Prompt:
Human: Mark will review our third quarter performance and provide an outlook for the rest of the year as well as an initial view of 2022.
Andrew will provide an overview of select financial results.
Information presented represents our best judgment based on today's understanding.
Actual results may vary based upon these risks and uncertainties.
Today's discussion and the supporting materials will include references to adjusted EPS, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted cash from operations, free cash flow and organic revenue growth, all of which are non-GAAP financial measures.
Please note that as used in today's discussion, earnings means adjusted earnings and EBITDA means adjusted EBITDA.
A reconciliation and definition of these terms as well as other non-GAAP financial terms to which we may refer during today's conference call are provided on our website.
FMC delivered record third quarter results.
We grew our revenue by 10%, EBITDA by 12%, earnings per share by 17% and importantly, expanded our EBITDA margins despite continuing cost pressures.
Performance in the quarter was driven by broad based volume growth and price increases.
New products introduced in the last 12 months continue to gain momentum, and we are now forecasting sales from these products to account for more than 1/3 of our revenue growth this year.
In addition, FMC's Plant Health business had an excellent quarter with 40% year over year growth led by biologicals.
Looking ahead, we continue to expect a strong finish to the year, driven by high margin volume gains and accelerated pricing actions as well as a robust global market backdrop.
The supply chain and logistics challenges highlighted in our last earnings call continued to disrupt ag chem and other industries around the world.
FMC was able to meet the strong grower demand for our products in a timely manner.
Let me also briefly comment on COVID-19's impact on FMC.
All our manufacturing facilities and distribution warehouses remain operational and properly staffed.
Our research laboratories and greenhouses continue to be fully active, and we have resumed in office operation in many parts of the world.
FMC continues to follow all guidance given by local authorities.
Turning to our Q3 results on slide three.
We reported $1.2 billion in third quarter revenue, which reflects a 10% increase on a reported basis and a 9% increase organically.
Growth was broad-based with 11 of our top 20 countries posting double digit growth in the quarter.
We had strong growth in all product categories, led by greater than 20% growth in herbicides.
This was partially offset by registration losses in EMEA and Latin America.
Adjusted EBITDA was $293 million, an increase of 12% compared to the prior year period and $18 million above the midpoint of our guidance range.
EBITDA margins were 24.6%, an increase of 40 basis points compared to the prior year, driven by mix improvement as well as operational discipline and price increases in all regions.
Adjusted earnings were $1.43 per diluted share in the quarter, an increase of 17% versus Q3 2020.
The year over year increase was primarily driven by an increase in EBITDA with the benefit of share repurchases and lower interest expenses, largely offset by other factors.
Relative to our Q3 guidance, the $0.12 beat was driven almost entirely by EBITDA.
Moving now to slide four.
Sales in Asia increased 20% year over year and 19% organically, driven by strong diamide sales across the region as well as pricing actions.
In Australia, we had a successful launch of Vantacor insect control, which is the new higher concentration formulation of Rynaxypyr active.
Vantacor is applied to specialty crops such as chickpeas.
The Australian market also benefited from positive grower sentiment, favorable weather conditions and strong insect pressure.
India had another growth quarter despite an erratic monsoon, which resulted in drive spells in parts of the country.
India's growth was driven by diamide sales in rice as well as continued expansion of the rest of our portfolio, leveraging our strong market presence.
In Latin America, sales increased 11% year over year and 9% organically, driven by double digit growth of insecticides in Brazil and Argentina as well as pricing actions across the region.
Corn, soy and cotton were the key crops driving growth in the quarter.
This is a direct result of our strategy to improve market access and increase penetration of our technologies, particularly in the Brazilian soybean market.
Chile is another good example of this as sales nearly doubled compared to this time last year as we leveraged our enhanced market presence.
Plant Health products grew approximately 50% in the region led by biologicals and seed treatment.
Latin America was impacted partially by registration cancellations and rationalizations of products in the quarter.
EMEA grew revenue 12% and 10% organically, driven by strong demand for our herbicides and diamides across the whole region despite headwinds from registration cancellations.
Among others, Russia, France, Germany and the U.K. grew double digits in the quarter.
Demand was especially strong for herbicide applications in cereals and oilsee rape.
South Africa double digit sales in the period compared to the previous year, driven by the continued penetration of diamides, mainly on citrus and top roots.
This is a great demonstration of the untapped potential in new markets for our diamides.
Our U.S. and Canada branded business grew greater than 20%, driven by strong demand for our diamides and four herbicide applications as well as pricing actions.
Vantacor had a successful introduction in the U.S., where it is used to target pest in a range of crops, including soybean, corn and cotton.
Overall, North America sales decreased 6% year over year and 6% organically due to the continued shift of diamide global partner sales in the quarter from North America to other regions as we have described in previous calls.
Moving to slide five.
Despite continuing supply issues across the industry, FMC's third quarter revenue increased by 10% versus prior year, driven by a 9% contribution from volume.
Gross prices increased 1% in the quarter as our most recent pricing actions went into effect.
EBITDA in the third quarter was up 12% year over year, primarily due to broad based volume gains.
We also had a $12 million contribution in the quarter from price increases as invoiced to customers.
The benefit of our pricing action was masked in the quarter by some favorable rebate and other adjustments in the prior year period that did not repeat this quarter.
Costs continue to be a headwind.
However, the total amount incurred in the third quarter was less pronounced than previously projected, mainly due to timing.
We still expect second half cost to be consistent with previous guidance and FX was a $10 million tailwind in the quarter.
Turning to slide six.
Before I review FMC's full year 2021 and Q4 earnings outlook, let me share our view of the overall market conditions.
We continue to expect the global crop protection market will be up mid single digits this year on a U.S. dollar basis.
Breaking this down by region, we continue to anticipate high single digit growth in the Latin American market, mid single digit growth in the EMEA market, low to mid single digit growth in the Asian market and low single digit growth in the North American market.
We are raising FMC's full year 2021 earnings guidance to the range of $6.59 to $6.99 per diluted share, a year over year increase of 10% at the midpoint, reflecting the impact of share repurchases completed year to date.
Our 2021 revenue forecast remains in the range of $4.9 billion to $5.1 billion, an increase of 8% at the midpoint versus 2020.
EBITDA remains in the range of $1.29 billion to $1.35 billion, representing 6% year over year growth at the midpoint.
Guidance for Q4 implies year over year revenue growth of 19% at the midpoint on a reported basis with no FX impact anticipated.
We forecast EBITDA growth of 29% at the midpoint versus Q4 2020 and earnings per share is forecasted to be up 41% year over year.
Approximately 3/4 of the EBITDA growth is driven by the return of business missed in Q4 2020 due to supply chain disruptions in North America and weather impact in Latin America.
Turning to Slide seven and full year EBITDA and revenue drivers.
Revenue is expected to benefit from 6% volume growth, a 1% price contribution from higher prices and a 1% benefit from FX.
We anticipate continued strong volume growth led by Latin America, North America and Asia.
We have increased our forecast again for revenue from products launched in 2021.
These sales are now expected to contribute $140 million in year over year growth, up from our last forecast of $130 million and our initial view of $100 million.
Pricing actions in Q3 will continue to accelerate in Q4.
We will continue to raise prices across all regions going into next year.
Despite the shift of costs from Q3 to Q4, estimates of full year cost headwinds have not changed since our detailed comments on the last call.
This is why our full year outlook remains unchanged.
Moving to slide eight and our fourth quarter drivers.
Revenue is expected to benefit from strong volume gains.
In Brazil, the strength of soft commodity prices, projected increases in planted areas as well as good weather conditions are all leading to a good cadence of incoming orders and give us confidence in our expectations for a strong fourth quarter.
In the U.S., channel inventories are normal for this time of year.
our new product launches are gaining significant traction and market sentiment supports our expectations for a robust fourth quarter.
As I noted earlier, we've also moved on price increases with higher prices already in effect in the Brazilian and U.S. markets.
Similar actions are underway in other countries across the globe, such as Australia, Russia, France, Mexico and Argentina, and you should expect us to continue raising prices through the year end and well into next year.
Cost increases are consistent with our guidance for the second half.
We continue to pursue cost improvement opportunities and remain vigilant with our cost controls, all without impacting our R&D pipeline or growth trajectory.
FX was a modest tailwind to revenue growth in the quarter as expected.
With the U.S. dollar weaker against many key currencies, most significantly in Latin America with the strengthening of the Brazilian real and the Mexican peso.
Interest expense for the quarter was $33.1 million, down $2.4 million from the prior year period, driven by the benefit of lower debt balances and lower LIBOR rates.
We continue to expect interest expense to be between $130 million and $135 million for the full year.
