Parker-Hannifin - Earnings Call - Q4 2025
August 7, 2025
Executive Summary
- Q4 FY2025 delivered record profitability with adjusted EPS $7.69 and adjusted segment operating margin 26.9%, supported by strength in Aerospace and disciplined cost execution; organic growth was 2% and reported sales rose 1.1% to $5.24B.
- Results were above Wall Street consensus: EPS beat by ~$0.61 and revenue by ~$0.14B; FY25 also finished ahead of consensus on EPS and sales (see Estimates Context).
- FY2026 initial guidance calls for 2–5% sales growth, adjusted segment operating margin 26.3–26.7%, and adjusted EPS $28.40–$29.40; Q1 FY26 midpoint EPS is $6.51 with adjusted segment margin 26.1%.
- Capital deployment remained active: $851M repurchases in Q4 (FY total $1.6B) and announced acquisition of Curtis Instruments to expand electrification (EPS accretive in year 1, initially margin dilutive).
What Went Well and What Went Wrong
What Went Well
- Record adjusted margins and EPS: Adjusted segment operating margin reached 26.9% and adjusted EPS $7.69, both records; adjusted EBITDA margin was 26.8%.
- Aerospace Systems strength: Sales up 9.7% YoY to $1.68B with record adjusted segment operating margin of 29.0% and record backlog of $7.4B; orders +12%.
- Management execution and tax tailwinds: “60% of EPS improvement came from strong operating execution… income tax was $0.47 favorable due to discrete benefits” (CFO).
What Went Wrong
- Industrial North America sales down: NA sales fell 6.9% YoY with negative organic growth (-1.4%), though margins expanded; transportation and off-highway cited as headwinds.
- EMEA softness: International organic growth was modest (+0.6% overall) with EMEA at -3% organically; orders were flat due to tough comps and long-cycle orders skewed to Q3.
- Q1 FY26 sequential step-down: Analyst flagged a sequential EPS step-down; management pointed to stock comp seasonality and still guided to record Q1 margins (26.1%) and YoY EPS growth (CEO/CFO).
Transcript
Speaker 3
Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded, and if you should need operator assistance, please press star zero. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Todd Leombruno, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead, sir.
Speaker 1
Thank you so much, Beau. I'd like to welcome everyone to Parker Hannifin's fiscal year 2025 fourth quarter and full year earnings release webcast. As Beau said, this is Todd Leombruno, Chief Financial Officer speaking, and with me today, as usual, is Jennifer Parmentier, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. We appreciate your interest in Parker Hannifin, and we thank everyone for joining us today. On slide two, we address our disclosures on forward-looking projections and non-GAAP financial measures. Items listed here could cause actual results to vary from our forecast. Our press release, this presentation, and reconciliations for all non-GAAP measures were released this morning and are available under the Investors section on Parker Hannifin Finance. The agenda for today has Jennifer starting out with the highlights of our record fiscal year 2025 performance.
She will then reiterate the strength of our transformed portfolio, the power of the Win Strategy, which is our business system that drives performance in all economic climates. She'll provide some color on our recently announced acquisition of Curtis Instruments. I'm going to follow with a few details on our strong fourth quarter financial results. We did release our initial FY26 guidance this morning, and we will discuss the assumptions and provide some color on what we expect to be another record year for Parker Hannifin. We'll conclude the call with a normal question and answer session, and we will do our best to take as many questions as possible. Now, I would ask everyone to call your attention to slide three, and Jennifer, the floor is yours.
Speaker 2
Thank you, Todd, and thank you to everyone for joining the call today. The Win Strategy and our culture of high performance delivered another record year. We had a 17% reduction in recordable incident rate, once again achieving top quartile safety performance and record engagement survey results. Top line sales finished at $19.9 billion, and this team achieved record-adjusted segment operating margin of 26.1%, an increase of 120 basis points to prior year, and record-adjusted EBITDA margin of 26.4%, an increase of 80 basis points to prior year. We generated record cash flow from operations of $3.8 billion and delivered 7% adjusted EPS growth. We finished the year with a record $11 billion in backlog, and we remain committed to a disciplined, active, and balanced capital deployment strategy. Next slide, please. Another year of outstanding performance from Aerospace with record sales of $6.2 billion.
That's 13% organic growth and 190 basis points of adjusted segment operating margin expansion. Orders continued to outpace sales growth as we finished the year at a record backlog of $7.4 billion. Today, we enjoy a balanced and diverse Aerospace portfolio. We finished FY2025 with 51% of our sales from serving the aftermarket and 49% from serving our OEM customers. Looking back to FY2019, I'd like to recognize our Aerospace team for navigating and managing through numerous industry challenges, successfully integrating the Parker and Meggitt Aerospace businesses together, and staying focused every day on the safety of our team members and improving the experience for all of our customers. The performance is impressive. Sales are approximately two and a half times higher, and we are on track to expand adjusted segment operating margin by 940 basis points from fiscal year 2019 through our fiscal year 2026 guide.
We're not done yet. Our comprehensive offering of proprietary design on premier programs and our global footprint that supports a diverse customer base well-positions us for sustained growth and operating performance. Next slide, please. The Industrial segment of our business has been a large part of our transformation and margin expansion story. Fiscal year 2025 delivered record-adjusted segment operating margin of 25.1%, a 90 basis point increase over prior year. Using the Win Strategy, our teams are on track to deliver 700 basis points margin expansion from fiscal year 2019 through our FY2026 guide. This is a testament of our ability to expand margins through the cycle, even in periods of negative organic growth. Our powerhouse of interconnected technologies, global distribution networks, and global manufacturing footprint are competitive advantages that will drive growth from secular trends across the market verticals. Our portfolio today is well-balanced.
