Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

My name is Shyamali, I will be your conference facilitator this afternoon. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Fortive Corporation's First Quarter 2026 Earnings Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session.

If you would like to ask a question during that time, simply press star then the number one on your telephone key. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star then the number two. I would now like to turn the call over to Christina Jones, vice president of investor relations. Ms.

Jones, you may begin your conference.

Thank you, and thank you everyone for joining on today's call. I am joined today by Olumide Soroye, Fortive Corporation's President and CEO, and Mark D. Okerstrom, Fortive Corporation's CFO. During today's call, we present certain non-GAAP financial measures.

Information required by Regulation G is available on the Investors section of our website at fortive.com. We will also make forward-looking statements, including statements regarding events or developments that we expect or anticipate will or may occur in the future. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and actual results might differ materially from any forward-looking statement that we make today. Information regarding these risk factors is available in our SEC filings including our Annual Report on Form 10-K and the subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q.

These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date that they are made, and we do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements. Our statements on period to period increases or decreases refer to year-over-year comparisons unless otherwise specified and our results and outlook discussed today are on a continuing operations basis. With that, I will turn the call over to Olumide.

Thank you, Christina. Let me begin on slide three. Q1 marked a strong start to the year with another quarter of solid performance. We remain laser focused on delivering on our strategic and financial plans for 2026 and continue to make encouraging progress on executing our Fortive Accelerator strategy.

We have four key messages to cover today. First, our teams executed well in 2026, delivering solid performance in both segments. On a consolidated basis, we delivered core revenue growth of just over 5%, adjusted EBITDA growth of 13%, and adjusted EPS growth of over 25%. Please note that our core revenue growth in the quarter was aided by approximately 150 basis points of tailwind from additional year-over-year selling days in the quarter.

Second, we continue our disciplined capital allocation approach with a relentless focus on optimizing shareholder returns over the medium to long term. In the first quarter, we completed approximately $500 million of share repurchases. We have now reduced our share count by just over 10% since we launched New Fortive Corporation in July 2025. Third, with three quarters of execution now behind us, our confidence continues to build in the power of the Fortive Accelerator strategy to unlock benchmark-beating returns for our shareholders over the medium to long term. I will spend a few minutes on this in the next slide.

Lastly, we are reaffirming our full year adjusted EPS guidance range of $2.90 to $3.00. Based on our Q1 performance and trends to date, we believe results are trending toward the upper half of that range. Moving to slide four. Before we get into our Q1 results, I want to highlight some of the progress we are making in execution of three pillars of our Fortive Accelerator strategy. Starting with the first pillar, delivering faster profitable organic growth powered by our Fortive Business System Amplified.

This quarter, we continued to increase our innovation velocity with several notable hardware product milestones and AI-enhanced product launches. As discussed last quarter, Fluke launched a new data center testing solution, CertiFiber Max, with the fastest throughput in the industry in late Q4. Customer response continues to significantly exceed our expectations, underscoring the strength of Fluke's brand and the effectiveness of our broader data center strategy. We are particularly encouraged by CertiFiber Max's ability to drive meaningful pull-through of other Fluke products into data center applications, including power quality, battery testing, imaging, and calibration solutions essential for both build out and ongoing operations and maintenance of data centers.

In healthcare, we introduced Provation Mirror Documentation Assist, a real-time AI-powered voice-driven documentation capability enabled by deep domain expertise and proprietary data, and embedded directly into GI procedure workflows. This solution enables clinicians to capture structured documentation during the procedure, reducing the need to reconstruct details afterwards and enabling the clinical team to focus on the best patient care. On the commercial side, we continue to focus on faster growing end markets and regions, where we have made deliberate targeted investments to capture growth.

At Fluke, we continue to invest in commercial expertise across high growth verticals such as data centers, defense, and distributed energy, and we are seeing solid early traction from our focused efforts. At ASP, we continue to advance our made-in-region strategies in India and China, supported by related commercial investments, and we are beginning to see positive impact of these efforts in our results. We are also advancing ASP's growth strategies in EMEA, with the European commercial launch of STERRAD Ultra GI. On our recurring customer value initiatives, we continued to make progress on driving deeper customer lifecycle engagement and improving revenue durability.