Our effective tax rate on adjusted earnings for the third quarter was 13.5% as anticipated and in line with our expectation for a full year tax rate between 13% and 14%.
Moving next to the balance sheet and liquidity.
Gross debt at quarter end was $3.4 billion, down roughly $400 million from the prior quarter.
Gross debt to trailing 12-month EBITDA was 2.7 times at the end of the third quarter while net debt to EBITDA was 2.5 times.
Both metrics improved sequentially.
Though still slightly above our targeted full year average leverage levels, we expect to be at target leverage levels at year end.
Moving on to slide nine in cash flow and cash deployment.
Free cash flow for the third quarter was $300 million.
Adjusted cash from operations was lower than the prior year period, largely due to our decision to build inventory to help manage continued supply chain volatility and to be prepared to fulfill strong demand in the fourth quarter and in early 2022.
Capital additions were somewhat higher as we continue to ramp up spending following the deferral of projects last year due to COVID.
Nearly 50% of this year's capital addition support capacity expansion.
Legacy and transformation spending was down substantially with the benefit of the completion of our SAP program and lower legacy spending.
We are maintaining our expectation for free cash flow in a range of $480 million to $570 million, with continued expectations for seasonally strong cash flow in the fourth quarter.
We returned $262 million to shareholders in the quarter via $62 million in dividends and $200 million of share repurchases, buying back 2.1 million shares in the quarter at an average price of $95.26 per share.
We have now repurchased just over three million shares this year, reducing our share count by nearly 2.5% since the beginning of the year.
Year to date, we've returned $486 million to shareholders through dividends and repurchases.
For the full year, we continue to anticipate paying dividends of roughly $250 million and to repurchase $350 million to $450 million of FMC shares.
Turning to slide 10.
I want to provide an early look at the key dynamics underpinning our planning process for next year.
We view 2022 as another year with a good macro environment.
Obviously, notwithstanding the impact weather can have on any single quarter.
We expect that soft commodity pricing momentum will carry into next year with global demand for crops remaining healthy.
As a result, we are assuming the overall crop protection market will grow in the low to mid single digit range next year on a U.S. dollar basis.
FMC's growth will be driven by broad based volume gains across our portfolio.
Pricing actions reflective of cost increases, continued expansion of diamide volumes in existing and new markets and further penetration of new products and expansion of our market access in underserved geographies.
We expect cost pressures this year will persist well into 2022 as the industry grapples with global supply demand imbalances, structural changes in China's industrial policy and energy supply, tight ocean freight capacity and labor cost inflation.
Taking all this into consideration, our current early thinking would suggest year over year revenue growth of 5% to 7%, EBITDA growth of 7% to 9% and earnings per share growth at over 10%, in line with our long range plan.
We will share more detailed guidance for 2022 in our February call.
We executed very well in the quarter, not only from an external perspective in driving demand and pricing across all regions, but also importantly, internally by fulfilling that demand with product in a timely manner under challenging supply chain conditions.
The only change in the second half is a timing shift of costs, and hence, we're not changing our full year guidance.
The overall crop protection market fundamentals are positive, and we remain confident in our ability to deliver our fourth quarter forecast.
 Assistant:

Chosen response:
fmc corp confirms 2021 guidance.
sees q4 revenue up 19 percent.
sees fy revenue up 8 percent.
sees fy revenue $4.9 billion to $5.1 billion.
q3 adjusted earnings per share $1.43.
q3 revenue rose 10 percent to $1.19 billion.
sees fy 2021 adjusted earnings per share $6.59 to $6.99.


Prompt:
Human: With me on the call today are Seamus Grady, chief executive officer; and TS Ng, chief financial officer.
We delivered a strong performance in the first quarter with revenue and earnings that were above our guidance.
Demand trends appear to be stabilizing in most of the end markets we serve, and we're optimistic that we are positioned to deliver strong results in the second quarter.
Revenue in the first quarter was $399 million, a slight decrease from the record fourth quarter as expected with a 6% increase from a year ago.
Non-GAAP net income was $0.86 per share, exceeding the high end of guidance as gross margins improved to 12% in the quarter.
Looking at our business by end markets.
Optical communications revenue of $302 million was up about $2 million from the fourth quarter and represented 76% of total revenue.
Within optical communications, telecom revenue of $230 million increased 7% from the fourth quarter and represented 76% of optical revenue.
This growth is particularly notable considering we had expected telecom revenue to be flat at best.
Further, we expect this momentum to continue in Q2.
Datacom revenue was $73 million in the quarter, an expected decrease from Q4, of 15%.
Datacom represented 24% of optical communications revenue.
We believe this decline is primarily the result of broader industry trends and not due to execution or competitive issues.
In fact, based on anticipated near-term demand, we believe datacom trends could be nearing the bottom and we expect datacom revenue to be roughly flat in Q2.
By technology, silicon photonics based optical communications revenue decreased from the fourth quarter to $77 million and represented 25% of optical communications revenue.
Revenue from QSFP28 and QSFP56 transceivers was $45 million, down slightly from fourth quarter.
By data rate, 100-gig programs continued to represent nearly half of optical communications' revenue at $147 million.
And products rated at speeds of 400 gig and above were up strongly from the fourth quarter of $38 million or 13% of optical communications revenue.
Looking at our nonoptical communications business.
Revenue moderated sequentially as expected to $97 million from $105 million in Q4.
As anticipated, revenue from industrial lasers declined from the fourth quarter and was $41 million compared to $53 million in Q4.
These same demand trends seem to be persisting, so we anticipated industrial laser revenue to be roughly flat in Q2.
Longer term, we remain optimistic about our potential to further penetrate the industrial laser market as more manufacturers inevitably turn to outsourcing to better compete in this global market that is, in fact, larger than the optical communications market.
Automotive and sensor revenue were both stable at $24 million and $3.5 million, respectively.
Finally, revenue generated from other nonoptical applications grew 15% sequentially to $28 million, mainly from Fabrinet West.
Fabrinet West has been a great success for winning business for our offshore volume manufacturing sites.
We have seen numerous programs migrate from early prototyping in Fabrinet West to volume production in Thailand.
At the same time, Fabrinet West has been an enabler for us to win business in new markets and with new customers that might have otherwise gone to competitors.
As such, we have been focused on establishing a similar model to Fabrinet West in Israel.
We already have a number of customers there, and we believe we have the opportunity to grow our business with these customers as well as attract new ones.
We have signed a lease for a building in [Inaudible] which is a former semiconductor manufacturing facility.
It is already equipped with most of the infrastructure we need for a new product introduction center.
We are currently in the process of setting up SMT lines advance packaging and a failure analysis lab similar to what we have to support NPI in our Bangkok facilities.
We have hired a general manager for Fabrinet Israel and we are targeting to be up and running early next year.
In summary, we believe we are off to a good start to the fiscal year with revenue and earnings that meet our guidance ranges and return to gross margins that were within our target range.
We're optimistic that our telecom strength will continue and the datacom trends appear to be bottoming.
In addition, we're excited to have achieved important milestones toward establishing a second new product introduction facility at Fabrinet Israel.
Combined with our continued leadership as a contract manufacturer for the most complex products, we are very excited about our future.
I will provide you with more details on our performance by end market and our financial results for Q1 as well as our guidance for Q2 for fiscal year 2020.
Total revenue in the first quarter of fiscal year 2020 was $399.3 million and above the upper end of our guidance range.
Non-GAAP net income was $0.86 per share and was also above our guidance range even after a foreign exchange headwind of $1.9 million and the mark-to-market loss on interest rate swap contracts of $1.7 million.
These losses accounted for approximately $0.09 per share.
Now turning to the details of our P&L.
We were pleased to see non-GAAP gross margin in the first quarter improve to 12%, a 20-basis-point increase from the fourth quarter as efficiency more than offset the impact of merit increases.
Non-GAAP operating expense was $11.6 million in the first quarter.
As a result, non-GAAP operating income was $36.2 million and non-GAAP operating margin was 9.1%, flat with the fourth quarter.
Taxes in the quarter were $2.2 million, and our normalized effective tax rate was less than 5%.
We expect our effective tax rate to be 5% to 6% for the full year.
Non-GAAP net income was above our guidance range at $32.2 million in the first quarter or $0.86 per diluted share as I indicated earlier.
On a GAAP basis, which includes share-based compensation expenses and amortizations of debt issuing costs, net income for the first quarter was $25.9 million or $0.69 per diluted share, also above the high end of our guidance.
Turning to the balance sheet and cash flow statement.
At the end of the first quarter, cash, restricted cash and investments were $436.4 million compared to $444.7 million at the end of the fourth quarter.
