresses discrete, batch, and continuous process applications. Customers are implementing our independent cart motion technology for greater throughput. Our software offerings, such as MES and FactoryTalk Innovation Suite, are important competitive differentiators.

Our connected services offerings also provide us another way to win. Recently, we received another order from Pfizer to help them increase cybersecurity at their global manufacturing facilities. We will plan, implement, and support security technology and solutions along with key strategic partners across Pfizer's global manufacturing supply chain. We're becoming more important to customers in every industry on their individual journeys to become more productive. Finally, I want to thank our employees, partners, and suppliers for their contributions to a good start to the fiscal year. Our entire organization is energized and excited about our new offerings and the opportunities that are ahead of us. With that, I'll turn it over to Steve Etzel to start the Q&A. Steve Etzel ?

Steve Etzel
VP of Investor Relations and Treasurer, Rockwell Automation

Before we start the Q&A, I just want to say that we would like to get to as many of you as possible, so please limit yourself to one question and a quick follow-up. Thank you. Operator, let's take our first question.

Operator

If you'd like to ask a question at this time, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from Rich Kwas with Wells Fargo Securities. Your line is open. Your next question comes from John Inch with Gordon Haskett. Your line is open.

John Inch
Analyst, Gordon Haskett

Thank you. Good morning, everyone.

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

Morning.

John Inch
Analyst, Gordon Haskett

Can you hear me? Yeah. Good morning, guys.

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

Yeah.

John Inch
Analyst, Gordon Haskett

Hey, just in terms of the quarter versus the flat EPS expectation, and your result, I think, Patrick Goris , you mentioned it was driven basically by higher sales. Where did you actually see the surprise to the upside? Do you think those trends continue for the rest of the year?

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Yeah. For the first quarter, all regions except EMEA, came in better than expectations, particularly Latin America, which was up 20%. From an industry perspective, some of the heavy industries were better than we expected. In those, we include metals, pulp and paper. Oil and gas was a little bit better as well. Consumer was better, particularly life science, which had very strong growth. I'd say across multiple regions and particularly heavy and life sciences.

John Inch
Analyst, Gordon Haskett

Patrick Goris, the reason for not changing your guidance, given the beat, is because you expect things to soften still, given uncertain international markets? Are there any other clues? How did January do as part of the cadence toward the rest of the year?

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

January is consistent what we have in our guidance for the full year. I think one of the ways you can think about this, John Inch, is we have one quarter behind us.

John Inch
Analyst, Gordon Haskett

Meaning you're not anticipating a slowing, or you're just not sure?

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

We've had one quarter behind us, which was a little bit better than we expected, and we see no reason at this time to change our guidance for the full year.

John Inch
Analyst, Gordon Haskett

I got it. My follow-up is really on the cadence of investment spending. If I remember, I think you said you spent $70 million-$80 million in fiscal 2018, and you were going to spend $3 million-$4 million more with much of that focused in the first quarter. Are you still on track for that, and what actually did you spend in the first quarter with respect to investment spending, and did that help margins in any way versus heading into the quarter versus your thoughts around investment spending?

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

You remember well, John Inch. What we said was that we expected our investment spend to be up about $70 million for the full year. Most of that we expect in the first half of this year. We still expect that. The timing is just a little bit different. Q1 was light by about $10 million. Q1 spend was up about 5% year-over-year. That's about $25 million. Of the $70 million, we think about two-thirds of that will happen in the first half of the year.

John Inch
Analyst, Gordon Haskett

Got you.

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

Q1 was just a little bit lighter than we expected.

John Inch
Analyst, Gordon Haskett

By about $10 million. Okay.

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

Yeah.

John Inch
Analyst, Gordon Haskett

Thanks very much. Appreciate it.

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

Thanks, John Inch.

Operator

Your next question comes from Scott Davis with Melius Research. Your line is open.

Scott Davis
Analyst, Melius Research

Hi. Good morning, guys.

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

Good morning, Scott Davis.

Scott Davis
Analyst, Melius Research

Just starting to get a little bit concerned about earnings after Caterpillar yesterday, but you guys came up with a pretty strong number. Some of the folks out there have seen real weakness in China, and some haven't, but you guys clearly haven't seen much. Can you give us a little local color?