In Q1, recurring revenue again grew faster than consolidated revenue in both segments. Our recurring customer value progress continued in our iconic hardware brands. Fluke continues to make progress on increasing recurring revenue, with double-digit services growth in the quarter. Industrial Scientific continued to see strong growth and share gains in our hardware-as-a-service product line.

Moving to the second pillar, disciplined capital allocation is an integral component of our Fortive Accelerator strategy. Consistent with our priorities, we deployed another roughly $500 million to share repurchases in Q1. Since the spin-off, we have deployed approximately $1.8 billion to share repurchases representing 35 million shares or just over 10% of diluted shares outstanding. Our revamped bolt-on M&A engine and team is in place, and we will continue to evaluate opportunities for high quality accretive bolt-on acquisitions that meet our rigorous strategic and financial criteria. Looking forward, our capital allocation priorities remain clear: invest in organic growth, pursue bolt-on M&A where risk-adjusted returns exceed other uses of capital, return capital through share repurchases, and maintain a modest growing dividend, all with a focus on best relative returns and maximizing medium to long term shareholder value.

Moving to our final pillar, building and maintaining investor trust. We were pleased to deliver solid performance ahead of expectations for a third consecutive quarter as New Fortive Corporation. That is a good start. We look forward to building on our momentum.

We remain laser focused on executing against our 2026 financial and strategic plan and continue to have strong confidence in our 2026–2027 financial framework that we shared at our June 2025 Investor Day. With that, I will turn it over to Mark to walk through our financial results for the first quarter in more detail.

Thanks, Olumide. I will begin with slide five. In the first quarter, we delivered total revenue of nearly $1.1 billion, up almost 8% year over year on a reported basis and up just over 5% on a core basis, benefiting from an approximately 150 basis point tailwind from the impact of additional year-over-year selling days in the quarter. We are pleased to see price and volume growth at both segments, driven by healthy customer demand and strong commercial and operational execution, leading to solid performance across the board.

We were also pleased to see strong growth in software revenue, reflecting the underlying strength of our businesses and robust customer demand for our increasingly AI-driven new product releases. From a geographic perspective, we saw another quarter of solid performance in North America, which continues to be our strongest region. Europe improved sequentially, reflecting stabilizing conditions and solid commercial execution. Adjusted gross margin in the quarter was just over 63%, down about 100 basis points from prior year, which is largely consistent with the year-over-year gross margin trends we saw last quarter and was driven mostly by the net impact of tariffs that were introduced last year.

Q1 adjusted EBITDA was $314 million, up about 13% year over year. This strong performance was driven by operating leverage, structural cost savings, and the favorable impact from foreign exchange rates, partially offset by continued innovation and commercial growth investments. Adjusted EBITDA margin in the quarter expanded approximately 140 basis points year over year to just over 29%. We delivered adjusted earnings per share of $0.70 in Q1, up over 25% year over year, marking our third consecutive quarter of double-digit adjusted EPS growth.

Strong adjusted EPS performance was driven by growth in adjusted EBITDA and the positive year-over-year impact of share repurchases. We generated $194 million of free cash flow in the first quarter, with Q1 conversion on adjusted net income in line with normal historical patterns. Our trailing twelve-month free cash flow conversion remains north of 100%. Moving to our segment results, starting with Intelligent Operating Solutions on slide six.

Revenue for the segment grew about 8% on a reported basis, with core revenue growth of about 5%, modestly ahead of our expectations. Based on the product mix in the segment, the year-over-year impact of additional selling days in Q1 resulted in a roughly 100 basis point benefit for IOS, making normalized core growth in the segment broadly consistent with what we saw last quarter. Core growth was driven by both price and volume, reflecting solid performance across Professional Instrumentation, Facilities and Asset Lifecycle Solutions, and gas detection products. At Fluke, order volume was strong, with orders growth outpacing revenue growth, and our teams continued to execute with strong operational discipline while increasingly deploying investment dollars towards growth initiatives.