Operating cash flow in the quarter was $2.6 million and with capex of $6.3 million, free cash flow was an outflow of $3.7 million in the first quarter.
During the quarter, our working capital increased to higher than normal level in support of major new program transfer.
This will begin to self-correct in the second quarter as we start to consume the transfer inventory and collect receivables.
We did not repurchase any shares during the first quarter.
As such, $62.2 million remain in our share repurchase program and we will continue to evaluate market condition to opportunistically repurchase shares when possible.
I would now like to turn to our guidance for the second quarter of fiscal year 2020.
As Seamus described, we expect a strong second quarter and anticipate that revenue will be between $408 million and $416 million.
From a margin perspective, we are optimistic that we will see efficiency continue to drive incremental improvements in non-GAAP gross margin within our target range of 12% to 12.5%.
From an earnings per share perspective, we anticipate non-GAAP net income per share in the second quarter to be in the range of $0.91 to $0.94 and GAAP net income per share of $0.74 to $0.77 based on approximately $37.7 million fully diluted shares outstanding.
In conclusion, we are excited with our strong performance in the quarter.
We remain very positive about our long-term prospects for continued leadership in the marketplace.
 Assistant:

Chosen response:
fabrinet q1 earnings per share $0.69.
q1 non-gaap earnings per share $0.86.
q1 gaap earnings per share $0.69.
sees q2 revenue $408 million to $416 million.
q1 revenue $399.3 million versus refinitiv ibes estimate of $390.3 million.
sees q2 2020 non-gaap earnings per share $0.91 to $0.94.
sees q2 2020 gaap earnings per share $0.74 to $0.77.


Prompt:
Human: With me on the call today are Seamus Grady, Chief Executive Officer; and Csaba Sverha, Chief Financial Officer.
We had an excellent fourth quarter to finish a strong fiscal year with robust demand trends continuing across our business combined with excellent execution by our team, we delivered a number of records in the quarter.
Revenue was well above our guidance range and for the first time exceeded $0.5 billion at $509.6 million.
In addition to record revenue, we also delivered record non-GAAP operating margins of 9.9%, resulting in an all-time high non-GAAP earnings per share of $1.31 in the fourth quarter.
For the full fiscal year, we produced record revenue of $1.88 billion, representing industry-leading growth of 14% from the prior year.
Non-GAAP net income was $4.67 per share.
Total operating cash flow for the year was $118.7 million and free cash flow was $76.1 million.
Looking at some of the highlights of the fourth quarter.
Optical communications revenue reached another new record, driven by strong telecom demand.
Non-optical communications revenue also reached another record in Q4.
Looking ahead, we remain encouraged by healthy demand trends across all lines of business as we continue to successfully navigate and manage component supplies.
We estimate that the supply constraints we are experiencing impacted our fourth quarter revenue by approximately $25 million to $30 million, and we expect to see a similar impact in Q1.
Despite this headwind, we anticipate that revenue will continue to grow sequentially to a new record in Q1 as Csaba will outline in a moment.
We are also optimistic from a profitability standpoint.
That said, in Q1, we anticipate a small non-recurring headwinds to net income.
As you may have heard, Thailand, along with other countries in Southeast Asia has recently seen a rapidly growing number of COVID-19 cases.
In response, lockdowns and other measures have been imposed, which primarily impact social gatherings.
Our manufacturing facilities are fully operational, but we have implemented additional safeguards beyond what we have been doing for the past 1.5 years in order to protect our staff.
This includes increased testing and sending people home with pay, if they test positive for COVID-19.
In addition, we have been granted permission by the Thai government to vaccinate our employees and have been carrying out this initiative for the past several weeks at our expense.
We are very pleased that at this time the vast majority of our employees have already received their second doses, such that by the end of this month, approximately 90% of our employees in Thailand will be considered fully vaccinated.
We are proud to be able to carry out this effort that has both a very positive social impact, while also being good for our business, and we believe it will further enhance our very favorable reputation as an excellent employer in Thailand.
As we communicated earlier this year, we have broken ground on a new 1 million square foot building at our Chonburi campus.
Construction is progressing and we expect the building to be complete in about one year.
We also previously discussed our intention to add approximately 100,000 square feet of manufacturing space at our Pinehurst campus.
Just after the end of the fourth quarter, we completed the acquisition of 15 acres of land that had become available adjacent to our Pinehurst facility.
This size will enable us to relocate some non-manufacturing activities from the current campus, which will allow us to increase our manufacturing footprint within our existing buildings.
As a result, we are confident that we will continue to have ample capacity to satisfy the growing customer demand we are experiencing.
In summary, we had a very strong finish to a record year.
We are optimistic about demand trends from all the markets we serve and we are well positioned to continue to deliver excellent results over the longer term.
We had a strong finish to a record year with record revenue and non-GAAP earnings.
Revenue of $509.6 million, up 6% from Q3 and 26% from a year ago, and was above our guidance range.
We also executed very well, hit our highest gross margin in four years, and record operating margins to produce non-GAAP earnings of $1.31 per share, which also exceeded our guidance.
Looking at revenue in more detail.
Optical communications was $387.8 million or 76% of total revenue, up 7% from Q3.
Non-optical communications revenue was $121.7 million or 24% of total revenue, and increased 4% from Q3.
Within optical communications, telecom revenue was $310.7 million, up 10% from last quarter.
Datacom revenue was $77.1 million, down very modestly from Q3.
By technology, silicon photonics products made up 22% of total revenue or $110.2 million, up 5% from Q3.
Revenue from products rated at speeds of 400 gig or higher was $133.3 million, up 27% from the prior quarter.
This more than offset a 4% sequential decline of 100 gig products to $133.6 million in the fourth quarter.
In Q1, we expect the optical communications growth trend to continue.
Looking at our non-optical communications business.
Automotive revenue was $48.6 million, a slight decline from our record third quarter results.
Industrial laser revenue more than offset this at $41.1 million, up 14% from the third quarter.
Sensor revenue was $3.6 million and other non-optical communications revenue was up 14% to $28.2 million [Phonetic].
Now turning to the details of our P&L.
Gross margin of 12.3%, up 10 basis points from Q3 and was at the highest level in four years.
Operating expenses in the quarter were $12 million or 2.4% of revenue, reflecting our operating leverage, resulting in operating income of $50.5 million or 9.9% of revenue, a record for the Company.
During the fourth quarter, we have recorded a tax benefit of $2.1 million.
This is primarily due to the reversal of evaluation allowance related to certain subsidiaries as a result of better operating performance and effective control of operating expenses.
We anticipate that our effective tax rate in fiscal year 2022 will be approximately 4%.
Non-GAAP net income was a record at $49.4 million or $1.39 per diluted share.
On a GAAP basis, net income was also a record at $42.4 million or $1.13 per diluted share.
For the full year, revenue was $1.88 billion, an increase of 14% from the prior year.
Non-GAAP gross margin was 12.1% and operating margins were 9.5% of revenue.
Non-GAAP earnings per share for the year was $4.67, up a strong 25% from fiscal year 2020.
We report 10% customers annually and in fiscal year 2021, we had three 10% customers.
Cisco and Lumentum both represented 14% of revenue and the Infinera represented 12% of revenue for the year.
Note that the Cisco revenue contribution includes a partial year impact from Cisco's acquisition of Acacia.
Excluding the impact of the acquisition, Acacia would also have been a 10% customer in fiscal year 2021.
Our Top 10 customers represented 78% of revenue, compared to 79% in fiscal year 2020.
Turning to the balance sheet and cash flow statement.
At the end of the fourth quarter, cash, restricted cash and investments were $548.1 million, an increase of $39.2 million from the end of the third quarter.
Operating cash flow was $43.5 million with capex of $13.5 million; free cash flow was $30 million in the quarter.
In addition to expenses related to construction at our Chonburi campus, the recently purchased 15 acres of land, adjacent to our Pinehurst campus that will facilitate the manufacturing expansion we have in progress at that campus.
Of the $13.2 million purchase price, 10% was paid during the fourth quarter and the remainder was paid in the first quarter of fiscal 2022.
We remain active in our share repurchase plan, and during the fourth quarter, we repurchased approximately 123,000 [Phonetic] shares at an average price of $85.88 for a total cash outlay of $10.5 million.
Approximately $81.2 million remains in our buyback authorization.
Now, I would like to turn to our guidance for the first quarter of fiscal year 2022.
We are entering the year from a position of strength and remain optimistic about the markets we serve, and our ability to execute.
For the first quarter, we anticipate revenue in the range of $510-530 million, which will represent another record quarter for Fabrinet.