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

China is mid-single digits up, and some of the industries that contributed to the growth are mass transit. The metro system continues to be an area where we differentiate and have had good wins, and this year continues that. Life sciences, as we mentioned before, globally was good, and China is adopting a lot of the new value that we provide in life sciences to complement the basic control. Then there were other industries, chemical, metals, still growth in semiconductor, and even automotive in China for the quarter.

Scott Davis
Analyst, Melius Research

Interesting. Auto was going to be my next question, help us understand the divergence between SAAR and CapEx and OpEx, obviously. SAAR in China is struggling and inventories are rising, that could be a really tough year. Capital spending seems to be on some sort of a solid footing. Is that correct, or how would you view the outlook there?

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

I would say globally for auto, CapEx is flat, there are challengers for the uses of CapEx beyond just plant expansions and capacity, as they're devoting some of that CapEx spend to new technologies like electric vehicles and autonomous vehicles. In China, we continue to see gains in the electric vehicle market. One of the recent wins was with Haosen providing a powertrain for a local indigenous Chinese brand owner. Remember, we essentially re-entered that powertrain market just a few years ago, China's one of the places where we're winning, not only for the joint ventures that involve American companies, but for indigenous Chinese manufacturers as well. The SAAR count, if it's weak, will eventually have some impact on our business. Of course, the model changes are the direct influence on our growth in automotive.

Scott Davis
Analyst, Melius Research

Fair enough. Thank you, guys. Keep up the good work.

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

Thanks, Scott Davis.

Operator

Next question comes from Stephen Tusa with JP Morgan. Your line is open.

Stephen Tusa
Analyst, JPMorgan

Hi, guys. Good morning.

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

Good morning, Stephen Tusa.

Stephen Tusa
Analyst, JPMorgan

Can you just talk about what you're seeing in kind of the global machine tool industry, whether it's some of those guys that operate out of Europe and into China, whether it's on the packaging side or elsewhere? Seems to us, to follow on Scott Davis question, that there's a lot of foreign component suppliers that sell into that chain that are seeing pronounced weakness in destocking. I'm just curious as to kind of what you guys are seeing on that front.

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

Yeah, I'll make a couple of comments on that, and then Patrick Goris may have some to add. We think that the moderation, let's say, in China is contributing to some extent to the weaker results that we see in EMEA. That being said, when we talk about machine tool, there's a high component of that that's going to be CNC-oriented versus PLC or Logix oriented, and so we may be relatively less exposed in the metalworking areas.

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Yeah. Stephen Tusa, I would only add that our OEM business globally was up a little bit less than the company average, so low single digits in the quarter. EMEA was one of the weakest regions there.

Stephen Tusa
Analyst, JPMorgan

Okay. Just to be clear for kind of the rest of the year, can you maybe give us a bit of a rundown on what you expect for the major segments and how those will trend? I know that you guys talked about last call auto accelerating. Maybe I missed that in the beginning, is that still expected to be up this year, transportation? Maybe just give us a little bit of color on what's embedded by vertical in the guidance now.

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Yep.

Stephen Tusa
Analyst, JPMorgan

Again, any calibrations there.

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Sure. What we said last quarter, Stephen Tusa, is that we expected auto to be flat for fiscal 2019. Given the first quarter and our current outlook, we think that auto will be down mid-single digits for the year.

Stephen Tusa
Analyst, JPMorgan

Yep.

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

We think at this point that that will be offset by some of the better growth we've seen in some of the heavy industries that I just mentioned about the first quarter, but also life sciences. Within consumer, life sciences and food and beverage are doing quite well. Versus our, call it November guidance, automotive now expected to be down mid-single digits for the full year. Heavy industry, a little bit better. Then also strong consumer, particularly life sciences, and after that, food and beverage.

Stephen Tusa
Analyst, JPMorgan

Thanks. Great color as always. Appreciate it.

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Thanks, Stephen Tusa.

Operator

Your next question comes from Julian Mitchell with Barclays. Your line is open.

Julian Mitchell
Analyst, Barclays

Hi. Good morning.

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Morning.

Julian Mitchell
Analyst, Barclays

Good morning. Just the first question around process markets. Your growth rate, I think on sales slowed to about 5%, having been at double digits in the prior quarter. Are you starting to see any impact from oil or just the broader macro uncertainty starting to weigh on project activity? Maybe any updated thoughts on how you see process industries growing this year versus the group average?