North America continues to be the strongest growth driver and we were encouraged by another quarter of sequential improvement in Europe. Growth in Facilities and Asset Lifecycle Solutions accelerated from Q4, and was again accretive to the IOS segment, with particular strength in demand for multisite facility maintenance and marketplace software in North America. Our commercial investments and accelerated pace of innovation across these businesses are beginning to bear fruit. Our gas detection business continues to grow nicely, buoyed by strong demand and share gains from our hardware-as-a-service product line in North America, Europe, and the Middle East, as we begin to see our investments in the business show up in our results.

Adjusted gross margin in the segment was just over 65%, down about 150 basis points year over year, which is largely consistent with the year-over-year gross margin trends we saw last quarter, primarily due to product mix and the net effect of tariffs. Q1 adjusted EBITDA in the segment grew 8% to $255 million, driven by operating leverage, structural cost savings, and the favorable impact from foreign exchange rates, partially offset by targeted growth investments to support innovation and commercial initiatives. Adjusted EBITDA margin for Q1 was just over 34% in IOS, in line with the comparable period prior year.

Moving to our Advanced Healthcare Solutions segment on slide seven. We delivered total revenue of $326 million. Revenue grew approximately 8% year over year and approximately 6% on a core basis. Our healthcare consumables and software product lines benefited from the year-over-year impact of additional selling days in Q1, resulting in a roughly 300 basis point benefit to growth for AHS.

On a normalized basis, we saw slight acceleration in growth versus last quarter. Q1 growth was driven by solid demand for healthcare consumables, services, and software in North America. Low temperature sterilization capital demand improved modestly in Q1, though hospital spending pressures continue to persist. Our software products in the segment continue to deliver strong growth, driven by effective execution and strong provider demand for our gastrointestinal case documentation solution.

Adjusted gross margin in the segment was about 59%, in line with the prior year period, with modest operating leverage offset by the net impact of tariffs. Q1 adjusted EBITDA in this segment was $84 million, up approximately 18% year over year, driven by operating leverage, structural cost savings, and the favorable impact from foreign exchange rates, partially offset by targeted growth investments to support innovation and commercial initiatives. Adjusted EBITDA margin in Q1 expanded by about 200 basis points year over year to just under 26%. Turning to slide eight.

Our balance sheet remains strong. We finished the quarter at 2.8 times gross debt to adjusted EBITDA, reflecting a modest increase in commercial paper to fund share repurchases in the quarter. We continue to have ample capacity to execute on our capital deployment priorities in 2026, and we remain steadfast in our commitment to disciplined capital allocation and an overall approach that seeks best relative returns. As noted earlier, we deployed roughly $500 million to share repurchases in the first quarter, reflecting continued confidence in our ability to deliver on our value creation plan.

As a result, diluted shares outstanding were approximately [inaudible] million at the end of Q1. In addition to retooling our process and revamping our M&A team, integration and the execution of our value creation plans for the two small bolt-on acquisitions we completed in Q4 are both going according to plan. We continue to be on the lookout for high quality, accretive bolt-on deals that meet our rigorous strategic financial criteria. Moving to slide nine. We are reaffirming our full year 2026 adjusted EPS guidance range of $2.90 to $3.00 per share.

Given the trends to date inclusive of Q1 performance modestly ahead of our expectations, we believe results are trending towards the upper half of that range. This outlook assumes a continuation of the market dynamics we experienced in Q1 and reflects current tariff rates. Let me provide a few additional considerations to assist with modeling. Based on current foreign exchange rates, we expect full year reported revenue of around $4.3 billion.