From a profitability perspective, we anticipate non-GAAP net income to be in the range of $1.29 to $1.36 per diluted share.
I'd like to point out that this guidance includes the impact of our customary annual merit increases as well as approximately a $0.04 to $0.05 impact from the cost we are incurring in order to safeguard our employees through the vaccination program that Seamus described.
We believe this employee safety costs are non-reoccurring, and that this program benefits our employees and their families, as well as the continued operational success of our business.
If not for these non-recurring costs, our non-GAAP net income guidance for Q1 would have represented another quarterly record for the Company.
In summary, we are proud of our record fourth quarter and fiscal 2021 performances.
We are excited about the prospects ahead and look forward to continued success for all our stakeholders.
 Assistant:

Chosen response:
sees q1 revenue $510 million to $530 million.
q4 revenue $509.6 million versus refinitiv ibes estimate of $487.5 million.
q4 non-gaap earnings per share $1.31.
q4 gaap earnings per share $1.13.
sees q1 non-gaap net income per diluted share to be in range of $1.29 to $1.36.


Prompt:
Human: These statements are based on management's expectations, plans and estimates of our prospects.
Today's statements may be time-sensitive and accurate only as of today's date, Thursday, April 23, 2020.
We assume no obligation to update our statements or the other information we provide.
Also on the call today are Jojo Yap, our Chief Investment Officer; Peter Schultz, Executive Vice President; Chris Schneider, Senior Vice President of Operations; and Bob Walter, Senior Vice President of Capital Markets and Asset Management.
So we apologize in advance for any slight gaps or delays we may experience, particularly when we get to the Q&A segment of our call.
I'd like to begin my remarks today by saying that the entire First Industrial team hope that you, your families and loved ones have maintained your health, while we all do what's necessary to get through COVID-19 together, hopefully sooner rather than later.
With respect to measuring the eventual economic impact of COVID-19 and related stay-at-home orders in the US, it's still early.
Over the coming months, as stay-at-home orders are reduced and eventually lifted, we will gain a wealth of knowledge about how our actions impacted outcomes.
While it is still early, we are extremely pleased about not only our strong Q1 results, but especially about how our team has performed during the past six weeks.
Due to the shelter-in-place orders in most of the country, the virus has significantly impacted commerce.
Unemployment has increased at an alarming rate in a short period of time, and the second quarter is likely to show a significant reduction in GDP.
Prior to the shelter-in-place orders, the vast majority of our tenants' businesses were doing well.
So we're hopeful that the overall economy and their businesses will bounce back as the social distancing restrictions are reduced or removed, whenever that may be.
Moving now to our recent rent collection experience, I'll start by saying we value our tenants and our relationships with them.
In an effort to get ahead of these conversations, in late March, we contacted a number of our tenants to make sure they were knowledgeable about the available financial relief programs from the government.
In cases where our customers may not have had firmly established financial relationships, we referred them to one of our bank resources willing to assist them in the process.
We also made an internal resource available to walk them through the loan application process.
Through the end of March, we collected about 97% of our March billings, which was in line with what we experienced before COVID-19.
For April billings, as of April 22, we have collected about 93%, which includes Pier 1.
For April billings for which we have yet to receive payment, approximately two-thirds are in jurisdictions which currently have moratoriums on evictions or evictions aren't being enforced, which is negatively impacting collection.
Because we're in the early phases of experiencing the economic impact of COVID-19, it's prudent to include in our updated guidance an additional $1 million of reserves for bad debt, which Scott will walk through shortly.
Moving now to rent relief requests from our tenants, including those requests from clearly well capitalized tenants, total requests for rent relief in the form of rent deferral or abatement represented approximately 19% of our April billings.
Excluding the well capitalized tenants and only including tenants that ask for specific terms, this represents 8% of our April billings, of which approximately 85% have paid April rent.
This subset occupies an average of 48,000 square feet and represent a broad range of industries.
At this time, we've not granted rent relief, and it's not clear how many tenants will legitimately require rent relief.
We hope the range of information we provided gives you an idea of what we are experiencing today.
Needless to say, this is a point in time picture.
We won't try to predict when infection rates will begin to decline and when or how the phase-out of the shelter-in-place restrictions will flow through to our tenants' businesses and financial health.
Moving now to general activity in the leasing markets, prior to COVID-19, there were a substantial number of new requirements across our markets, led by e-commerce and food related businesses, but representing a broad range of uses.
In our portfolio, as of April 22, we have signed 72% of our 2020 lease expirations, which is consistent with our experience in the past several years.
These signings have a cash rental rate increase of 8.4%.
Over the past few weeks, we have seen leasing activity on most of our vacancies, but the pace around some of those conversations has slowed or paused.
As a result, as part of our revised guidance, we have pushed out the leasing assumptions for two of our developments to the end of the year, which Scott will walk through shortly.
We feel very good about the long-term prospects for our business.
The COVID-19 virus has accelerated the adoption of e-commerce for many consumers for necessities as well as routine needs, which should boost future demand.
We also expect an increase in inventories to provide cushion against product shortages due to supply chain shocks such as we are experiencing now.
All in all, in the long run, these factors should drive incremental demand for industrial space.
Moving to dispositions, we closed on $13 million of sales in addition to the Tampa portfolio we closed in early February.
Through today, we've closed on $40 million of sales this year, on our way to meeting our 2020 sales guidance range of $125 million to $175 million.
As we noted on our last call, we expect sales to be back-end loaded in the year.
Note that our sales guidance excludes the expected $55 million Phoenix sale in the third quarter, in which the tenant exercised its purchase option in 2019.
As always, our sales process is focused on maximizing value for shareholders, while improving our cash flow growth profile.
As we think about new investment opportunities, at this point in time, we will continue to be judicious with our capital with a near-term emphasis on maintaining liquidity.
We are proceeding with all of our developments in process, which totaled 1.5 million square feet and a total investment of $154 million at March 31.
At this time, we are not targeting any new speculative development starts.
This includes the postponement of our planned summer start at First Park Miami, where we will continue to monitor the market.
Due to the impact of COVID-19, we are seeing some delays in certain of our projects as contractors and suppliers deal with shutdown orders, social distancing requirements, slower approval and permitting, and other restrictions.
Of this group, only our 100,000 square foot Philadelphia development has been halted entirely due to statewide restrictions on construction deemed non-essential, although those restrictions will be lifted as of May 8, subject to forthcoming guidelines.
As a result of these delays, you will see in our supplemental Page 22 that we've adjusted some of our estimated completion dates accordingly.
Let me recap some recent investment activity.
In February, we were pleased to acquire Nottingham Ridge Logistics Center, a two-building development forward totaling 751,000 square feet in the Greater Baltimore industrial market, where the submarket vacancy is under 4%.
The park has I-95 frontage and is located just 12 miles north of the Port of Baltimore at the intersection of Route 43.
Today, it is 15% pre-leased, and we are seeing good interest on the remainder of the space.
Our total investment is estimated to be $82 million with an expected cash yield of 5.7%.
In the first quarter and second quarter to date, we also completed the acquisition of two buildings in the East Bay market of Northern California for a total purchase price of $14 [Phonetic] million at a weighted average yield of 5.2%.
The first property is a 39,000 square footer in Fremont, and the other is a 23,000 square foot building in Hayward.
Both are in the I-880 corridor.
The buildings are 58% occupied.
We also acquired a 24,000 square foot building in Los Angeles in the South Bay that we plan to redevelop.
The purchase price was $14.4 million.
In the first quarter, in addition to the First Park Miami land, we also acquired a 9-acre site in Southern California in the Inland Empire East for $2 million that is developable to 189,000 square feet.
On the development front, we placed in service our Ferrero build-to-suit development at PV303 totaling 644,000 square feet with a total investment of $53 million and a stabilized yield of 7.9%.
Let's start with our earnings per share and FFO for the first quarter.
Diluted earnings per share was $0.32 versus $0.19 one year ago.
NAREIT funds from operations were $0.45 per fully diluted share compared to $0.41 per share in 1Q 2019.
First quarter 2020 FFO includes our previously disclosed restructuring charge related to the closure of our Indianapolis office and costs related to the vesting of equity awards for retirement eligible employees we talked about on our last call.
This was offset by income related to the final settlement of one of our two outstanding insurance claims for damaged properties that we previously disclosed.
Excluding these items, FFO remains unchanged at $0.45 per share.
First quarter FFO also includes an approximately $800,000 non-cash write-off of a deferred rent receivable related to our lease with Pier 1 in Baltimore.
We have received April's rents, but due to the economic uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 virus, we feel this write-off is prudent.