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

In the quarter, oil and gas was up slightly above the company average. We continue to make progress in process industries, and of course, that's concentrated in the batch of verticals that we call heavy industries. Just as a reminder, that metric of process really measures the adoption of our process control technology and does not include in that metric the other things that we sell to industries like oil and gas and pulp and paper and metals, which would have a lot of the intelligent motor control as well. We continue to see good growth in those industries, and we expect that to continue with heavy industries contributing to our growth for the balance of the year.

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Julian Mitchell, for the full year, we expect a process as we define it to be up at or slightly above the company average.

Julian Mitchell
Analyst, Barclays

Understood. Thank you. Just circling back on a geographic basis, if you could talk a little bit about the EMEA region. I think you talked about low single-digit growth. You had a slight decline organically in the first quarter. How quickly do we think that that recovers really? Is it solely to do with China as you talked about, or do you think there's some domestic aspect which should drive up EMEA growth over the balance of the year in certain verticals?

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Yeah. We think obviously it's a little bit broader in EMEA than just China, Julian Mitchell. Obviously, growth in EMEA generally from a macro point of view, has slowed. We've seen that over the last three, four quarters. From a vertical perspective, what we see in that region is that consumer is still doing pretty well. It's up mid-single digits. Heavy industry was down, as was auto, and consumer growth not strong enough to offset the weakness in heavy and in auto. Actually, our order intake in the first quarter in EMEA was actually pretty decent, and we expect EMEA for the full year to be up but low single digits.

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

Yeah, I think that order intake helped build backlog, which also informs-

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Yeah.

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

our outlook in the region. Just within transportation, Auto was down and was somewhat canceled out by actual growth in the tire vertical.

Julian Mitchell
Analyst, Barclays

Understood. We should see EMEA improving in fairly short order then in terms of your sales growth?

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Our expectation is that we see some year-over-year growth in that region in the back half of the year.

Julian Mitchell
Analyst, Barclays

Fantastic. Thank you very much.

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Thanks, Julian Mitchell.

Operator

Next question comes from Rich Kwas with Wells Fargo Securities. Your line is open.

Rich Kwas
Analyst, Wells Fargo Securities

Hey, good morning, everyone. Sorry, I am juggling a couple things here this morning. I might have missed this, but on auto, just in North America, was that down year-over-year within the context of that being down overall for the quarter?

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

It was, Rich Kwas. It was down. Auto was down about 10 globally, and similar for North America in Q1.

Rich Kwas
Analyst, Wells Fargo Securities

Okay. I assume that was.

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Yeah, we think that.

Rich Kwas
Analyst, Wells Fargo Securities

Go ahead, sorry.

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Obviously, we see some weakness in MRO in auto. We've seen some project delays generally. At the same time, we see EV and powertrain, as Blake Moret was mentioning, continues to be strong. We still expect double digits. We see and expect double-digit growth there. It's just not big enough yet to offset the weakness elsewhere in that vertical.

Rich Kwas
Analyst, Wells Fargo Securities

Just on the North American with the Detroit-based OEs, there's a decent launch cadence this year-over-year. Is that just something where you're not seeing as much wallet of that in terms of the mix, or is there something that we're missing when we're looking at the broader numbers?

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

No, we do expect to participate actually even more broadly in some of those cases. With some of the new value, particularly in Information Solutions and Connected Services, we actually expect on some of those launches to expand what our traditional content may have been.

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Yeah. I think some of it also goes back, which to the MRO comment that I was making.

Rich Kwas
Analyst, Wells Fargo Securities

Okay. Last one on, I think to John Inch's earlier question around the guide. What gets you to the top end of the guide in terms of the 6.7% organic? What has to work in terms of the various verticals or assumptions that you've got in here?

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

There are a lot of variables here, but you can think about some of the trade uncertainty being cleared up, and then a little bit better performance in automotive.

Rich Kwas
Analyst, Wells Fargo Securities

Okay. Those are the keys, the trade and auto. Okay. Thanks very much.

Operator

Your next question comes from Nigel Coe with Wolfe Research. Your line is open.

Nigel Coe
Analyst, Wolfe Research

Oh, thanks. Good morning.

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Morning.

Nigel Coe
Analyst, Wolfe Research

I just wanted to come back to, I think, Patrick Goris, your comments on investment spending. I think you said it was about $10 million lighter than your plan in the first quarter. I think you said two-thirds of the $70 million happens in the first half. Just doing that math and trying to back into 2Q, is the headwind about $30 million or so?

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

You mean from a year-over-year point of view in the second quarter?

Nigel Coe
Analyst, Wolfe Research

Yes.