Two-thirds is now longer cycle, secular trends, and aftermarket. We are poised for a return to growth. Next slide, please. Once again, the transformation of our portfolio further expanded longer cycle and secular revenue mix in fiscal year 2025. Acquisitions in both aerospace and industrial, along with international distribution growth, have greatly contributed to this transformation. We see this transformation continuing and expect 85% of our portfolio to be longer cycle, secular, and aftermarket by fiscal year 2029. Next slide, please. On June 30, we announced our intent to acquire Curtis Instruments, further expanding our electrification offering and secular revenue mix. Curtis is the leader in low-voltage motor control solutions for zero-emission and hybrid mobile equipment. This acquisition will add a complementary suite of control solutions to pair with Parker's electric motor and motion control portfolio. This will further enhance our capabilities for in-plant and off-highway applications.
Curtis has a strong market position across diverse and growing end markets. These are markets that we know, customers we have relationships with, and products that will be a great addition to our portfolio. We expect to close by the end of the calendar year, and we look forward to welcoming the Curtis team to Parker. Next slide, please. A reminder on why we win. First, the Win Strategy is our business system. We have a decentralized operating structure, 85 divisions run by general managers with full P&L responsibility, acting like owners, close to their customers, and executing the Win Strategy every day. We have innovative products that solve customer problems, 85% covered by intellectual property. Our application engineers provide the expertise that allows us to have a competitive advantage with our technologies that provide efficient solutions for our customers.
Finally, our distribution network is the envy of the competition and the best in the world. It took us over 60 years to build it, and it is truly an extension of our engineering teams providing solutions to small and mid-sized OEMs. These partners are experts at applying our interconnected technologies. I'll turn it back over to Todd to go through our fiscal year 2025 highlights.
Speaker 1
Thank you, Jenni. FY25 was really a strong year. I'm going to try and quickly wrap up FY25 with the Q4 results, and I'm on slide 10. Fourth quarter was another record-setting quarter. In fact, every number on this page is once again a record. It was another quarter of continued margin expansion and a quarter of double-digit EPS growth. Really impressive considering that sales were up just 1% versus prior year. Organic growth was positive at 2%. That's the highest we've been all fiscal year. Currency did turn favorable at 1%, and the divestitures that we previously announced throughout the year were 2% unfavorable to total sales. Adjusted segment operating margin was 26.9%. That's up 160 basis points from prior year, and adjusted EBITDA margin was 26.8%. That's an increase of 50 basis points from prior year. Adjusted net income was almost a billion dollars.
It was $992 million in the quarter. That was an 18.9% return on sales, and adjusted earnings per share were up 14%, and they reached $7.69 per share. Just a fantastic quarter, really from all the businesses resulting in the best performance that we've had this fiscal year for sales, for organic growth, for adjusted segment margins, and for adjusted EPS. We'd really like to thank our global team for a strong finish to the fiscal year. We talk about this a lot internally, finishing strong, and everyone certainly delivered. If you can move to slide 11, this just highlights the components in the year-over-year improvements, and adjusted EPS, what I'm proud to say here, is 60% of the improvement in EPS in the quarter came from strong operating execution. Segment operating income dollars are up $96 million, or 7%. That was $0.56 of our improvement.
Income tax was a big favorable in the quarter. That's $0.47 favorable. That was really a result of a few discrete tax benefits that were resolved in the quarter. Also, I'd just like to call attention that Q4 last year was our highest tax rate of the year, so comps helped a little bit there. Interest expense continues to be favorable. That was $0.12 favorable. That's really just based on our efforts to pay down debt throughout the year. Discretionary share repurchases drove a $0.09 favorable impact. You can see that on share count bar there. Corporate G&A and other were unfavorable, really combined $0.32. That's a combination of less favorable pension expense versus prior year, but really a result of foreign currency exchange volatility year over year.
The EPS growth story has been really consistent throughout the year, just strong operating execution, very tight cost controls driving margin expansion, and as Jenni mentioned, disciplined capital allocation. Just a great way to finish the year. If we can go to slide 12, this details the performance across our businesses. First, I'll start with orders. Orders continue to be positive. It's plus 5% versus prior year. Aerospace strength continues to drive backlog higher. Jenni mentioned that's a record. We did see gradual improvement in sales growth across our major market verticals, and once again this quarter, every business delivered record segment operating margins. Very nice to see that. I already mentioned it, but in total, we were up 160 basis points from prior year. Looking specifically in the North America businesses, sales were $2.1 billion.
Organic growth was just down 1% versus prior, but we did continue to see sequential improvement in organic growth, and quite honestly, that was better than our expectations coming into the quarter. We did see improvement across the market verticals in North America, so that was a positive, and distribution sentiment continues to be positive across the channel. Adjusted operating margins did increase 170 basis points to a record 26.7%, and that was just again driven by excellent, excellent operating execution, cost controls, and a little bit of favorable mix. Gradual improvement in distribution kept orders in North America positive at plus 2% versus prior year, and I just want to note that this is the third consecutive quarter of positive order growth for North America. Moving to the Diversified Industrial International businesses, sales were up to $1.5 billion. That's up 4%. Organic growth was positive at 1%.