We now -- we are now assuming Pier 1 will pay rent through June and vacate the building, the impact of which I will walk through shortly when I discuss our revised 2020 FFO and portfolio guidance.
Our occupancy was strong at 97.1%, down 50 basis points from the prior quarter and down 20 basis points from a year ago.
As for leasing volume during the quarter, we commenced approximately 2.6 million square feet of leases.
459,000 square feet were new, 1.3 million were renewals, and 925,000 square feet were for developments and acquisitions with lease-up.
Tenant retention by square footage was 68.9%.
Same-store NOI growth on a cash basis, excluding termination fees, was 8.4%.
Lower free rent on developments accounted for about half of that growth.
The remainder is attributable to rental rate bumps and increases in rental rates on new and renewal leasing, which was partially offset by a slight decrease in average occupancy.
Cash rental rates were up 10.8% overall with renewals up 8.9% and new leasing 16.1%.
And on a straight-line basis, overall rental rates were up 26.5%, with renewals increasing 27.
1% and new leasing up 24.8%.
Now, moving on to the balance sheet, at March 31, our net debt plus preferred stock to EBITDA was 5.2 times.
Today, we have approximately $70 million of cash and $400 million of availability on our line of credit, for total liquidity of $470 million.
From a debt maturity standpoint, we have very little coming due in thousand 2020 and 2021.
In 2020, we recently paid off a $15 million mortgage loan and have no other debt maturities in the remainder of the year.
In 2021, we have a couple of debt maturities.
First, we have a $200 million term loan that matures in January at an interest rate of 3.39% with a handful of banks with which we have relationships spanning many years.
We contemplate renewing this term loan inside of the expiring interest rate.
After that, we have our line of credit coming due in October, but note that the maturity date for the line is extendable for one year at our option, which enables us to push this maturity to October 2022.
Lastly, in 2021, we have $63 million of mortgage debt coming due in October that we can pay off using the availability in our line of credit if the debt capital markets are cooperative.
On uses of capital, we anticipate development spend of approximately $100 million for the remainder of 2020 and $35 million for 2021 for a total of $135 million.
These capital needs will be funded with property sales and excess cash flow after payment of our dividend, given our AFFO payout ratio, as calculated in our supplemental, of 66%, which is one of the lowest in the REIT world.
Our NAREIT FFO and FFO before one-times item guidance are both $1.73 to $1.83 per share with a midpoint of $1.78.
This is a $0.05 per share decrease compared to the midpoint of our FFO before one-times items guidance we discussed on our fourth quarter earnings call, primarily due to a decrease in forecasted NOI due to the following.
We are now assuming that Pier 1 pays rent through June 30 and vacates.
At this time, we expect no income from this building after June for the remainder of the year.
This, plus the impact of the write-off of the non-cash deferred rent receivable, is about $0.02 per share.
We have also reduced our assumption for average quarter-end occupancy by 100 basis points to a midpoint of 96.5%.
This reflects the pushback of our leasing including Pier 1, as I just discussed, and the lease-up of our remaining vacancies to the fourth quarter at First Joliet in Chicago and Building B of First Logistics Center at 78/81 in Pennsylvania.
Excluding the FFO impact of Pier 1, this change in leasing assumption represents an additional $0.02 per share.
Lastly, we are increasing our bad debt expense assumption from $500,000 per quarter to $900,000 per quarter for the remainder of the year, which is $0.01 a share.
Including the $300,000 of bad debt expense we recognized in the first quarter, our bad debt expense assumption for 2020 is now $3 million, an increase of $1 million from our prior guidance.
Please note, that guidance does not reflect any potential non-cash write-offs of deferred rent receivables related to tenants that are having financial difficulties.
Other key assumptions for guidance are as follows: same-store NOI growth on a cash basis before termination fees of 2.75% to 4.25%, a decrease of 125 basis points at the midpoint due to our updated occupancy and bad debt assumptions.
Our G&A guidance remains at $31 million to $32 million.
And guidance also includes the anticipated 2020 costs related to our completed and under construction developments at March 31.
In total, for the full year of 2020, we expect to capitalize about $0.04 per share of interest related to our developments.
We, like all of you, look forward to getting back to normal soon.
As a company, we've built our business to perform through the cycle and particularly for unexpected times like these.
Through disciplined risk management in our investments and operations, top-rated customer service, a high-quality infill portfolio and a strong balance sheet, we are well positioned to succeed in this turbulent environment.
Lastly, we are focused on serving and working closely with our customers for as long as it takes and to find the optimal outcome for all involved.
With that, we will now move to the question-and-answer portion of our call.
 Assistant:

Chosen response:
q1 ffo per share $0.45.
issued revised guidance related to business impact of covid-19 pandemic.
sees 2020 nareit ffo of $ 1.73 to $1.83 per share.


Prompt:
Human: I'm Ian Hudson, the Company's Chief Financial Officer.
Also with me on the call today is Jennifer Sherman, our President and Chief Executive Officer.
These documents are available on our website.
In addition, we will file our Form 10-Q later today.
I'm going to begin today by providing some detail on our first quarter results, before turning the call over to Jennifer to provide her perspective on current market conditions, our progress against strategic initiatives, and our outlook for the remainder of the year.
In summary, we delivered another strong quarter with record orders and operating results, exceeding our expectations despite ongoing pandemic related disruptions.
We also had to navigate through the February ice storms in the south, which caused us to temporarily close our facilities in Texas, Alabama and Mississippi.
Fortunately, we did not experience any significant damage, but we did lose several days of production.
Despite these challenges, the teams recovered well with both groups delivering adjusted EBITDA margins at or above levels achieved in the first quarter of last year.
That feed is even more impressive, given the strength of the prior year quarter, which included record production at our largest facility and minimal impact from the pandemic.
Turning now to the numbers where consolidated net sales for the quarter were $279 million compared to $286 million last year.
Consolidated operating income for the quarter was $27.8 million compared to $32.3 million last year.
Consolidated adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $41.2 million compared to $43.9 million last year.
That translates to a margin of 14.8% in Q1 this year compared to 15.3% last year.
Net income for the quarter was $22.2 million compared to $23.4 million last year.
That equates to GAAP earnings per share for the quarter of $0.36 per share compared to $0.38 per share last year.
On an adjusted basis, earnings per share for the quarter was $0.38 per share, compared to $0.39 per share last year.
Order intake for the quarter was outstanding with orders of $384 million represent -- representing our highest quarterly orders on record and an increase of $80 million or 26% compared to Q1 last year.
Consolidated backlog at the end of the quarter also set a new company record at $410 million that represents an increase of $9 million compared to Q1 last year and an increase of $106 million or 35% from the end of 2020.
In terms of our group results, ESG net sales for the quarter were $228 million compared to $233 million last year.
ESG's operating income for the quarter was $27.1 million compared to $29.4 million last year.
ESG's adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $39.3 million compared to $40 million in the prior year.
That translates to an adjusted EBITDA margin of 17.2% in line with last year.
EFC reported orders of $324 million in Q1 this year, an improvement of $87 million or 37% compared to last year.
SSG's net sales for the quarter were $51 million this year compared to $53 million last year.
Operating income for the quarter was $7.2 million dollars compared to $7.4 million last year.
SSG's adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was consistent with the prior year at around $8.2 million while its adjusted EBITDA margin for the quarter improved to 16.2% of 80 basis points from Q1 last year.
SSG's orders for the quarter was $60 million compared to $66 million last year.
Corporate operating expenses for the quarter was $6.5 million, up from $4.5 million last year.
The increase was primarily due to an unfavorable year-over-year variance of $2.6 million associated with changes in mark-to-market adjustments of post-retirement reserves.
These market based adjustments benefited our earnings in Q1 last year by approximately $0.02 per share but were unfavorable in Q1 this year.
Turning now to the consolidated income statement where the decrease in sales contributed to a $6 million reduction in gross profit.
Consolidated gross margin for the quarter was 24.7% compared to 26.1% last year.
As a percentage of sales, our selling, engineering, general and administrative expenses for the quarter were down 20 basis points from Q1 last year, despite the unfavorable mark-to-market variance I just mentioned.
Other items affecting the quarterly results include a $700,000 increase in other income and a $400,000 decrease in interest expense.
Tax expense for the quarter was down $2.2 million dollars, largely due to lower pre-tax income levels and higher excess tax benefits from stock compensation activity.
Our effective tax rate for the quarter with 18.4% compared to 23.5% last year.
The lower tax rate in Q1 of this year was in line with our expectations after we had included an estimate of excess tax benefits.
At this time, we continue to expect our full year effective tax rate to be approximately 24%.
On an overall GAAP basis, we therefore earned $0.36 per share in Q1 this year compared with $0.38 per share in Q1 last year.