We continue to expect core growth in the 2% to 3% range and, given strong order patterns, we believe results are trending towards the upper end of that range. In terms of the shape of the year, based on Q1 results modestly ahead of our expectations, we expect Q1 will comprise a slightly higher percentage of total revenue than historical patterns, with Q2 and Q3 broadly in line. We would note that Q4 has four fewer year-over-year selling days, resulting in a $15 million to $20 million revenue headwind in the quarter. We expect FX and M&A combined to be about a 150 basis point tailwind to reported revenue in Q2, moderating to roughly 50 to 100 basis points throughout the second half of the year.

We are now modeling a Q2 effective tax rate in the mid-teens, Q3 in the high-teens, and Q4 in the high single-digit to low double-digit range. We are also expecting full year net interest expense of just over $135 million. Based on what we see today and based on these modeling considerations, we would expect Q2 and Q3 adjusted EPS to be broadly similar to what we delivered in Q1. As the year unfolds and we continue to execute on our Fortive Accelerator strategy, quarterly phasing may evolve. As a final note before turning it back to Olumide for closing remarks and Q&A, we are off to a strong start to 2026 at New Fortive Corporation, and we remain committed to unrelenting execution on the Fortive Accelerator three pillar value creation strategy and financial framework that we outlined at our June 2025 Investor Day.

I will now turn it back over to Olumide.

Thanks, Mark. Let me close with a few observations on the quarter and where we are headed. Q1 represents a strong start to the year and further evidence of the progress we are making as New Fortive Corporation. We delivered solid organic growth, meaningful adjusted EBITDA growth, and a third consecutive quarter of double-digit adjusted EPS growth, while continuing to invest deliberately and execute diligently against our Fortive Accelerator strategy.

We are seeing early traction from our innovation, commercial, and recurring customer value growth initiatives. We are methodically allocating capital in ways that we believe will generate the best relative returns over the medium to long term, and we remain steadfast in our commitment to building and maintaining investor trust. Our teams are aligned, our FBS operating cadence is strong, and our confidence in the 2026–2027 financial framework we outlined at Investor Day 2025 is fully intact. I want to thank our Fortive Corporation team members around the world for their commitment to our shared purpose of innovating essential technologies to keep our world safe and productive, and 100 thousand customers for placing their trust in us every day.

With that, I will turn it back to Christina to open the call for questions.

Thanks, Olumide. That concludes our prepared remarks. We will now open the call for questions.

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 to remove yourself from the queue.

It may be necessary to pick up the handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from the line of Nigel Coe with Wolfe Research. Please proceed with your question.

By the way, Mark, thanks for the call out on the selling days. It is really helpful. Not all teams do that. Just on the Q2 plan, I just want to make sure we think about this correctly.

You mentioned Q2, Q3 EPS roughly similar to Q1. Normally, we see Q2 step from Q1, but we have the selling days impact. So I am just wondering, the core growth in Q2 looking to be in that sort of mid-single-digit range, but pretty flat with sales in the first quarter, but up mid-single digits. And margins would also be fairly similar to Q1 as well.

Nigel, thanks for the question. I think you are broadly in the zone. Again, Q2 we obviously do not have the benefit of days. We do have a slightly easier comp, I called out the FX tailwind that combined with M&A being about 150 basis points, and I think over the last couple of quarters we are starting to see just some momentum across each of the two segments, based upon our own execution with IOS a little bit ahead of AHS.

Based on what we see right now, we are expecting those trends to continue through full year.

Great. And then my follow-on question, I think, Olumide, you mentioned some success with some of the AI-driven product releases. Within AI is meant to be a negative, not a positive. So maybe just talk about that a little bit and perhaps a little bit more color on how the FAL portfolio performed in the quarter?

Yes, happy to take that. AI is certainly a disruptive technology that is shaping the landscape. As we have discussed previously, we feel very good about the businesses we have and how our teams are taking advantage of AI-powered innovation to drive growth in those businesses. Looking at FAL as an example, it is a great case of how we are using AI deployed on top of our mission-critical proprietary data-rich software solutions for customers to really deliver new value for them that is driving faster growth in that platform.