It was really nice to see that turn positive. In Asia-Pac, organic growth was plus 6%. In Latin America, it was plus 4%. While EMEA did improve, it did remain negative 3% from an organic growth standpoint. Our international teams are really committed to using the tools of the Win Strategy to reduce cost, improve efficiency, and drive margin expansion no matter what's happening with the top line. That resulted in adjusted operating margins achieving a record of 24.7%, which is an 80 basis point expansion from prior year. On the order front, international orders were flat versus prior year, really against some tough comps. Just a reminder that orders in Q3 did benefit from a number of significant long cycle orders that remain in the backlog. Lastly, if I look at Aerospace Systems, the momentum continues in aerospace. Sales were a record $1.7 billion, up 10% versus prior year.
That did exceed our expectations for the quarter. Organic growth was most of that. 9% of that growth is organic, really driven by strong strength in the aftermarket channels. Adjusted segment operating margins up huge, 190 basis points versus prior, and reached a record 29%. Aerospace orders continue to be positive at plus 12%. I really want to commend our aerospace team members for another outstanding quarter and a strong finish to a stellar year. On slide 13, this is my last slide for the year. This is cash flow. We finished FY2025 by achieving record cash flow generation. Cash flow from operations is record at $3.8 billion. That's 19% to sales. Free cash flow is also a record at $3.3 billion, or 16.8% of sales with conversion at 109% after adjusting for some non-operating items. Both CFOA and free cash flow increased by 12% versus prior year.
In addition, we did repurchase an additional $850 million of shares during the quarter, and that brought our year-to-date share repurchases amount to $1.6 billion. That is a wrap on our record FY2025 performance. I know everyone's interested in guidance. We'll move on to FY2026 guidance. Jenni, I'm going to hand it back to you on slide 15.
Speaker 2
Thanks, Todd. This slide shows our fiscal year 2026 organic sales growth forecast by key market vertical. In aerospace, we are forecasting high single-digit growth with higher growth in commercial OEM than commercial aftermarket. We are forecasting low single-digit growth in in-plant and industrial, and this is assuming a gradual industrial recovery. Transportation, our most challenged market this year, we are forecasting a mid-single-digit organic decline. In off-highway, we are forecasting a low single-digit decline. The ag market has moved past trough but needs a little more time before returning to positive. Construction is stronger than ag with recovery under way. We expect positive low single-digit growth in energy as well as HVAC and refrigeration. At the midpoint, this results in 8% organic growth for aerospace, approximately 1% organic growth for both industrial North America and industrial international, and approximately 3% total Parker organic growth.
I'll give it back to Todd to go through more details of the guidance.
Speaker 1
Okay, thank you, Jenni. I'm on slide 16. We'll just go over a few items. Reported sales growth for the year is expected to be in the range of 2% to 5%. That's 3.5% at the midpoint. That will be approximately $20.6 billion in annual sales. We have modeled those sales 48% in the first half, 52% in the second half. Consistent with our practice, this guidance does not include any impacts from the Curtis Instruments acquisition. We will add Curtis to our guide once it closes. If you look at organic growth, Jenni mentioned this, but the forecast is in the range of 1.5% to 4.5% or 3% at the midpoint. Aerospace is again 8% at the midpoint, and both North America and international, we expect 1%. Organic growth is modeled 2% first half and 4% second half. Currency, as usual, is based on the June 30 spot rates.
Based on our math here, it shows that that's expected to be favorable by 1.5% or roughly $260 million. On margins, adjusted segment operating margin guidance is 26.5% at the midpoint. That is an increase of 40 basis points versus the FY2025 finish. In respect to incrementals, we have modeled roughly 35% for the full year on incrementals. Just a few things to note. Below segment operating income, corporate G&A is approximately $200 million, interest expense approximately $390 million, and other expenses approximately $80 million. All of those are at the midpoint. Tax rate, we are modeling a 22.5% tax rate. As usual, we are not including any unknown discretes in that number. 22.5% is what we have modeled. EPS for the full year is expected to be $28.90 on an adjusted basis at the midpoint. That is an increase of 6% versus prior year.
We have a range of $0.50 on both sides of that $28.90. The split on EPS is 46% first half, 54% second half. Lastly, in respect to cash flow, full year free cash flow is expected to be in the range of $3 billion to $4 billion with conversion at approximately 100%. Lastly, on the far right column here, you can see what we have highlighted for Q1, FY2026. All of these numbers are at the midpoint. Reported sales are roughly 0.5% positive. Organic growth is 2% positive. We are forecasting 26.1% for adjusted segment margins and an adjusted EPS of $6.51. As usual, we have some further details in the appendix if those are helpful for your model. Lastly, on slide 17, this is just the bridge. I'll just highlight as we walk through this.
We are forecasting a 5% increase in adjusted segment operating income dollars, which translates to $1.68 in additional EPS. A share count based off of that year-to-date repurchase amount is roughly $0.37 of improvement in EPS for FY26. Corporate G&A are forecasted to be $0.18 favorable. Interest rate will give a little bit of a tailwind, $0.11 for the year. The forecasted tax rate of 22% is a headwind of $0.77 compared to the effective tax rate that we realize in FY25. Once again, that does not include any discrete items. In summary, we are guiding FY26 at $28.90 in adjusted EPS. That is up 6%. With that, I'm going to ask you to move to slide 18. Jenni, I will hand it back to you.