To facilitate earnings comparisons, we typically adjust our GAAP earnings per share for unusual items recorded in the current or prior year quarters.
In the current year quarter, we made adjustments to GAAP earnings per share to exclude acquisition related expenses, coronavirus-related expenses and purchase accounting expense effects.
On this basis, our adjusted earnings for the quarter were $0.38 per share compared with $0.39 per share last year.
Looking now at cash flow where we generated $26 million of cash from operations during the quarter, an improvement of $21 million over Q1 last year.
We ended the quarter with $168 million of net debt and availability under our credit facility of $270 million.
Our current net debt leverage ratio remains low even after funding the acquisition of OSW during the quarter for approximately $53 million.
Our strong financial position allows us to continue to invest in organic growth initiatives and pursue strategic acquisitions like OSW.
At the same time, we remain committed to pursuing strategic acquisitions and returning cash to stockholders through dividends and opportunistic share repurchases.
On that note, we paid dividends of $5.5 million during the quarter, reflecting an increased dividend of $0.09 per share.
And we recently announced a similar dividend for the second quarter.
It's been over a year now, since the pandemic began.
And while there have been many challenges along the way, I remain in awe of how our teams have responded modifying our work practices to keep employees safe, exercising flexibility in handling uncertain market conditions, and finding new ways to serve our customers.
[Technical Issues] continues to experience some ongoing COVID related disruptions, but conditions are improving.
Our companywide efforts to raise awareness about vaccines, assist our employees in gaining access to vaccines and encourage participation levels, are paying off and we are pleased to report that our domestic employee vaccination rates are ahead of the national average.
In fact, in Illinois, where we have three of our largest facilities and the corporate office, over 60% of our employees are now fully vaccinated.
With that, we've seen an uptick in our sales, resources, traveling, reinforcing our customer-centric value proposition and contributing to greater order intake.
As in the last two quarters, we again saw improved demand for our products with our first-quarter order intake setting a new record for the company, surpassing the previous high by over $50 million.
Our first quarter orders reflect strength in most of our end markets and growing confidence in a post-pandemic recovery, which seems to be further solidified by recent economic stimulus.
That sentiment seems to be shared widely by our dealer partners and customers across most of our businesses.
Demand for sewer cleaners remains strong, with first quarter orders up 30% year-over-year, and almost double the amount recorded last quarter.
Safe digging is also continuing to gain acceptance.
Over the last couple of years, approximately 70% of our sewer cleaners orders have included an optional safe-digging package, which allows our sewer cleaners to also be used for hydro or vacuum excavation purposes.
We saw similar trends this quarter with customer appreciation for the safety and efficiency benefits of safe digging gaining momentum.
At MRL, our road marking and line removal business, first quarter orders were the highest quarterly levels since we acquired the business in 2019.
And with its planned expansion now complete, we are well positioned to benefit from potential infrastructure investment.
Our road marking services business, Highmark also won an $8 million striping contract during the quarter.
Since the 4th quarter of last year, we've also seen an uptick in our industrial end markets with improved orders for our Guzzler and JetStream products heading into the spring-cleaning season.
In addition, our dump bodies and trailer businesses reported strong organic order growth of 28% across our end markets, achieving record backlog.
While our backlog is at a record high, there are a few factors that may limit us from realizing the full benefits from the operating leverage that we typically experience with backlog at these levels.
The first factor that many of you will be aware of is the impact of the global semiconductor shortage on chassis availability.
We started to see some supply tightness late last year and our teams were proactive in securing additional chassis and recommending to our customers and dealer partners that they do the same for those orders were they supply the chassis.
As a reminder, that is about 50% of the time for our ESG businesses, excluding TBEI, where the customer almost always supplies the chassis.
We were recently notified by one of our chassis suppliers that they are temporarily suspending production of certain chassis for up to 90 days in light of the semiconductor shortage.
The issue primarily impacts our sewer cleaners, safe digging trucks, and certain street sweeper models.
The situation remains fluid and the teams have been working hard to mitigate the impact of the short-term disruption.
Based on the data we have received, we expect the situation will be resolved during the 3rd quarter with production expected to ramp back quickly thereafter.
Because we do not rely on any one single TSC manufacturer, and with the proactive actions we took, we have been able to pivot quickly to minimize the financial impact.
For example, at Elgin, our team was able to adjust production schedules, so that we build a higher concentration of the three-wheel Pelican sweepers during the period of the expected impact.
As a reminder, for that product line, we actually manufacture the chassis ourselves.
At our Streator facility, where we make sewer cleaners and Safe digging trucks, we have had an ongoing effort to secure additional chassis from other manufacturers.
However, because of lead times on certain chassis, there is a period of approximately two weeks where we have a shortage at Vactor.
With the goal of optimizing efficiency, the teams have worked diligently to manage the schedule, so that this brief pause will occur over the July 4 holiday.
With the additional chassis supply that we have secured, we are expecting a ramp up in production thereafter.
Like most companies, we are also experiencing rising commodity costs.
As our teams have done in the past, we took proactive measures such as locking in pricing and securing availability of steel based on forecasted needs.
Our teams are working diligently to mitigate the impacts of rising commodity costs by implementing price increases and surcharges where possible.
As it relates to labor availability, our ongoing commitment to environmental social and governance continues to benefit our company.
Investment in our employees differentiates us and our ability to attract labor at the majority of our facilities.
I now want to take a few minutes to provide an update on our strategic growth initiatives.
We remain bullish about Safe digging prospects, and with noted industrial end market recoveries and infrastructure spend optimism throughout the channel, we are confident Safe digging trends will continue to improve.
Our TRUVAC safe digging product line portfolio includes a complete range of truck mounted safe digging equipment with applications across a number of end markets.
We were pleased to see that TRUVAC product demonstrations for the quarter were up 70% from last year.
As I just mentioned, these education efforts are also having a positive impact in sewer cleaners demand with the inclusion of the optional safe digging package, turning our sewer cleaners into a multi-purpose vehicle.
We also continue to make progress with our aftermarket initiative with aftermarket revenues for the quarter improving by 6% and representing a higher share of ESG's revenues for the quarter at around 27%.
We continue to closely monitor rental fleet utilization and remain disciplined in making decisions about the size and composition of our fleet.
As part of that process, we have seen healthy used equipment sales in recent months and an uptick in rentals.
We are monitoring the current COVID situation in Canada with Ontario and many other provinces being subject to some of the most extreme stay-at-home measures since the start of the pandemic.
While we have not experienced any significant financial impact to date, we may see some impact in our Canadian markets over the next few months, which is typically a seasonally strong period for equipment rentals and part sales.
On the organic growth front, we have several new product launches in the pipeline, a few of which I'll touch on today.
Within ESG, street sweeper electrification remains a key area of investment.
We have previously talked about our first orders for hybrid electric broom bear street sweeper, which are currently expected to ship later this year.
This hybrid model, uses both battery energy and either CNG or diesel power for sweeping, with performance designed to meet or exceed current sweeper performance.
The hybrid broom bear is now being demonstrated by our dealer channel, primarily on the West Coast and then moving to the Southeast, and the feedback to date has been encouraging.
In addition, development of a hybrid version of our most popular line of street sweepers, the Pelican, is under way.
The plug-in hybrid electric Pelican sweeper is assembled and undergoing testing with product demonstrations plan for the second half of this year.
Within our dump body and trailer product portfolio, we are also realizing benefits from new product introductions.
During the quarter, products launched over the last year equated to organic growth of about 4%.
Within SSG, based on the nature of its product portfolio, our innovation pipeline typically includes a higher volume new product introductions and enhancements, that while individually may not have a significant financial impact, collectively aggregate to meaningful organic growth.
For example, we launched production of our MicroPulse line during the quarter.
The MicroPulse is a low profile, high performance LED lighting product for both first responders and work truck vehicle.
The line includes production of both new product models and those that were previously outsourced.
In sourcing this line, which leverages automated laser technology, is estimated to improve the related margins and drive annual savings of over $1 million.
In addition, we are currently on track to launch a low cost light [Phonetic] power in the second quarter.
In addition to these organic growth initiatives, M&A will continue to contribute meaningfully to our future growth.
During the quarter, we completed the acquisition of OSW, a leading manufacturer of dump bodies and a customer upfitter of truck equipment and trailers.
The acquisition provides considerable opportunity for long-term value creation through the application of our 80/20 improvement principle, organic growth initiatives and additional bolt-on acquisitions.
Last week, we held an initial 80/20 improvement training session at OSW, which was well received by the teams.
Integration is well under way, and while it is still early days, OSW was off to a solid start in the first quarter.