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Probably a little less than that. Not far off, but actually a little less than that. Yep.

Nigel Coe
Analyst, Wolfe Research

Okay. Okay, got it. With your guide, maybe just-

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Nigel Coe, the only thing I would add to that, some of that year-over-year increase is investments that we've released in fiscal 2018, and we see the, call it the annualization impact of that. It's not all incremental in fiscal 2019.

Nigel Coe
Analyst, Wolfe Research

Okay.

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

I'm going to carry over.

Nigel Coe
Analyst, Wolfe Research

Just one more clear up, then I've got a broader question on PTC. I think you were talking about 120 basis point impact from ASC 606 all in one Q. Did that play through? Maybe just talk about the PTC, how that's progressing so far, and how much sales impact do you have baked into your FY 2019 guide from the PTC resale?

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Okay. I think Blake Moret wants me to take 606, and he'll take PTC. Actually, the impact from 606 was as expected in the first quarter. The EPS impact was several cents negative, so as expected there, and no material impact on sales. The reasons for the beat on sales was not related to 606.

Nigel Coe
Analyst, Wolfe Research

Okay.

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

Yeah. Regarding PTC, it was a good quarter. We had some interesting wins in the quarter. We've talked before about Ford at the Investor Day, where we're providing value actually in a power transmission facility. At an Asia Pacific region mining company. Since then, a couple of additional ones in food and beverage, Laba Food, a Vietnamese company that specializes in processing and providing fresh fruits and vegetables. An Indian tire manufacturer where we have an order of over $1 million, that includes PTC as well as our MES offering. Doosan Bobcat in the EMEA region. They make loaders and excavators. You probably recognize the name, and they were looking at additional analytics and visibility of their operations. In China, another metals and mining account. Those are just a few of the examples.

I particularly like the diversity of where we're winning across geographies and industries. First, it says that the value that we're offering together is real, and second, it shows that our sales force is energized. They're out there talking about this, and it's a way to make us more important to customers. There's also discussions going on in a parallel path to converge our technology roadmaps, creating that tighter alliance as time goes on.

Nigel Coe
Analyst, Wolfe Research

Thanks. That's great color. Blake Moret, what do you have baked into your sales guide from PTC products?

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

Yeah. PTC falls in the FactoryTalk InnovationSuite, which is also a part of the bucket that we look at as Information Solutions and Connected Services. We continue to talk about double-digit growth on top of the $300 million base that we talked about last year. With the contribution of PTC, we expect that to double over the next four years.

Nigel Coe
Analyst, Wolfe Research

Okay, thanks. That's great color. Thanks.

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

Thanks, Nigel Coe.

Operator

Your next question comes from Andrew Obin with Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is open.

Anna Kaminskaya
Analyst, Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Good morning. This is Anna Kaminskaya on behalf of Andrew Obin. Really most of the questions have been asked already, but would you be able to provide any additional details on the announced acquisition? Just how impactful it is to your P&L for the rest of the year?

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

Yeah. Emulate3D won't have a material impact on the results in fiscal 2019. Strategically and for customers, it's really an exciting addition because this is software that works along with our core configuration tools to help customers simulate and emulate the operation of their system. The simulation allows them to model the physical movement of their production system before they actually have to try it out with hard tooling on the line. Then the emulation capability allows them to look at the performance of the configuration tools, again, to make sure that it's working smoothly and with the kind of timing that's required. We've worked with them in the past. We mentioned that they were part of our formal partner program, now we're going to be able to achieve even tighter integration with them.

Again, as with PTC, we had customers asking for us to get closer before we made this additional step. We're excited about it. We think our customers are as well.

Anna Kaminskaya
Analyst, Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Any numbers around how much you paid for it or any revenue contribution?

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

We're not disclosing that, Anna Kaminskaya. As Blake Moret said, the impact on fiscal 2019 will be immaterial from a sales purpose.

Anna Kaminskaya
Analyst, Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Got it. With some of the changes to accounting and, I mean, strong 1Q, any other moving parts as we think about 2Q outlook, 2Q EPS? Is it in line with historical seasonality? Anything you would like to call out besides the high investment year-over-year that we already talked about?

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Not really, Anna Kaminskaya. I think the only thing I would say that we would expect the year-over-year growth rate somewhat balanced first half versus second half of the year.

Anna Kaminskaya
Analyst, Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Great. Thank you very much.

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from Josh Pokrzywinski with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Josh Pokrzywinski, your line is open.