Speaker 2
Thank you, Todd. I'll close with a reminder on what drives Parker. Thank you to all the Parker team members for a fantastic fiscal year 2025 and a very, very promising FY2026. Safety, engagement, and ownership are the foundation of our culture. It's our people and our purpose that drives top quartile performance. We remain committed to being great generators and deployers of cash.
Speaker 1
Okay, Beau, we are ready to start the Q&A session.
Speaker 3
Certainly, Mr. Leombruno. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, if you do have a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star two. For best sound quality, we ask that you please pick up your handset so others can hear your questions clearly. Additionally, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. We'll go first today to Joe Ritchie of Goldman Sachs.
Hey, good morning, everybody, and congrats on another great year.
Speaker 2
Thanks, Joe.
Can we just maybe talk about the Q1 guide? I take a look at that relative to the last few years. It's a pretty meaningful sequential step down in EPS relative to what you've seen even just like the last three years. Can you guys maybe just talk about the bridge between 4Q to 1Q and what's really changing on the margin embedded in your guide?
I'll start, Joe, and then I'll let Todd follow up if he has any more comments. First of all, we have very little sales growth in Q1. This EPS guidance for Q1 is a 5% increase year over year. This margin at 26.1% does have 40 basis points of margin expansion and is a Q1 record, will be a Q1 record. I think this is a good starting point for the year for us.
Speaker 1
Yeah, Joe, I would add, you know, we do have sequentially, it's hard to go from Q4 to Q1. Q1 being obviously the start of our fiscal year, we do have to recognize some of the stock comp that is a big hit in Q1. If you look at that versus prior year, Jenni mentioned this, but we're forecasting 80 basis points of margin expansion, you know, Q1 2026 versus 2025, and EPS is a little over 4% of an increase.
Speaker 2
40 basis points.
Speaker 1
Oh, I'm sorry, 40.
Speaker 2
40 basis points, yes.
Okay. All right. Yeah, no, it looks a tad and looks a touch conservative, but hopeful that's okay. I guess maybe just the broader question. It seemed sounded like you were seeing some green shoots across your businesses. Maybe just kind of talk through, especially the industrial short cycle businesses, what you're seeing there. Also, can you just touch on like the self-help opportunity for this year as well? Clearly, it's been doing a great job from a margin perspective. If you can just touch on those two points, that'd be great.
Sure. So if, you know, taking a look at in-plant and industrial equipment guidance, we had that at a positive low single digit for the year. As I mentioned, that does assume a gradual industrial recovery. I would say Todd mentioned this already, but distributor sentiment does remain positive. I think we're in a good position to benefit from some of the customer supply chain actions. We'll benefit from increased MRO activity, any factory retooling or spending that's going on, and our distributors will participate in that. They continue to tell us, I was on a distributor visit just in the last month, they continue to tell us that they're quoting, and the activity is there. Just fill some of those delays that we've been talking about now for a few quarters. When you look at transportation, I mentioned that is going to be our most challenged market this year.
There's some near-term pressure in both auto and truck markets. We think end users are delaying their purchasing decisions due to the uncertainty on cost, timing of new emission requirements, and current interest rate levels. We think that's all buying into that. It will be a challenge market for us. Off-highway, our guidance is at negative low single digit, but there's improvement here, and it turned out to be a little bit better. Construction was a little bit better in Q4 than we thought it would be, and we see that continuing. We see that recovery underway. A lot of the ongoing and announced infrastructure here is going to be a plus. The ag market, while we do believe that it's moved past a trough, we think that it's going to be a little bit of time before it returns to positive.
Cost uncertainty, interest rates, crop prices, all factors here. We see improvement, and that's why we have the guide where it is. Obviously, there's some opportunity here.
Speaker 1
No, Joe, I would just add your question on self-help. Obviously, you know, everything we have on the Win Strategy is a self-help margin-enhancing process of tools. We are forecasting slightly higher restructuring this year versus what we did last year, just in some of those regions or some of those end markets that may need attention.
Speaker 2
Yeah. We still, as you heard me say before, we're very confident in our ability to expand margins with these tools. It's obviously shown what we've done in all of the business in the past fiscal year and the ones before. We have great teams that are using these tools on a regular basis and really delivering great results. It'll continue.
Great. Thank you.
Speaker 3
Thank you. We go next now to Jeff Sprague of Vertical Research Partners.
Speaker 1
Hey, thanks. Good morning, everyone. Morning. Jenni or Todd, maybe you could just speak a little bit more to Curtis, kind of where the margin profile is on a, you know, Parker comparable basis, what kind of improvement you can get in the business from a synergy standpoint relative to the deal plan that you must have internally. What's the growth been like in that business recently? How's it performing in 2025?
Speaker 2
Yeah, sure, Jeff, be happy to. We're really excited about, you know, bringing Curtis Instruments into the Parker team. We chose not to disclose their margins, you know, more about the size of this deal. Initially, the margins will be dilutive, but we see a clear path to accretion with the Win Strategy, the tools we were just talking about, and with synergies. We expect, like you've seen with our past deals, both synergies within three years, and relative size would be similar to the Meggitt deal. That's what we're looking at right now. Historically, Curtis Instruments sales have grown mid-single digit to high single digit over the past five to ten years. Really nice growth profile with them.