Our M&A pipeline has been active to say the least.
And it's been exciting to be back on the road visiting potential targets.
As Ian noted in his comments, our financial position and liquidity are strong, enabling us to pursue strategic acquisitions and there are a number of M&A opportunities our teams are currently reviewing.
We have also continued to make significant investments in our existing plans to add capacity to support our long-term growth and to gain operational efficiencies through automation.
As we continue to optimize our manufacturing footprint, we are evaluating our long-term strategy with respect to our Elgin and University Park production facilities in Illinois.
Both properties are currently leased at above market rates with lease terms ending in 2023.
We are currently looking at opportunities and alternative facilities in the surrounding areas as we proactively plan for a potential move.
The American rescue plan, COVID release package, includes approximately 1.9 trillion of economic stimulus with approximately $350 billion going to state, local and territorial governments with the goal of keeping frontline workers employed, distributing the vaccine, increasing testing, reopening schools, and maintaining essential services.
We are actively educating our dealer channel about the stimulus program and have distributed the latest estimate allocation of the $350 billion of state and local government support by jurisdiction to our dealer channel to share with its customer base.
As a provider of equipment for -- used for essential services like sewer kitting and street sweeping, Federal Signal stands to benefit meaningfully from additional aid that may be provided to state local sources for these purposes.
As was evident with our first-quarter order intake, our dealer partners remain optimistic about market conditions in 2021, noting that both corporate and sales tax collections appear to have held up better than originally anticipated, which should add stability to their revenue sources.
We expect that our long-term infrastructure bill will provide visibility for project planning and could see capital equipment demand increases in areas such as roads, bridges, broadband, Clean Energy and public transportation buildup.
We anticipate that this will provide benefits for the majority of our product offerings, including equipment sales and rentals of dump trucks and trailers, Safe digging trucks, road marking equipment, sewer cleaners and street sweepers.
We have positioned Federal Signal in a manner in which we fully participate in the post-pandemic recovery by increasing capacity within our facilities, reducing lead times to a level where we can better respond to customer needs, investing in new product development and gaining market share.
Turning now to our outlook for the rest of the year.
Orders thus far this year have exceeded our expectations, fueled by a combination of new product launches ongoing execution against our strategic initiatives and strong recovery in our end markets.
With certain chassis manufacturers temporarily impacted by the global semiconductor shortage, we are currently encountering some short-term production challenges at our largest facility.
Our teams are working diligently to navigate through this disruption as they have in the past when faced with similar situation.
After factoring in the impact expected over the next couple of months, at this time, we are maintaining our adjusted earnings per share outlook for the year of $1.73 to $1.85.
With our recently completed capacity expansion at several facilities, we are well positioned once the current chassis uncertainty eases.
Demand for our products is at an all-time high, with the recent federal stimulus, and the possibility of infrastructure investment offering potential for further momentum, which we have not factored into our current outlook.
 Assistant:

Chosen response:
compname reports q1 revenue $228 mln.
q1 adjusted earnings per share $0.38.
q1 gaap earnings per share $0.36.
q1 revenue $228 million.
compname says maintaining adjusted earnings per share outlook for fy 2021 $1.73 to $1.85.
compname reports q1 gaap earnings per share of $0.36.


Prompt:
Human: Information required by SEC Regulation G relating to these non-GAAP financial measures are available on the Investors section of our website, www.
fortive.com, under the heading Investors Quarterly Results.
We completed the separation of our Industrial Technologies segment through the spin-off of Vontier Corporation on October 9, 2020, and have accordingly included the results of the Industrial Technologies segment as discontinued operations.
All references to period-to-period increases or decreases and financial metrics are year-over-year on a continuing operations basis.
Starting on slide three.
Our first quarter performance continued to highlight the benefits of our efforts to enhance the growth and resilience of our portfolio, significantly expanding our positions in software and healthcare and adding substantial sources of higher growth recurring revenue.
As a result, our portfolio has been well positioned to drive rapid sequential improvement over the past few quarters as markets have begun to reopen.
In Q1, we continue to see significant improvement, not only across our short-cycle businesses, primarily Fluke Instruments and Tektronix, but also at many of the businesses that have faced COVID-related headwinds, such as Advanced Sterilization Products.
Turning to the results in the quarter.
We generated total revenue growth of 13.6% and core revenue growth of 9.1%, above the high-end of our guidance.
Adjusted earnings per share was $0.63, representing an increase of 37% year-over-year.
The combined outperformance on core growth and earnings helped drive another strong quarter of free cash flow.
Our SaaS offerings at Accruent, Intelex, Censis, eMaint and Gordian continue to perform well, generating double-digit growth in the quarter, with the current Gordian seeing better top line momentum overall.
These software offerings are an important part of our strategy to leverage leading hardware positions to provide broader software-enabled solutions to address pain points in our customers' critical workflows and their ongoing digital transformation priorities.
Despite the challenges of a COVID environment, we continue to leverage FBS tools to drive performance improvements across the portfolio.
ASP is advancing the implementation of the Fortive Business System more broadly, driving strong improvements in working capital turns as well as progress accelerating commercial efforts, as it delivered its fifth consecutive quarter of growth in its global installed base.
Intelex also continues to see success from the application of FBS tools to improve its sales process, driving better lead generation, improved customer win rates and stronger sales pipeline creation.
While these are just a couple of examples, we are highly focused on building FBS capability across our newer businesses, in order to deliver accelerated growth, innovation and market share gains.
Relative to organic growth, we continue to invest in strategic initiatives across our operating companies as well as build additional capacity to drive future innovation.
With the FORT, we are continuing to scale our data analytics capabilities, providing leverage to our operating companies to pursue key AI and machine learning applications.
In 2020, we more than doubled the number of projects conducted and expect to do the same this year, targeting more than $250 million of potential revenue opportunity.
Our acquisition of ehsAI significantly expanded our machine learning expertise to help grow our position within EHS workflows as well as generate learnings that can be applied more broadly within Fortive.
We've also made a number of additional investments to expand our partnership with Pioneer Square Labs, with three start-up opportunities currently in different phases of incubation.
With these investments, we are enhancing our ability to generate disruptive innovation that will deepen our competitive advantage and increase our customer value proposition.
In terms of performance across the major geographies, core growth was led by low 20% growth in Asia.
This included approximately 30% growth in China and low double-digit growth in Japan.
Elsewhere, our core revenue grew by low double-digits in Western Europe and by low single-digits in North America.
Taking a closer look at performance in the segments on slide seven, Intelligent Operating Solutions posted a total revenue increase of 9.5%, with core revenue increase of 5.5%.
This included high-teens growth in China, high single-digit growth in Western Europe and a flat top-line in North America.
Fluke's core revenue continued to improve in the first quarter, increasing by high single-digits.
This performance was highlighted by low double-digit growth at Fluke Industrial and high-teens growth at Fluke Calibration.
Fluke's growth included the launch of the 377 and 378 Fluke Connect, plant meters for non-contact voltage testing.
These introductions incorporate Fluke's FieldSense technology and extend its leadership position in safer non-contact measurement tools.
At Fluke Industrial, point-of-sale in North America turned positive in the first quarter, increasing by low single digits.
Meanwhile, point-of-sale in both Western Europe and China continue to improve, rising by mid-single digits and mid-teens, respectively.
Strong performance at Fluke Digital Systems continued this quarter, increasing by mid-single digits as eMaint saw strong demand with mid-teens growth in SaaS bookings.
Industrial Scientific declined single-digits in the first quarter, as a result of continued weakness in instrument sales.
The company's iNet offering continued to demonstrate its resilience, increasing by low single-digits.
iNet also registered an 18% increase in bookings, while driving a more than 500 basis point improvement in net retention.
Stub's strong bookings growth in ISC's rental business provided a signal of improving stability in its end-markets with customers beginning to restart maintenance project activity.
At the same time, we are seeing continued success from the application of FBS growth tools at Intelex to accelerate sales pipeline creation, driving a record revenue quarter with low double-digit growth.
The integration of ehsAI continues to go well.
While the revenue contribution remains small, product integration is on schedule, and the Intelex team has started to accelerate new customer acquisition.
Accruent grew by low single-digits in the first quarter, highlighted by high single-digit growth in SaaS.
Accruent continue to see good momentum in its Industrial and Life Science segments.
This included a recent win at BioMarin, which included Accruent's Meridian solution as a critical tool for management of their pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities, including communication with contractors and support for FDA validation.
Accruent is also seeing growing demand across a range of end markets for its facility planning and resource scheduling solutions with customers beginning to prepare their facilities for the future needs of their workforce as they emerged from the pandemic.
