Good morning. My name is Anna and I will be your conference operator today. At this time. I would like to welcome everyone to the Donaldson Company Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Sarika Dhadwal, Senior Director, Investor Relations, you may begin your conference.

Sarika Dhadwal - Senior Director of Investor Relations

Good morning. And thank you for joining Donaldson's Second-Quarter Fiscal 2023 Earnings Conference Call. With me today are Tod Carpenter, Chairman, CEO and President; and Scott Robinson, Chief Financial Officer.

This morning, Tod and Scott will provide a summary of our second-quarter performance and an update on our outlook for fiscal 2023. As a reminder, we are now reporting our results under three segments: Mobile Solutions, Industrial Solutions and Life Sciences. On January 25, we provided an eight-K, showing select historical financial performance under this new segment structure. This eight-K, as well as our regular supplemental, quarterly earnings presentation can be found on our Investor Relations website at ir.donaldson.com.

During today's call, we will discuss non-GAAP or adjusted results for the second-quarter of fiscal 2023 non-GAAP results exclude 19.3 million of non-recurring pre-tax restructuring and other charges, largely related to our previously announced organizational redesign, as well as costs associated with the exiting of a lower-margin customer program. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP metrics is provided within the schedules attached to this morning's press release. Additionally, please keep in mind that any forward-looking statements made during this call are subject to risks and uncertainties, which are described in our press release and SEC filings.

With that, I'll now turn the call over to Tod Carpenter. Please go ahead.

Tod E. Carpenter - Chairman, President and Chief Executive officer

Thanks, Sarika. Good morning, everyone. I am pleased to report Donaldson Company's strong second-quarter earnings results, significant gross margin expansion, driven by favorable pricing and the continued stabilization of input costs resulted in an operating margin above 15%. For the second-quarter in a row, we achieved an operating margin at a six-year quarterly high. This quarter, Donaldson operated under our new organization structure designed to better serve our end-market customers and I am confident and excited about the direction in which we are heading. We are now positioned to manage the organization more efficiently with our three segments, supported by our operational capabilities, strong balance sheet and targeted strategic investments. For example, we now have a more straightforward path to sharpen our focus on the newly-created Life Sciences segment and pursue accelerated growth.

In February, we added to our life sciences portfolio by acquiring Isolere Bio, an early-stage biotechnology company for approximately $63 million. Based in Durham, North Carolina Isolere develops novel and proprietary reagents and accompanying filtration processes used for the purification and streamline manufacturing of biopharmaceuticals. This technology is designed to substantially improve product quality and purity with faster timelines compared to competing solutions, enabling accelerated and more affordable delivery of life-changing therapies to patients globally.

One of the most compelling components of this acquisition is the ability for Donaldson, through our portfolio of offerings, including those from Solaris and Purilogics to provide customers a full suite of products, which can be integrated into the downstream biomanufacturing process. This highlights the string of pearls approach we have taken to grow the Life Sciences segment. As we execute our go-to-market strategy for these combined solutions, we are building a biopharma focused sales force to capitalize on the opportunities ahead. I'll talk more about Donaldson's path forward a little later, but first we'll cover second-quarter highlights.

Sales were up 3% year-over-year, driven by pricing of 10% and offset by a currency translation headwind of approximately 4%. Volume decreased slightly this quarter, primarily due to the softness in our Aftermarket and Disk Drive businesses. Adjusted EPS of $0.75 was up 32% versus the second-quarter of fiscal 2022. We continue to see top-line and margin benefits from our pricing actions and while input costs undoubtedly remain elevated, many are slowly coming off-peak levels. Overall end-market demand remains solid and with improvements in global supply-chain conditions this quarter, we improved our fill rates, reduced our backlogs, and are returning to more normalized on-time delivery rates.

Each quarter, while we focus on near-term execution, We also thoughtfully plant seeds for future profitable growth through our investments, including those in M&A and R&D. I'm pleased with the pieces of the Life Sciences business we have put together and with the integration progress we are making with Solaris and Purilogics. However, we still have a long way to go in building this business and are actively pursuing other opportunities, both organic and inorganic in this space.

We are also investing in other higher-margin areas such as services. For example, within the Industrial Solutions segment this quarter, we added onto our service offering through the rollout of managed filtration services. Through this offering, Donaldson provides complete and customizable service plans for Industrial filtration equipment. These range from condition-based maintenance plans that leverage our proprietary IQ technology to traditional time-based maintenance and repair services needed to keep critical, industrial equipment in compliance and online.