Speaker 1
Yeah, Jeff, the only thing I would add is, if you look at what we were forecasting for 2026, you know, the segment operating income dollars, roughly $5.5 billion worth of segment operating income. That does not include Curtis Instruments. To Jennifer's point, this will be slightly dilutive, but it is small in scale compared to where it fits in the total company. Right. It'd be margin dilutive. I know you don't want to give an EPS number yet, but it looks like it's EPS accretive, right? Margin dilutive, EPS accretive.
Correct.
Speaker 2
Yes.
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 2
We expect EPS accretion in the first year.
Speaker 1
Absolutely. Okay. Just on international orders, I guess, Todd, your comment alluded to the fact that maybe the softness here in Q4 was because you got some chunky orders in Q3. Maybe you could just elaborate a little bit more on that and what's going on in the international order pipeline?
Speaker 2
Sure. Jeff, I'll take that one. Todd did mention that we, in Q3, had very strong long cycle orders in international. We saw that in HVAC and refrigeration, power gen, and aerospace and defense. They didn't repeat in Q4. We did see EMEA slightly positive with energy remaining really strong. In Asia, orders were slightly negative. That was really more about a challenging comp to the prior year. If you look at the order dollars, they were flat sequentially to Q3. That really explains the difference between Q3 and Q4 and that drop that we saw.
Speaker 1
Great. Thank you.
Speaker 2
Thank you.
Speaker 3
Thank you. We go next now to Scott Davis with Melius Research.
Hey, good morning, Jennifer and Todd, and congrats on a good year.
Speaker 2
Thanks, Scott.
I just wanted to follow on Curtis and then combine that with the big buyback or the $1.6 billion that you've done. Is that an indication that you expect M&A to continue to be more of kind of the smaller bolt-on type stuff, or am I reading too much into that?
As you've heard me say many times in the past, Scott, we have deals of all sizes in our pipeline. It can be small and bolt-on, or there could be something larger out there. As we've said, timing is hard to predict. Obviously, our strategy remains the same. We want to acquire companies where we're the clear best owner, fits in with our interconnected technologies and follows the secular trends that we've talked about here for a while. It doesn't mean that they'll all be this size, but we're going to continue to work that pipeline. It's building those strong relationships and making sure that we're ready when they're ready.
Speaker 1
Yeah, Scott, I would just add, you know, you've heard us talk, you know, we want to operate with, you know, net gross debt to adjusted EBITDA around 2. We finished the year at roughly 1.7. We do have obviously capacity to do something even below 2. The cash flow generation profile that the company has really gives us lots of optionality. You saw us be active with the share repurchase this year. We'll constantly balance what the best use of our capital is, and that's what we expect to do throughout FY2026.
Yeah, no, it makes sense. I don't think you mentioned tariffs. I know it wasn't a big deal even last quarter. Just curious, is the lack of kind of mention of tariffs an indication that you've just been able to capture price to offset any impacts? I'm trying to kind of picture how 85 different P&Ls kind of manage something that's such a big, complex global issue. Maybe you can address both of those in some way in your answer if you can. Thanks.
Speaker 2
First, I would just say our teams are doing a fantastic job managing tariffs and making sure that there's no impact to EPS. You've probably heard us say pricing is something that is a strong muscle for us. This is a function within Parker Hannifin, and these divisions have pricing leaders. There's a lot of coordination within the groups and across the enterprise, obviously, because a lot of our businesses share the same customers. It's a lot of work. I'm not going to say that it's not. It's been a whole lot of work for them, but they have this down pat. They've done really a great job with it. We have the analytics. We have these robust processes, and we've been able to navigate and act very quickly. We didn't talk about it because we feel like we have it covered.
It's going to continue to evolve and change, but we're going to make sure that it doesn't impact EPS.
Speaker 1
You know us pretty well. I would just add, Scott, you know us pretty well. Pricing is one of the levers we're able to flex. It's also our global footprint. It's our local-for-local model that we've had for years. It's really our supply chain team.
Speaker 2
Dual sourcing.
Speaker 1
We're creative with dual sourcing and the ability to ship from multiple regions. Pricing is a big piece of it, but it's not the only tool.
Speaker 2
Yeah, our global capacity has been a really good thing for us.
Thank you. Appreciate it.
Speaker 1
Thanks, Scott.
Speaker 3
Thank you. We go next now to Ahmed Mehrotra of UBS.
Thanks. Morning. Just a follow-up to that earlier comment. I just wanted to see if you can help us sort of bifurcate the exceptional margin performance and resilience between price and lower costs. I know each of the 85 divisions has its own pricing manager. Obviously, pricing is a focus. One thing I noticed is the absolute cost base of the company also went down in fiscal 2025, which is pretty amazing, just given inflation has been a little bit higher. Can you help us kind of think about those two things? Is there an opportunity for the OpEx space or the cost base to actually move down on an absolute basis after the huge performance in 2025? Are we just entering a more maybe normalized period where the cost base will mirror kind of normal inflation?
Speaker 2
Thank you for the question, Ahmed. It gives me the opportunity again to just talk about the power of the Win Strategy. Our teams are focused on reducing cost and expanding margin, like I said earlier, even when we have a negative organic growth environment. This is our continuous improvement culture. It's our culture of Kaizen. We've never been waiting for something to happen. This is just our ongoing way of running our operations and running our businesses. Yes, there is opportunity to further reduce cost, and our teams are working on that all the time. We just have a great lean system and a very nice suite of tools that helps each one of those general managers do what they need to do in their business. They're not all the same.