We have talked about a few examples of ServiceChannel AI and what our team is doing with that, and you see that showing up in the numbers. We are very pleased with FAL’s performance in the quarter. It grew faster than the IOS segment core growth of about 5%. All the operating brands contributed to that growth, with ServiceChannel leading the pack with continued strength, especially in North America.

The broad trends in all our key operational metrics—ARR, GDDR, MDR—are really good, and we are excited about the opportunity to see continued improvement in those metrics as we execute on our Fortive Accelerator strategy, including these AI-powered use cases. Everything we see, given the nature of those businesses and the quality of the quantitative data on performance, we feel quite good.

Thanks, Nigel. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Deane Dray with RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Thank you. Good day, everyone.

Hi, Deane.

Hey. There were a number of references about data center and Fluke is right in the middle of all of it. Can you just give us a sense of what the opportunity is? And there are some newer technologies like optical switching that should also position Fluke well. Any update there and kind of what the overall exposure is would be helpful.

Thanks, Deane. We are very excited about the data center investment cycle, and not just construction and build out, but frankly the larger and more durable opportunity for ongoing operations and maintenance of these massive data centers that are getting built out. Fluke already participates in the tool belt for data centers with a wide range of products—power quality monitoring and analytics, high voltage diagnostics, high density fiber testing, electrical ground fault detection, power calibration, thermal health, etcetera. New technologies like optical switching, to your point, will create additional demand for a lot of these products we already have.

Even more exciting, frankly, is the tremendous job our Fluke team is doing on accelerating innovation that is aimed at data center needs that are not yet fully met. We talked about the CertiFiber Max product that we launched in Q4 of last year and the incredible customer response to that, and how our team is using that new product to pull through the entire suite of offerings we have for the data centers, and really working hard at getting specced in to hyperscaler standard maintenance tool sets for how they manage these data centers. We feel really good about the setup and the enduring tailwind that offers for us at Fluke.

The exact magnitude of that is still ahead of us, but we are quite excited.

Great to hear. And then just can you address price/cost expectations for the year—ability to offset inflation and any tariff pressures at the margin?

Yes, price/cost was north of one in the first quarter. We would expect that to persist. FBS continues to be at the absolute core of Fortive Corporation and that continues to drive value engineering and cost efficiencies as we move through the year. The tariffs, again, have been a headwind to our gross margins even though they are completely countermeasured from a bottom-line perspective.

You saw that headwind show up in IOS this quarter. It is going to persist through partway through the third quarter when we are fully countermeasured, and then you will see that dissipate completely as we lap over the countermeasures in the fourth quarter.

Thank you.

You are welcome.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Julian Mitchell with Barclays. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, good morning. Maybe I wondered if you could flesh out perhaps some of the commentary on the orders strength you have seen recently. I think some other companies have not exactly been shy about touting large orders in recent months. So how are the orders progressing there?

And any update on the cadence of demand in some of the shorter cycle hardware businesses like Fluke or AHS consumables in recent weeks or months? Any signs of pre-buy or broad changes in demand ex restock/destock—anything to call out there?

Great, Julian, happy to take that. We were really happy with the orders growth that we saw. Orders grew faster than our approximately 5% core and roughly 8% total revenue growth, which is a great signal about the trajectory of the business. The growth we saw was broad-based across the two segments—in IOS, Fluke, FAL, Industrial Scientific—as well as on the AHS side, ASP also had really strong order growth in the quarter.

That is a result of good conditions in our markets, the strength of our operating brands, and the early positive impact of our Fortive Accelerator strategy. On short cycle, using a couple of examples: at Fluke, POS trends remain solid, book-to-bill was over one, healthy backlogs to end the quarter, channel inventories relatively normal in the U.S., continuing to get better outside the U.S. We feel really good about the trends we are seeing on short cycle. As you know, Fluke has been a very durable business with order growth in almost every quarter of the last five years despite PMI contractions in most of that time.