Breindy Goldring
Analyst, Morgan Stanley

This is Breindy Goldring on for Josh Pokrzywinski. Good morning.

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Morning.

Breindy Goldring
Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Looking at 2Q guidance with the move in investment, we come up with earnings down very slightly and EPS up a little. Is that the right way to think about it?

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

I'm not going to provide any additional color than I already did with respect to timing of spend and year-over-year growth rates first half, second half. I'm not going to provide more detail on the second quarter.

Breindy Goldring
Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Okay. That's fine. Thank you.

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Thank you.

Operator

Next question comes from Richard Eastman with Baird. Your line is open.

Richard Eastman
Analyst, Baird

Yes. Good morning.

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Good morning, Richard Eastman.

Richard Eastman
Analyst, Baird

Patrick Goris, could you just speak to, there was $90 million of tariff headwind kind of heading into the year, and I think the commentary was offset would be half price and half supply chain improvements. In that price commentary, I believe Rockwell Automation took a second price hike, I think, in November. Could you just speak to maybe the stickiness of that hike and also the price capture at the top line in the first quarter?

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Yes, Richard Eastman. Our price realization in the first quarter was about a point, we're on track to get close to a point and a half for the full year, which is what is in our guidance and our expectations. You're correct, the $90 million was the gross annual impact. Half of that we expect to offset with supply chain changes and negotiations with vendors. The other half offset with pricing. We had the annual price increase in August of each year, as we always do. We had an off-cycle price increase in October, we had an off-cycle price increase in December, those last two price increases all related to tariffs. We realized that the price increase that we were targeting associated with those last two price increases, that's why I said we realized about a point in the first quarter.

We expect a little bit more than that for the full year, just given the timing of those last two price increases.

Richard Eastman
Analyst, Baird

Okay. Understood. Then just one question that probably relates to the A&S op margin. The incremental there was quite high. There wasn't a great deal of incremental sales growth. At the end of the day, is that more mix around software sales? Did they increase at a faster rate than Logix? Is there a mix in there or is that price that's more the price capture than A&S? I'm curious how we delivered so much margin there.

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Yeah. The way you can think about it there, Richard Eastman, is that our spend was light, as I mentioned earlier, it was particularly light in that segment.

Richard Eastman
Analyst, Baird

Okay.

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

From a mix point of view.

Richard Eastman
Analyst, Baird

Was the software?

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Yeah, from a mix point of view within that segment, Logix did actually quite well, so there was not a big mix driver within that segment.

Richard Eastman
Analyst, Baird

Okay, because when you talk about, and Blake Moret, you had mentioned this Information Solutions and Connected Services, my guess is the Information Solutions piece probably outgrew Connected Services. I don't know if that's easy enough to parse through, but again, that seems like that would've helped the software FactoryTalk suite products sales within A&S.

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

Yeah, I think on balance, the margin between that bucket is at or slightly above the company average.

over a period of time.

Richard Eastman
Analyst, Baird

Okay. All right.

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

If I look at the. Yeah. Go ahead.

Richard Eastman
Analyst, Baird

Okay.

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Richard Eastman.

Richard Eastman
Analyst, Baird

Well, again, I was just looking at the mix being more software friendly in A&S as the PTC agreement expands. Is that going to be noticeable?

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

I think it will be, but it's going to take a while because when we resell some of that software or we add some of our software on top of that, it's on a subscription basis, Richard Eastman, and so therefore it will start out really small. Obviously we'd like to grow it as fast as possible, but it being subscription and not licensed sales, it's going to be slow, and it's going to take some time before you'll see it have a mixed effect.

Richard Eastman
Analyst, Baird

I understand. Because of the deferred component. Okay. Very good. Thank you.

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Thanks, Richard Eastman.

Operator

Our next question comes from Andrew Kaplowitz with Citi. Your line is open.

Vlad Bystricky
Analyst, Citi

Good morning, guys. It's Vlad Bystricky on for Andrew Kaplowitz.

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

Morning.

Vlad Bystricky
Analyst, Citi

Can you guys talk a little bit more, I know you talked about the strength in Latin America, so can you just give a little more color on really what's driving that strength? Any particular countries and more about how you're thinking about the sustainability of the LatAm strength in 2019?