Accruent's growth in the quarter was aided by the resumption of some on-site service, implementation and project-related activities with further improvement expected as the year continues.
After facing headwinds during the second half of 2020, Gordian's top-line improved to flat in the first quarter.
Gordian's job order contracting procurement business grew by low single digits and is expected to accelerate as the ramp-up of recovery from COVID continues.
The company's estimating business continued to perform well, increasing by high single-digits and seeing strong renewal momentum and conversion rates for the SaaS version of its RSMeans product line.
Gordian saw signs of improvement during the first quarter regarding site access issues.
We expect this improvement will continue in the coming quarters.
The Precision Technology segment posted a total revenue increase of 14.3% with a 12.1% increase in core revenue.
This included mid-30s percent growth in China, mid-teens growth in Western Europe and mid single-digit growth in North America.
Tektronix generated high-teens growth, driven by strength in its general industrial and semiconductor markets.
Point-of-sale continue to accelerate, up greater than 40% in China, greater than 20% in Western Europe, while North America turned positive with a mid single-digit increase in the quarter.
Tektronix has seen strong demand in China as economic recovery continues, driven by government investment in 5G, electric vehicles and IoT solutions.
Looking across the product lines at Tektronix, mainstream oscilloscope in Keithley both had an excellent first quarter.
Mainstream oscilloscope posted high 30% growth, driven by strong demand trends across most of its key product segments, particularly our six series and four series scopes.
Keithley grew mid-teens, while the Tektronix service business continued to show stability, reporting mid single-digit growth in the first quarter.
Tektronix also saw outperformance across a range of recent new product introductions, including its new ISO view probe solution for semiconductor and automotive market applications.
Sensing Technologies grew by low double-digits, driven by broad strengthening across end markets, including industrial and electronics customers.
Sensing saw accelerating demand in China as it delivered a number of key wins with strong momentum among factory automation OEM customers.
Sensing also generated strong growth from its critical environment products, etc, with mid-30% growth for the quarter.
Pacific Scientific EMC returned to growth, increasing by low single-digits in the first quarter.
The business continued to see good order trends with a book-to-bill of 1.2 over the trailing 12 months and has a strong backlog that we expect to support improving growth in the coming quarters.
Moving to Advanced Healthcare Solutions.
Total revenue increased 20.3% with a 10.9% increase in core revenue.
This included low 40% growth in China, low 20% growth in Western Europe and low single-digit growth in North America.
ASP returned to growth in the first quarter, increasing by mid single-digits.
Growth at ASP was driven by a greater than 40% increase in capital equipment sales as it continued to grow its global installed base.
This momentum in capital sales more than offset the fact that electric procedures were 91% of pre-COVID levels globally and continue to weigh on ASP's consumable revenue.
Stronger capital sales are an indication of the progress ASP is making in its FBS journey by driving better sales execution and improved funnel management at priority independent delivery network accounts.
ASP continued to perform well in Western Europe with its fifth consecutive quarter of growth.
ASP was also recently named the Preferred Supplier by the National Health Service in the UK and a large multiyear tender for terminal sterilization capital and services.
Censis also had a strong first quarter, growing by low-teens with low-double-digit growth in its CensiTrac SaaS offering.
Censis has seen improved upselling momentum across its business and is also seeing evidence of US hospitals moving to post-COVID operations and faster purchasing decisions.
Fluke Health Solutions increased by low-teens in the first quarter, with broad strength across its product lines.
FHS continues to have success deploying FBS to drive to growth and margin improvements at LANDAUER leveraging global go-to-market scale and accelerating cross-selling and products and services.
Landauer is now seeing an approximate 2.5 times improvement in its operating margins since acquisition.
Finally, Invetech reported mid-40% growth as it delivers against a strong backlog of 2020 orders for its diagnostic offerings.
With that, I'll pass it over to Chuck, who will take you through additional details on our margins and free cash flow for the quarter.
Solid execution across the portfolio enabled us to deliver strong margin performance in Q1.
Adjusted gross margins were 57% in the first quarter, up 90 basis points, driven by the fall-through on the strong growth at Fluke and Tektronix as well as the year-over-year gross margin improvement at ASP coming off the transition service agreements.
It also reflected solid execution with FBS throughout the portfolio, including continued price realization of 90 basis points in the quarter.
Our Q1 adjusted operating profit margin was 22.7%, a bit higher than we had guided, helped in part by the stronger volume we saw in the quarter.
We generated 40% of adjusted incremental operating margins and 240 basis points of core operating margin expansion and also generated more than 200 basis points of core operating margin expansion in each of our three segments.
During the first quarter, we generated $144 million of free cash flow, representing an increase of 50% year-over-year.
We continue to be pleased with the consistent growth in free cash flow and have delivered -- that we've delivered over the past year, with the first quarter taking our trailing 12 months free cash flow to $950 million.
Along with significant growth in earnings, disciplined working capital management at ASP, Fluke and Tektronix contributed to this free cash flow performance.
Early in Q1, we executed the tax-efficient monetization of our remaining 19.9% stake in Vontier, generating approximately $1.1 billion in proceeds which we used for debt repayment.
On the basis of that transaction and our free cash flow from Q1, we ended up the first quarter with a net leverage ratio of 1.2 times.
Supported by our continued strong free cash flow and significant balance sheet capacity, we are well positioned to pursue our key capital allocation priorities and are maintaining an active pipeline of deal cultivation efforts.
We continue to see a broad range of opportunities to deploy capital to build on our core hardware and instrumentation positions as we also leverage deep domain and workflow expertise into adjacent high value software data-driven opportunities.
Turning now to the guide on slide 11.
As a result of the strong first quarter performance and given some improvement in our outlook for the rest of the year, we are raising our 2021 guidance.
For the full year, we now expect adjusted diluted net earnings per share to be $2.50 to $2.60, representing year-over-year growth of 20% to 24% on a continuing operations basis.
This assumes total revenue growth of 10% to 13%, core revenue growth of 7% to 10%, adjusted operating profit margins of 22% to 23% and an effective tax rate of approximately 14%.
It also assumes core revenue growth of 5% to 7% in the second half of 2021.
We also continue to expect free cash flow conversion to be approximately 105% of adjusted net income for the year.
We are initiating second quarter adjusted diluted net earnings per share guidance of $0.56 to $0.60, representing year-over-year growth of 30% to 40%.
This assumes total revenue growth of 20% to 23%, core revenue growth of 16% to 19%, adjusted operating profit margins of 19.5% to 20.5% and an effective tax rate of approximately 14%.
For the second quarter, we expect free cash flow conversion to be approximately 85% of adjusted net income.
The full year guidance incorporates $35 million of additional investments that we are making to drive innovation and enhance our capabilities to support higher growth in the years ahead with $15 million in the second quarter.
This includes funding for the FORT to expand our analytic capabilities and talent base as well as to accelerate the development of AI machine learning offerings for our customers.
It also includes funding for investments in our partnership with Pioneer Square Labs, where we have seen good early progress thus far.
With that, I'll pass it back to Jim for some closing remarks.
Before we move to questions on slide 13, I wanted to highlight the continued progress we're making with respect to our key sustainability goals.
In Q1, we completed an updated materiality analysis, yielding valuable insights that we use to define the new pillars of our sustainability strategy, which will guide our efforts going forward.
We've also made significant progress implementing the Intelex sustainability performance indicators platform across the portfolio, which we used to complete the collection of 2020 emissions data with new, more aggressive carbon emissions targets.
We look forward to discussing our progress and our evolving sustainability goals at our upcoming Investor Day.
The results that we announced today are a testament to the depth and dedication of our teams and the relentless focus on the continuous improvement principles that power our culture.
As we look forward, we are excited about the strength of our portfolio, the quality of the market opportunities we address and the significant organic and inorganic growth opportunities ahead of us.
As macro indicators continue to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, our focus will remain on driving strong core growth, margin expansion and free cash flow generation, while investing in innovation and deploying our capital to acquisitions that accelerate our strategy and increase the value we bring to customers.
We are also excited to share more details with you about our road ahead when we speak on May 19 at our Investor Day.
In the almost five years since our spin, we have positioned the portfolio to be higher growth, more profitable and a more powerful generator of free cash flow.
This sets us up well for accelerated compounding across our businesses, which we look forward to discussing with you.
That concludes our formal comments.
 Assistant:

Chosen response:
sees fy adjusted earnings per share $2.50 to $2.60 from continuing operations.
sees q2 adjusted earnings per share $0.56 to $0.60 from continuing operations.
qtrly adjusted diluted net earnings per share from continuing operations were $0.63.
qtrly revenues from continuing operations increased 13.6% year-over-year to $1.3 billion.