From a capital expenditure standpoint, our investments are also heavily weighted towards growth with capacity expansion, particularly in North-America, accounting for the largest portion. To summarize, we are encouraged by the ongoing improvements we are seeing from an operational standpoint and excited about the groundwork we are laying for Donaldson's future.

Now, I'll provide some detail on second-quarter sales. Total company sales were $828 million, up 3% compared with 2022. In Mobile Solutions, total sales were $522 million, up about 2%. Pricing added 12% and FX was an approximate 4% headwind. Sales in Off-Road of $106 million were up 16%. Elevated equipment production levels and strength in our Exhaust and Emissions business in Europe drove sales. On-Road sales were $35 million, a 4% increase from prior year, benefiting from strong, medium and heavy-duty truck production. Excluding currency, sales in both of our first-fit businesses were up in all regions. Mobile Solutions aftermarket sales were $382 million, down approximately 2% versus prior year. Excluding currency, sales were up roughly 2% as pricing was partially offset by customer inventory reductions in both the OE and independent channels. Not surprising, the improvement in global supply-chain conditions has a lot of return to more normalized channel inventory levels.

Lastly, for Mobile Solutions, I would be remiss if I did not talk about China. Broad-based market pressures, negative impacts from the end of Zero COVID, and the timing of Chinese New Year, which fell in January this year versus February last year, all weighed heavily on second-quarter China results. Sales declined 30% year-over-year, and 25% in constant-currency. The environment in China has certainly been challenging. However, given the sheer market size and our differentiated technology and high-quality offerings, we continue to view China as a long-term growth opportunity.

Now, I will turn to the Industrial Solutions segment. Industrial sales increased 13% to $246 million, pricing added 6% and FX was a 4% headwind. Industrial Filtration Solutions or IFS, grew 11% to $212 million, driven by dust collection, new equipment and replacement part sales and power generation project timing. Aerospace and defense sales, which now fall within the Industrial segment continue to benefit from the recovering commercial aerospace industry and were up 28% versus prior year.

Now, on the Life Sciences segment. Life Sciences sales were $59 million, down 16% as continued Disk Drive market weakness weighed heavily on segment sales. Excluding Disk Drive, Life Sciences sales would have increased approximately 7%. We are seeing encouraging sales trends in food and beverage and bio processing equipment. These remain key strategic growth areas for Donaldson and we look-forward to providing updates on our progress in the future.

Overall, our first-half fiscal 2023 results were robust and I'm confident we will continue to deliver on our financial and strategic commitments for the balance of the year. As such, we are tightening our full-year EPS guidance range to the high-end of our previous range to reflect our conviction. We are proud of our performance and remain on pace to achieve another year of record sales, record earnings and multi-decade high operating margins.

Now, I'll turn it over to Scott for more details on the financials and a more detailed update on our outlook for fiscal '23. Scott?

Scott J. Robinson - Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Tod. Good morning, everyone. Our results this quarter were solid. In our view, this is a reflection of how well our employees around the globe maintain their focus on delivering to our customers, while working through the completion of the organizational redesign. This redesign was certainly a heavy-lift for the company, but I truly believe we are now better-positioned than ever for future profitable growth, and I thank our teams for their contributions in this regard.

I will provide color on our outlook for the balance of the year in a few minutes, but first, I will give more details on second-quarter results. To summarize the quarter, sales grew 3%, operating income was up 31%, and adjusted EPS of $0.75 increased 32% year-over-year. Gross margin of 34.5% improved 340 basis-points versus 2022. It was worth noting that gross margin in the second-quarter of fiscal 2022 was 31.1%, a very low-level for the company as the timing of our pricing actions lagged historic levels of inflation. Pricing, now of course, plays a significant role in our year-over-year improvement as to the stabilization of input cost.

From a sequential standpoint, gross margin did not follow our typical seasonal pattern and increased 60 basis-points, due mainly to inventory valuation. As a result, for the third-quarter, we are forecasting gross margin step-down sequentially. However, we still anticipate a year-over-year improvement.