The nice thing about the Win Strategy is you can pull from that toolbox, as I like to say, and improve your business in many ways. Obviously, the teams are doing a great job of that.
Speaker 1
Yeah. No, it really is a testament to the decentralization of the organization. Those 85 P&Ls have business leaders that are making decisions constantly. We've been taking cost out of the business for over a decade. You saw that on the charts that Jennifer has shown. We talk about this a lot. We've changed our compensation structure to reward and be flexible with the flexes of business. I think that's been a nice plus to the profile of the cost as well.
Just a follow-up to that. If that's all true, then why is 35% incrementals the right number for 2026? Because you're in the 40s in ARO and international. I mean, the decremental margins are, I think, in North America were like 2% or something like that. It just would strike me as maybe an opportunity to overachieve when the volumes move up, just given what the pricing base is and all that stuff that you just talked about on cost. Is that just conservatism, good placeholder, or is there something happening that maybe mutes the incrementals?
It is a gradual movement to positive. It's a 1% organic growth in the industrial side of the business. That is 70% of the company. I don't look at this as being conservative. Normally, we say model 30, where 35%, that's something that no one would have. I think we just need to see how it plays out.
Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Speaker 2
Thank you.
Speaker 3
We'll go next now to Andrew Ross of Citi.
Speaker 0
Good morning, everyone.
Speaker 2
Morning.
Speaker 0
Jenni or Todd, could you give us a little more color in how you're thinking about A&D for 2026? Ours were obviously still strong Q4. Were they stronger on the defense side versus commercial? When you look at that 8% growth for 2026, is the growth pretty balanced between defense and commercial and aftermarket and OE? How are you thinking about that?
Speaker 2
Yeah, I'll take that, Andy. Full-year organic growth at 8%. We see that on continued MRO strength and gradual OEM recovery. We have commercial OEM to be low double-digit growth, commercial MRO of high single-digit growth. Defense OEM we have at mid-single-digit growth, and defense MRO we have at mid-single-digit growth. It's going to be another great year for aerospace. We're coming off of three years of double-digit organic growth. We ended Q4 at about 9%. We have Q1 at 8%, and as I said, we have the year modeled at about 8%. It's going to be another good year.
Speaker 0
Very helpful. Todd, you're guiding to call it mid-single-digit plus EPS growth at the midpoint for 2026, but free cash flow at the midpoint is slightly lower. I would have thought that you get a little bit of cash tax help from the Big Beautiful Bill. Maybe just reconcile the forecast.
Speaker 1
Yeah, we aren't digesting the one big beautiful bill for sure. That will be a benefit, to be honest with you. That's more of an FY2027 benefit for us versus an FY2026 benefit. On cash flow, you know, there's a few things. Obviously, when you're looking at net income, we had a few one-time items. We had some divestitures, some discrete tax items, and some facility sales that helped build up the as-reported net income. This year, we do expect industrial to grow. In previous years, we were getting a benefit from working capital. We do think there'll be some investment there to support growth. I think you saw we called out 2.5% CapEx. That's higher than what we've historically done. This is really all making sure we have capacity in the businesses that need it and that we are investing appropriately in automation, robotics, and productivity.
I did mention we do have a little bit more restructuring that we expect to do in FY2026 versus FY2025. Jenni mentioned Curtis. We're going to have some one-time costs associated with the acquisition and the integration and the cost to achieve the synergies that we've had laid out there. We still feel really good about the number. We still think it's very much top quartile from a cash flow standpoint. We're going to obviously try to outshoot that number.
Speaker 0
Appreciate all the color.
Speaker 1
Thank you.
Speaker 3
Thank you. We go next now to Andrew Ross of Bank of America.
Speaker 1
Hi, yes, good morning.
Speaker 2
Morning, Andrew.
Speaker 1
Good morning, Andrew. Hi. Just a question on aerospace. You had a reacceleration in aerospace orders in the past couple of quarters, I think from high single digit to 14% in the third quarter, 12% in the fourth quarter. Can you just talk about this reacceleration? What's driving this?
Speaker 2
I think, Andrew, for the most part, what we've seen here is the commercial transport rate is increasing and wide body rates are growing to meet international traffic. I think that's been some of it. As air traffic growth overall continues, the aftermarket is continuing to grow. We have everything that's going on in defense as well. There's been a continued demand for all of the legacy programs. There's continued growth in the Department of Defense budget. We've seen some nice orders come in. As you know, those are all longer cycle orders.
Speaker 1
I appreciate you gave some detail here, but last year you had 7% organic aerospace orders and you delivered 13% organic growth. This year you had 12% organic air orders and guiding to 8% at the midpoint. Can you just help us understand the dynamic between orders and forecast a little bit better versus last year? Thank you.
Speaker 2
As I was just saying, Andrew, these orders come in and they're longer cycle, right? We have backlog coverage of over 100% right now in aerospace and we have a record backlog, right? The orders are coming in higher. There's only so much that can be built at a time. As rates increase, we'll enjoy more of that. We stay really close to our customers, all of our customers, but in aerospace, we know what they're planning on building. We know what those rates are, and we have really good visibility to the demand and their capacity. We think aerospace at 8%, Q1 8% versus Q4 at 9%, we think it's really right in line.
Speaker 1
Andrew, I'm sorry. We're expecting that to be pretty consistent throughout the year. There's no real ramp on what we're forecasting here. Every one of those numbers will be a quarterly record for aerospace, so the momentum continues.