That continued in the quarter as well. For ASP, on the consumables side, we saw the resiliency you would expect; even adjusting for the extra selling days, low temperature sterilization consumables continued to grow in a very durable way. All the signals were good for us.

That is very helpful, thank you. And then if we think about operating leverage or operating margins—there was very high operating leverage in Q1 year on year even with the tariff headwinds. I understand there was a selling days mechanical impact, but when we look at the balance of the year, anything we should bear in mind on operating leverage as we move through the year? I imagine there is not a big Section 232 tariff effect for Fortive Corporation.

Any help there you could provide?

Sure, happy to. Again, to reiterate, we are very confident in our medium-term financial framework, and that calls for 50 to 100 basis points of EBITDA margin expansion over the course of this year and next year—each year. That is the framework we are operating under. Really, the way we have been managing the business is taking costs out of areas where they are not particularly value-added—you saw us flatten the segment structures, take out corporate costs in addition to the stranded cost reduction—and reinvest that in initiatives that we believe will accelerate growth and deliver excellent returns.

That is the formula. What you will see this year, though, is that because we have the days impact in the first half of the year and easier comps in the first half, in the back half of the year the comps get a little bit harder in Q3, and then you have the days impact in Q4. You will lap over a lot of the pretty significant cost actions that we took in the third and fourth quarter of last year. You will see a little bit less margin expansion in the back half of the year than we are able to deliver in the first half. But we feel super good about the overall margin trajectory of the business.

FBS is working, we are reinvesting in initiatives, and although it is early, it seems to be driving growth. The financial framework is well intact.

That is great to hear. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Andy Kaplowitz with Citigroup. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, good morning, everyone.

Morning.

If I can follow up on AHS—you mentioned, I think, slight acceleration in Q1 despite some hospital CapEx pressure in the U.S. How would you characterize fundamentals? I know you answered Julian's question on consumables, but overall equipment—does the environment continue to get better here this year? Differences between North America and China—what are you seeing on the AHS demand side?

Happy to address that. We were pleased with the performance in the AHS segment and ASP’s role within that in the quarter. As a reminder, the segment did benefit from roughly a 300 basis point tailwind related to the additional days in the quarter, but even after normalizing for that, we saw some acceleration in the segment, reflecting the strength in consumables, services, and software. In terms of capital equipment, we have seen modest sequential improvement since 2025. As you might recall, that was the toughest period with the impact of healthcare reimbursement and related policies on hospital procurement of capital equipment.

Q1 continued to show that improvement. Hospitals remain cautious about capital spending when the exact timing is discretionary, but we feel really good about lapping that year-over-year dynamic as we go into Q2 here, because Q2 last year is when it started. The underlying capital funnel we have is really strong, and as we lap this dynamic in Q2, we like the setup for the rest of the year. The U.S. continues to be the main pressure point on hospital budgets, but it is getting better, and with some of the made-in-country initiatives we have in China and India for ASP, that is adding some tailwind for us in those particular markets as they want locally made products.

We feel quite good as we look at the rest of the year; things are getting better on the equipment side even though there is still some caution.

Very helpful. And then I want to follow up on FAL—you mentioned the strength in ServiceChannel and that FAL is stronger than core growth in IOS in Q1. Maybe you could talk about the outlook for Facilities and Asset Lifecycle for the year. Would you say that ServiceChannel, Gordian could all continue to be higher than that 2% to 3% core growth you are guiding? Any more color would be helpful.

Thanks for that. The leading indicators are what we are seeing on order growth and ARR, GDDR, and MDR in those businesses, and also the exciting actions our teams are taking with respect to the innovation funnel and commercial initiatives to invest in areas where we have momentum across the range of options, and to drive improved customer experience. All of those things are pointing north for us in those businesses. We feel good about the setup for the rest of the year for FAL and the role it continues to play in our mix.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Buscaglia with BNP Paribas. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks for taking my question. So I just want to reiterate that you are guiding to a similar level for Q2, and you are talking about some incremental things you are working on to drive some margin expansion. But guidance really, at the midpoint, does imply earnings moderating or even potentially declining in one of the quarters. Is this just conservatism, or what are you waiting to see in terms of moving that guidance higher?