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

Yeah. A few comments in terms of the growth drivers in Latin America. Latin America, for a long period of time, has been a strong region for us. There's a lot of diversity in the region, in industries that we serve well. One of the key starting points in Latin America is the backlog in mining. We talked last year about the big Codelco mining project as one example. We're starting to see some of that order come out in quarterly results. That's a strong contributor for us. We also see continued growth in oil and gas, particularly in Mexico. Finally, we've seen several quarters of good growth in Brazil as well. I think those would be three of the key contributors to the continued performance in Latin America.

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Yeah.

Vlad Bystricky
Analyst, Citi

Okay, that's helpful. Just to circle back on the tariff impact for a moment. I know you talked about the pricing that you've put in. I think last quarter you said about two-thirds of the supply chain adjustments were already in the execution phase. Can you talk about, are all of the supply chain adjustments and vendor negotiations sort of now underway or in execution, or do you still have more to do there to get to the net neutral on tariffs?

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

I think everything is being worked on, but doesn't mean that everything is buttoned up. As I mentioned, we are on track and our teams have done tremendous work on making that happen, which is why we continue to expect that for this fiscal year, the net impact will be zero.

Vlad Bystricky
Analyst, Citi

Okay, perfect. Then maybe one last one for me. I know you aren't disclosing financials on Emulate3D, can you just talk more broadly about what you're seeing in terms of valuation multiples in the pipeline? Have you seen any movement there? Have you seen any valuations start to come in at all with recent market volatility?

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

I think there's been, in general, across a broad portfolio of names out there would be some contraction based on the macro.

Vlad Bystricky
Analyst, Citi

Okay. Thanks very much, guys.

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from Nicole DeBlase with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Nicole DeBlase
Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Yeah, thanks. Good morning.

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

Morning.

Nicole DeBlase
Analyst, Deutsche Bank

A couple piggybacks on questions that have already been asked. First on China, I know you guys saw mid-single-digit growth for the quarter. If you could kind of frame out what you expect for the full year.

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

Yeah, we see China growing mid-single digits for the full year as well. We talked before about life sciences, which is really a macro trend across the world. The Chinese companies are particularly vigorously adopting some of the new value, some of the software, again, that sits on top of the basic control systems. We see growth in tire in China in the full year. We see growth in oil and gas in China, a little bit of growth in food and beverage as well.

Nicole DeBlase
Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Okay, understood. That's helpful. Piggybacking on the question on process. I know you guys went through kind of what drove the growth this quarter, what happened within oil and gas, but growth did decelerate. I think it was up about 10% organically in the fourth quarter. It's now at 5%. If you could just talk a little bit about the moving pieces from Q4- Q1.

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

I would look at the majority of that as quarterly variability. We're not seeing a meaningful slowdown in any one area of that versus another. This is one component of what we're offering to those process applications. The other main piece being the motor control as well. I wouldn't look at that as a trend at this point.

Nicole DeBlase
Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Okay, understood. Thanks, I'll pass it on.

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from Joe Ritchie with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Ashay Gupta
Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Hi, good morning. This is Ashay Gupta on for Joe Ritchie.

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

Morning.

Ashay Gupta
Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Yep. Hey, Patrick Goris, you mentioned that investment spend was $10 million lighter than expected in the quarter. Of the other two items that you mentioned on the 4Q call that were supposed to be headwinds, like ASC 606 and the impact of pricing, can you just comment on how those two items came in versus your expectations going in?

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Yeah. As I believe I mentioned earlier on the call, the earnings impact of 606 was as we expected. A few cents of negative impact. With respect to tariffs, in November, we mentioned that we expected a headwind in the first quarter associated with tariffs, and that is exactly what we saw in the first quarter. The net of price and cost was a small headwind in Q1, and we expect the net impact of tariffs to be zero for the full year. Both tariffs and 606 came in as expected basically in the first quarter.

Ashay Gupta
Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Just secondly, I think in the beginning you guys commented that semis was a strong area in the quarter, which is just surprising given some of the commentary we'd heard from semis players and some of your competitors. What's different? Are you taking share, and what's your outlook for semis for the rest of the year? Thank you.

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Yeah. I think our comment about semi was specific to China, where semi was up. From a global basis, semi was about flat for the first quarter. We've seen several years of good growth in semi. We expected this year, and our guidance was a slower growth in semi, about mid-single digits, and the first quarter was about flat, but with some growth in China, as Blake Moret mentioned.

Ashay Gupta
Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Next question comes from John Walsh with Credit Suisse. Your line is open.

John Walsh
Research Analyst, Credit Suisse

Hi, good morning.