Operating expenses as a percent of sales were 19.3%, slightly above 19.2% a year-ago. The slight increase was due in large part to the comparison of prior year as we were still in the early days of the pandemic related recovery. Operating margin was 15.2%, up 330 basis-point versus prior year, resulting from gross margin expansion. Operating margin was up 20 basis sequentially. Again, this does not follow our typical seasonal pattern. Further, given our third-quarter gross margin expectations, we also anticipate a corresponding step-down in sequential operating margin in the third-quarter, but a year-over-year improvement.

Now, I'll touch on segment profitability. Mobile Solutions pretax profit margin was 15%, up 360 basis-points year-over-year. And Industrial Solutions pretax margin was 18.8%, up 640 basis-points from prior year. Gross margin expansion, along with operating expense leverage, were the drivers in both segments. On the Life Science side, pretax profit margin was 10.6%, down notably from 23.7% a year-ago. The decline in Disk Drive sales was the largest driver, combined with increased operating expenses as we continue to invest heavily in this segment. Excluding the acquisitions, pretax profit margin would have been 16.4%.

Turning to a few balance sheet and cash-flow statement highlights. Second-quarter capital expenditures were roughly $30 million, mainly driven by capacity expansion investments in North-America. Cash conversion in the quarter was 78% versus about 30% in 2022. This improvement reflects a return to more normal levels of conversion, following the negative inventory-related working capital impacts in the prior year. In terms of capital deployment, we returned $98 million to shareholders, but $28 million in the form of dividends and $70 million in share repurchases. Our balance sheet is in great shape and we ended the quarter with a net-debt to EBITDA ratio of 0.8 times.

Now moving to our updated fiscal '23 outlook. For sales, given the new segmentation, I won't go through the exercise of bridging back to our previous guidance for each segment. That said, at a high-level, our outlook for total company sales and legacy Engine and Industrial segments has not materially changed. We expect fiscal 2023 sales to increase between the 2% and 6%, above our previous guidance of between 1% and 5%. This includes the negative impact from currency translation of about 4%, which is an improvement of 100 basis-points from what we expected last quarter. Pricing should contribute about 6% to sales.

As a reminder, second-half year-over-year sales growth will be lower than first-half as incremental pricing benefits begin to fade. The composition of mobile sales is now expected to be different from our initial projections as stronger-than-expected end-market demand for our first-fit products, mainly Off-Road, is forecast to offset weaker-than-expected aftermarket sales. On-Road and [Technical Issue]

In the Industrial Solutions segment, we expect sales growth of between 8% and 12%, driven by continued strength in IFS, dust collection, new and replacement parts in particular, and Aerospace and Defense. IFS, are forecasted to increase high-single-digits, and Aerospace and Defense sales are projected to grow low-double-digits.

For the Life Sciences segment, we are forecasting a sales decline of between 5% and 9%. Disk Drive sales have been negatively impacting results. However, we do anticipate a stabilization of sales in the second-half of the year. We also expect continued strength in food and beverage and bioprocessing equipment or Solaris sales.

In terms of operating margin, we are narrowing our guidance to between 14.6% and 15.0%. The midpoint of this range reflects a 130 basis-point increase from prior year, primarily driven by gross margin improvement. From an operating expense perspective, while we continue to exercise discipline, particularly given the uncertain macro-environment, we are committed to building for the future through our reinvestments back into the business.

With respect to EPS, we are now expecting results within a range of $2.99 and $3.07 towards the higher-end of our previous range of $2.91 and $3.07. The midpoint of our new EPS guidance range represents approximately 13% increase from a record fiscal 2022.

Now onto our balance sheet and cash-flow outlook. Cash conversion is forecast in the range of 110% and 120%, higher than our historical averages and in line with our previous guidance. The strong cash conversion from this year is expected to be driven by benefits from improved inventory efficiency as we continue to refine our processes and as supply-chain conditions normalize.

Our capital expenditures forecast heavily weighted towards growth initiatives is between $115 million and $130 million. This includes investments in capacity expansion, along with tooling and equipment for new products and technology. Our remaining capital deployment priorities include additional investments in Donaldson's inorganic growth, specifically in Life Sciences, as evidenced by the Isolere acquisition and services, as well as our ongoing commitment to dividends and share repurchases.

Now, I'll turn the call-back to Tod. Tod?