Thanks for the question. We feel very good about the momentum that we are seeing in the business and the early results of our execution on the Fortive Accelerator strategy across all three pillars, particularly the efforts we are making on commercial acceleration and innovation acceleration. What I would say is that it is early in the year; we have got a quarter under our belt. We have a lot of exciting things going on, and we like what we see, but it is just a little bit too early to get out ahead of our skis.

Take the fact that we gave some color that we are expecting growth near the higher end of our range and adjusted EPS on the full year near the upper half as an expression of our confidence in what we see, and we look forward to updating you on the next call in terms of how it is going.

Fair enough. I wanted to check on M&A. You guys have been doing a good job managing on the cash flow side. What is the outlook like? You have got your footing post separation at this point. You have a better idea of where you want to go with your capital allocation priorities. What do you see in terms of M&A as it plays out this year?

Thanks for the question. Capital allocation is a critical pillar to the Fortive Accelerator strategy, and we have been pleased to deploy capital with discipline, retiring just north of 10% of our share count since the time of the spin. We are really looking to deploy capital across organic growth initiatives, M&A, share repurchase, and a modest growing dividend based upon best relative returns. As it relates to M&A specifically, we have revamped our approach with more of a focus on bolt-ons.

We put in place rigorous strategic and financial criteria. We have essentially rebuilt the team. We executed a couple of bolt-on acquisitions in the back half of the year, and those are going very well—the value creation plans are tracking and the teams are performing really well. We are also super excited that on Monday, Corbin Wahlberger will be joining us to run corporate development for us globally and run M&A.

Corbin is well known in circles around this industry, so we think he is going to be a fantastic fit, and we are excited to have him join what is already a really excellent team. We will see what happens—obviously, if spreads start to expand on a relative basis, M&A becomes more attractive. We are putting ourselves in a position where we are building pipeline, the team is strong and getting stronger, and when the time comes where that becomes the best use of capital, we will be there, proactive, and ready to go.

Alright. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Analyst with Baird. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, thanks. Question on Gordian. I think June is typically a more sizable month for that business with year-end government spending. You obviously did not see that last year. Any visibility to whether that normalized year-end spend materializes this year, or what is baked into the Q2 guide?

Yes, thanks for the question. A lot of the state and local agencies have June as fiscal year-end. Our team is doing a phenomenal job of being very close to customers and being there to serve them on any budgets that are left. We feel really good about the funnel that we have and expect to have a strong outcome.

We have not presumed anything extra-normal in terms of the Q2 guidance. If we get more there than we got last year, we will capture the upside. We feel quite good about the setup and the work our team is doing to be close to customers as we go through Q2.

Okay, thank you. And then second one would be on the Detection business. Any color you can share on what you are seeing in the Middle East—any disruption tied to that? And then any discussions with customers about potential rebuild-related orders?

I will take that. With respect to the gas detection business overall, we are very pleased with how it did in the quarter. It was accretive to IOS segment growth overall. Demand was strong globally, with solid performance in North America, Europe, and the Middle East.

In the Middle East, we are seeing increased demand, and we do not think the rebuild is at the peak yet. We are excited about the opportunity to show up for customers as that picks up in the region. Overall, sales in the Middle East are a small part of Fortive Corporation overall—low single-digit percentage of actual revenues—but that team, based on the order book, is feeling quite excited. Thankfully, our teams in the region are all safe and staying close to customers.

We are feeling good about being able to help in a challenging context.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Analyst with JPMorgan.

Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. I just have a quick follow-up on FAL. You commented that it grew faster than IOS—growth was about 5% during the quarter. Can you just clarify if that is what it was adjusting for the selling day impacts and how that compares to last quarter?