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

Morning.

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Morning.

John Walsh
Research Analyst, Credit Suisse

I guess maybe just one question here to piggyback off of some of the earlier price questions. If I just kind of go through your K and look at what price has done in the last couple of years per your commentary, looks like it was a little bit less than a point in 2017, and then about 50 basis points in 2018. If I do the rough math here on what you're talking about comes from tariff versus organic price, it looks like we're going to tick up a little bit above that 50 basis points you probably realized in 2018. Wondering if this is all just rounding or if you're actually starting to see some real underlying price traction outside of kind of the tariff impacts where you're just pushing the price through the channel.

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Yes. I would say it's both. You're right, last year we realized about half a point in price. We did mention, I believe, that we were targeting for a somewhat higher price increase in fiscal 2019, given generally increasing input costs, leave alone the impact of tariffs. We targeted a larger price increase given a higher headwind from input costs. On top of that, there is of course the tariffs and some of the price increases that we have implemented as a result of that. In total, we will realize more price this year, that's our expectation, than last year, as I said, about a point and a half. This includes not only the price from the tariff, but also call it our base price increase or base price realization will be a little bit higher than what it was last year.

It's both. We realized a little bit more price from our, call it our annual price increase, and on top of that there is the selected price increases related to the tariffs.

John Walsh
Research Analyst, Credit Suisse

Yeah, no, got you on that. I guess I was trying to get at maybe some value pricing as you move the portfolio more into your The Connected Enterprise and what you're able to realize on that front, kind of absent the general inflation and tariff, what kind of the value add pricing you were getting, if you were starting to see any kind of tick up in that relative to where you've been historically.

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

As we come out with new product software and capabilities, obviously we try to price it appropriately, knowing that there is still some competition out there.

John Walsh
Research Analyst, Credit Suisse

Got you. Great. Appreciate the color. Thank you.

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

Thank you.

Thanks.

Operator, we'll take one last question.

Operator

Your last question comes from Scott Graham with BMO. Your line is open.

Scott Graham
Analyst, BMO

Hi. Good morning. Like I think others here, we've had a number of earnings this morning, I've jumped off on the call. Forgive me if I'm double asking a question here. On EMEA, organic down seven tenths of a percent. Would you be able to split for us Europe versus Middle East and Africa there, and the driver of whatever happened in Europe?

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

I believe that the way you could think about it is mature markets in EMEA. Emerging countries in EMEA generally perform better than the mature countries in that region.

Scott Graham
Analyst, BMO

Would you say that the matures were maybe down mid-single digit?

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

Say again?

Scott Graham
Analyst, BMO

Would you say that the matures were down mid-single digit or maybe low single?

Patrick Goris
SVP and CFO, Rockwell Automation

There is a range there. The way I would say this is some of the mature countries would be below the EMEA average, and some of the emerging countries would be a little bit better. Obviously, mature countries still account for the majority of our business in that region.

Scott Graham
Analyst, BMO

Understood. Thank you. On oil and gas, I know that you're a little bit more tilted toward the upstream, and I was just wondering what your customers were saying given North America. First half of the year kind of looks a little dicey where capital spending goes with some of these upstream guys. What are you seeing in North America and elsewhere in your upstream business in oil the next six to nine months?

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

Yeah. We continue to see growth in oil and gas, mid-single-digit growth for the year. You're right, a little more than half of our business is upstream, with the remainder split between midstream and downstream. We continue to see strength in the Permian, and one of the comments, because we're not as dependent on the big mega projects, regardless of the price of oil, people are going to be looking for productivity in their operations. That's really our sweet spot, either with solutions or with individual products, as people find ways to make even more efficient their production operations. We continue to see that as a source of growth for us, including the U.S.

Scott Graham
Analyst, BMO

All right. Thank you.

Steve Etzel
VP of Investor Relations and Treasurer, Rockwell Automation

Thank you. Okay, thanks. Now I'll turn it back to Blake Moret for a few final comments.

Blake Moret
Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation

Thanks for everyone's questions. I just want to summarize. The first quarter was a great start to the year. We delivered strong operating and financial performance, we're executing on our key initiatives. Our strategy is working. Steve Etzel?

Steve Etzel
VP of Investor Relations and Treasurer, Rockwell Automation

Okay. That concludes today's call. Thank you for joining us. You may disconnect.

Operator

That concludes today's conference call. At this time, you may disconnect. Thank you.