Thanks so much.
Speaker 3
We'll go next to Julian Mitchell of Barclays.
Speaker 5
Hi, good morning. Maybe just wanted to start with the industrial growth outlook. It sounds like aerospace is sort of pegged at 8% growth in the first quarter and through the balance of the year. Maybe help us understand within industrial, you know, what's dialed in for sort of the first quarter and then the slope of that acceleration on organic sales and anything you've seen around pull forward of demand by distributors or OEM customers because of tariffs.
Speaker 2
Yeah, I would first just start off saying, Julian, that we're not seeing any evidence of pull forward. There's nothing that I could point to that would show that. For industrial, for Q1 in North America, we're forecasting negative 1.5% organic growth and positive 0.5% for international. Total industrial, we're still showing it slightly negative here at approximately 1%. When we look at North America in particular, I talked about what we're seeing across the market verticals. In North America, we're seeing gradual in-plant industrial recovery. As I mentioned, positive sentiment from the distribution channel, a lot of increased quoting activity. As I mentioned, transportation is challenged. In auto and trucks, construction getting better. Ag is still weak. Power gen is strong in our energy vertical. Oil and gas still a little weak.
HVAC, it's really coming off of a strong fiscal year 2025 with a lot of the refrigerant changes. We expect it to be low single-digit growth in fiscal year 2026. That'll be more around commercial and refrigeration than it was residential in fiscal year 2025. When we look at industrial international, again, we had that full year expected to be at about 1%. Q1, again, at about 0.5%. Same assumption on a gradual industrial recovery. EMEA, flat to slightly positive organic growth for the fiscal year. Uncertainty remains. We expect continued weakness in transportation, especially auto and EMEA as well. We also see that continued strength in energy, both oil and gas and power gen. We think that a lot of the proposed stimulus that we hear about in future defense spending is really going to be a long-term positive. Asia-Pacific, low single-digit positive organic growth for fiscal year 2026.
We'll continue to see strong demand from electronics and semicon. In-plant is mixed. There's project delays that are continuing in China, but we do see some growth in India and Japan. Off-highway still soft, both in construction and mining. I would just say overall continued uncertainty from tariffs across those markets. In Latin America, Todd mentioned we see low single-digit organic growth for fiscal year 2026. That's pretty much balanced growth across the verticals for them.
Speaker 5
That's very helpful. Thank you. Just my follow-up, maybe circling back to the operating margin expansion guide. It's up, I think, 40 bps in first quarter and up 40 for the year as a whole. As you said, that's sort of despite volume leverage accelerating through the year. I just wondered on that point, maybe is there some sort of mix effect in aerospace perhaps that weighs later in the year, maybe to do with, I don't know, Meggitt synergies being front-half loaded or the outgrowth of commercial aero OE versus commercial aero aftermarket. Anything like that sort of moving around in aero or it's just pretty steady through the year?
Speaker 2
It's just steady through the year. We are expecting commercial OEM to be low double-digit growth and MRO of high single-digit growth. They're kind of changing this year. We see it pretty much the same throughout the whole year.
Speaker 5
Great. Thank you.
Speaker 1
Thanks, Julian.
Speaker 3
We'll go next to Jamie Cook with Truist.
Speaker 0
Hi, good morning. Nice quarter, nice year. I think the first question, just the North America margins in the quarter struck me, like the strength of the margins. I think it's like one of your highest margin quarters despite a decline in sales and in organic growth. Was there anything unusual in that mixed pricing or something which drove the margins high with organic sales down? My second question, just on the guide, Todd or Jenni, if we think about the past couple of years, the story with Parker's been while industrial has been weaker, aerospace is making up for any delay in recovery in industrial. As you think about 2026, do you think there's greater risk that if industrial doesn't inflect, that aero can't make up for it or perhaps you're just more bullish on industrial, just given at least we're seeing some resurgence in orders? Thank you.
Speaker 2
Okay, first question, yeah, Q4 in North America was just great. You know, expanded margins 170 basis points year over year. Really, you know, a nice quarter for them. We really had a favorable sales mix specifically in our Engineered Materials group and our Filtration group. Just exceptional performance with those two groups. It was Win Strategy execution across, you know, the other groups as well. Not to take anything away from that, but we had a nice favorable mix in those two areas. As far as a risk in the future with industrial, I would say, you know, we have 1% organic growth in industrial. I think our guide accurately reflects what we see in orders, what we see in backlog, what we know about what's going on in these market verticals.
All in all, I would say that all of us, you know, want to be bullish on industrial. It's time, right? As I said, we're poised for growth here. I'm not concerned that, you know, we won't be able to continue to expand margins and deliver this guide. I think that what we have here and what we've been able to do in a negative organic growth environment in industrial, and even with aerospace at an 8%, we're going to be okay. We can make this happen.
Speaker 0
Great. Thank you very much.
Speaker 3
Thank you. We'll go next now to Mick Dobre of Baird.
Thank you. Good morning. I only have one question, and it's about the guide too. I don't know. Maybe it's for you, Todd. If I look at the exit rate here, $7.69, really good fourth quarter. If we annualize that, we end up with something just under $31 of EPS. What's interesting, my observation here is that going back over the past decade, you're able to do that or better. You're able to do better than your annualized exit fund rate on every single year with the exception of fiscal 2021 when you had to deal with COVID. I guess my question to you is, why would this year, fiscal 2026, be any different than the norm? Thank you.