FAL performed very well, even if you adjust for the selling days, and that statement holds even adjusting for selling days. That is an indication of the great job our team is doing on building the order book over the last several quarters that is now beginning to show up in revenues as revenue recognition kicks in for those new orders. It feels quite good, and as I mentioned, the leading indicators looking ahead are also quite strong, excluding extra selling days.

Okay, great. And how does that compare to last quarter? Any color there?

Overall, we are seeing steady acceleration in the platform. One of the things we liked about Q1 is the broad-based nature of acceleration we saw, and FAL was no exception to that compared to last quarter.

Okay, great. Thanks. And just my last question—were the trends similar for the AHS software business?

Yes, AHS as well. Continued very strong performance even adjusting for days, and again, as I said in my prepared remarks, our software revenue in totality is growing nicely ahead of the overall business. We really do not, as we look across the whole portfolio, see an exception to that. Those businesses, with the renewed focus on innovation acceleration and commercial efforts, are showing good early signs.

Okay, great. Thanks so much for the color.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Scott Graham with Seaport Research Partners. Please proceed with your question.

The old Fortive talked a lot about OMX and how FBS poured productivity into that. I was wondering if you might be able to give us some type of data point on this. I know you have enhanced those programs. Is this 50 to 100 basis point goal here for productivity—is there a sustainability to whatever your goal is? Any kind of data point or KPI you can give us would be helpful.

Thanks for the question. Starting from the foundation of our culture—our Fortive Business System and the relentless pursuit of better, including productivity and now increasingly growth—is stronger than ever. We have our President’s Kaizen Week next week with Fortive Corporation teams around the world focused on driving growth and productivity. The fundamentals of how we operate are only getting stronger, so you should expect good things from that.

We have intentionally framed this 50 to 100 basis points of adjusted EBITDA margin expansion a year in our financial framework as the governing framework for productivity and the fall-through on high-margin incremental revenues that we drive. That is intentional because we want to give ourselves the space to invest productivity gains in growth that is going to sustain and accelerate outperformance across both segments. Within that framework, productivity is as big a piece as ever, and deliberate investment in growth is a bigger piece than it has ever been because, looking at the performance this quarter and roughly 5% core growth across the company, we would like to keep investing to make outcomes like that more the norm.

Productivity remains as strong as ever, it is baked into that 50 to 100 basis points of adjusted EBITDA margin expansion a year, and we feel really good about the setup.

Okay, thank you for that. My follow-up is simple. It looks like FAL is kind of getting back to that mid-single-digit growth that I think you talked about at the Analyst Day. Is there an opportunity this year for Fluke to catch up?

You have the new data center product, you are anticipating some pull-through—maybe later this year or next year. You have Fluke connectivity going, you are adding products to the tool belt as usual. It is a terrific business. I am wondering if it is going to potentially catch up to FAL this year in your view.

When Mark was talking about the 2% to 3% modeling consideration guide on core growth for the year and the fact that we are tracking towards the upper half of that range, all of that reflects the conviction we have about potential across the platform. Given that Fluke is almost 40% of what we do, you should translate that to mean we feel really good about the setup at Fluke and the chance to continue to make a really great business even more extraordinary—from a growth and margin performance and brand and customer loyalty point of view. Short answer: we see Fluke as a really exciting platform. We will continue to make that great business even better from a profitable growth point of view, and from a multiyear basis, we see no ceiling ahead of us.

And we have reached the end of the question and answer session. I would now like to turn the floor back over to CEO, Olumide Soroye for closing remarks.

Great. Thank you, and thank you all for your interest in Fortive Corporation. I am incredibly excited about the job our team did in the first quarter to deliver really strong results and adjusted EPS growth of over 25%, which is again our third quarter of double-digit growth in EPS. More importantly, I am really excited about the momentum across our teams as we look ahead and feel really good about the setup we have for the year and for the multiyear extraordinary value creation opportunity we believe we have here for our long-term shareholders.

Thank you all for your interest, and we will see you next time.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation. Have a great day.