Speaker 1
Meg, this is Todd. Yeah, we would love to take Q4 and annualize that. The math on that looks great. The reality is that's not the way the business operates, right? If you look back over decades, our sales mix is 48% first half, 52% second half. Obviously, that 52% is fully weighted by that strong Q4 result. We also have those things that we talked about that we recognize that they're early in the fiscal year as far as compensation and whatnot goes. I feel really good about what we're guiding here for Q1. Jenni mentioned this. We still expect the industrial businesses to be challenged from the top line. Aerospace is performing extremely well. We are calling for roughly 5% EPS growth year over year in Q1. I think the team is really focused on that.
You got to remember every number that we put up in Q4 was an all-time record. When you look at what we are guiding here for Q1, every one of these numbers will be a Q1 record. There is improvement across every one of the businesses. That's with not a lot of help from the top line. I think the team is executing unbelievably well. I'd be really happy if they're able to post these numbers.
That's it for me. Thank you.
Thanks, Vic.
Speaker 3
We'll go next to Joe O'Day of Wells Fargo.
Morning, Joe.
Can you talk about the sort of complexion of the, you know, call it 8% organic aero growth over the course of the year and how that shifts between commercial OE and aftermarket, and really getting at kind of the margin mix considerations within that? I think for a while now, that's been a focused topic clearly with aero margins up again this year. That's pretty good. Maybe I'll weave into the question just any color on Meggitt's synergy contributions for the year.
Speaker 2
First of all, we don't go into that much detail and disclose all of that mix within the year. I would tell you, as I said with my slides earlier, we ended the year at 51% aftermarket, 49% OEM. We're showing OEM to be and aftermarket to be high single digit. We again have confidence in continuing to expand our margins. We think that what we have here for the aerospace guide at 8% for the whole year is appropriate for what we've seen now.
Speaker 1
Yeah, Joe, I would just add to that. You know, in respect to the synergies, she had a question about synergies for Meggitt, we still believe there's $50 million of synergies left to achieve on Meggitt. We would expect that to be ramped throughout the year just like we've seen it for the last three years. All is going unbelievably well with Meggitt, and that's in the mix as well.
Speaker 3
I think that the sentiment from North America distributor partners has been a little bit better over the last few quarters. Anything that you're observing in terms of developments there, getting areas where it's a little bit better? In particular, what you think the gating factor is to seeing quoting really accelerate into orders and the degree to which that's tariffs or it's other factors.
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mentioned that I had been on some distributor visits recently. It's a common theme. Quoting activity is high, no project cancellations, delays. There are other pockets where some of them are participating in some retooling in automotive and just some refurbishments that are happening. You hear about those pockets where they're really having some wins. I think they were overall very bullish on the future. That's what we continue to hear. The second part of your question again, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3
It was just what gets some of the, I think, encouraging signs on quoting to orders.
Speaker 2
I think one of the things, a couple of the things, I think it's uncertainty, right, on tariffs and interest rates, right? I think those two things are what may be holding up projects, holding up purchasing decisions. As I mentioned before, distribution's bullish, we're ready, and it's time for an industrial return.
Speaker 3
Thank you.
Speaker 1
Thanks, Joe. Hey, Beau, I think we've got time for one more. Can we take one more question here?
Speaker 3
Certainly, Mr. Leombruno. We'll take that final question today from Nigel Coe of Wolfe Research.
Oh, thanks for fitting me in here. That's great. And Jenni, I agree, it is time for this recovery. Bring it on. I just want to dig into the free cash flow. Todd, you mentioned CapEx 10%. That's about $500 million of CapEx. That's about $100 million high and no big deal. I'm just wondering, do you think that's sort of a medium-term shift in CapEx? The reason I'm asking is because, you know, we have heard this from some others. I'm curious if, you know, you're sort of reinvesting in the U.S. and if that's what's driving it. Maybe just put a final point as well on the cash restructuring you expect for FY2026.
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think the CapEx, I can't say that that's going to be a go-forward rate. We do have a few projects this year that we're investing in. Most of those are in North America and the North American region. I think that's more of a one-off type of thing versus a run rate going forward. On restructuring, we did about $50 million in 2025. Right now, we're forecasting about $70 million in 2026. It's $20 million more. I don't want you to read too much into this. This is just working capital investments for growth. This is making sure we integrate Curtis Instruments according to our schedule and obviously paying all those fees with it and making sure that we continue our multi-decade year of free cash flow conversion.
Great. Just a quick one on the profile of the industrial recovery you've seen in FY2026. It seems like you're down flat to maybe slightly down in the first half of the year, and then, obviously, 2% to 3% in the back half. Would that be directionally consistent?
That is exactly what we have: roughly flat first half to second half. That's total industrial.
Great. Okay, thanks, guys.
Yep.
Speaker 2
Thank you.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Okay, that concludes our FY25 earnings release webcast. We appreciate your time and attention, and thanks again for joining us today. Our IR team will be available. That's Jeff Miller, Janice Stuckey, and Chantelle O'Kelly. If there's any need for any follow-ups or clarifications, thank you all again. Have a fantastic day.
Speaker 3
Thank you, Mr. Leombruno, and thank you, Ms. Parmentier. Again, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining Parker Hannifin Corporation's fiscal 2025 fourth quarter and full-year earnings conference call and webcast. That will conclude our call. Thank you all so much for joining us, and we wish you all a great day. Goodbye.