Tod E. Carpenter - Chairman, President and Chief Executive officer

Thanks, Scott. I would like to express my deep gratitude to our dedicated Donaldson team. Their commitment to our organization and to our customers and their professionalism through the redesign has been truly wonderful. I'm excited about our path forward. Looking ahead, Donaldson's goal is to remain the leader in technology-led filtration and to support our people, our customers and our communities in advancing filtration for a cleaner world.

First, on supporting our people. Building on our strong technological foundation, our engineers, for example, are hard at work every day, growing our innovation engine. They are supported by our commitment to R&D and are developing products and services in our higher-margin, higher-growth areas.

Second, supporting our customers. As a corporation, we have our own sustainability goals. However, and not to be understated, our products and solutions are inherently well-suited to support our customers as they work to achieve their sustainability goals.

And last but not least, supporting our communities. Being able to leverage our filtration and separation technologies into different verticals is one of the key competitive advantages of Donaldson. Through our expansion into Life Sciences, we have now begun to play an increasingly important role in supporting the improvement of Global Human Health.

In closing, we are incredibly optimistic as we look out over the long-term. We look forward to providing additional color on Donaldson's long-term strategy, growth drivers and key initiatives, including those related to innovation and ESG at our upcoming Investor Day on April 4. At that time, we will also share our longer-term financial objectives.

Now, I will turn the call back to the operator to open the line for questions.

Question & Answers

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Your first question today comes from the line of Bryan Blair with Oppenheimer. Your line is now open.

Bryan Blair - Oppenheimer - Analyst

Thank you. Good morning, everyone.

Tod E. Carpenter - Chairman, President and Chief Executive officer

Good morning.

Bryan Blair - Oppenheimer - Analyst

Another very solid quarter. And I guess as we think about the back-half, you're - I suppose somewhat of a victim of your own success, given the stacked comps that you face. I apologize if I missed this in the bread crumbs provided in the outlook. But how should we think about Q3, Q4 cadence, topline and any EPS? Is it, I guess, at a high-level, think of moderate growth in Q3, moderate decline in Q4? Or is there more nuance to that?

Scott J. Robinson - Chief Financial Officer

Yes. So, this is - Hi, Bryan. This is Scott. Nice to talk to you. So we held our guidance for the year in a relatively flat, excluding FX, which had improved for us by a 100 basis-points. So that was the largest change in the guidance that impacted our back-half of the year. It is kind of interesting this year when we look at our revenue cadence. If you look at last year, we had a strong ramp throughout the year, starting with first-quarter revenues of $761 million and ending the year at $890 million So a strong and steady ramp throughout the year to get to 3.3 billion.

This year, we said we were going to return to more normal level seasonality, and for Donaldson, that's traditionally been 49, 51 or 48 to 52 [Phonetic]. And so, our revenues are much flatter throughout the year with a little bit of a tilt to the second-half, just like we normally have, historically, to get to the 3.4 billion. So we're not going to give quarterly guidance, but our revenues in the back-half of the year are relatively consistence. And you get the big percentage swings, when you compare year-over-year, because of the strong ramp from the prior year.

In terms of profit, we talked a little bit about gross margins and operating margin and we're a little bit unseasonal, I would say, this year. And to the future gross margin questions that we're going to get, there's really a lot going on in terms of add-backs, in terms of inflation, in terms of accounting variances. And you have some stuff, moving from quarter-to-quarter to make sure you're matching your variances with the inventory. And when you look at our margins, you really have to look at the first, second and third quarters and put them together because you got some stuff moving around and you got a lot of volatility in the income statement.

And we would hope as we move to the future, that inflation stabilizes, currency stabilizes and we get some more accounting stabilization in our income statement. And that will make our gross margins a little more easy to understand. But if you put the quarters together, you can see strong gross margin improvement and we're just trying to manage our third-quarter versus second-quarter, and that's why we added the comments in the script. So hopefully that's a few more breadcrumbs that help with your puzzle. And hopefully, that helps with your question.

Bryan Blair - Oppenheimer - Analyst

Yes, absolutely. I appreciate the detail. And in terms of Life Sciences Q2 profit decline, Scott, you said that the impact was weighted to the decline in Disk Drive business, which is understandable, it's a meaningful percentage of revenue and it's high-margin. Could you specifically parse out what the impact was of Disk Drive declines versus growth investment, either in terms of the EBIT dollar decline or margin contraction?

Tod E. Carpenter - Chairman, President and Chief Executive officer

We've not - Bryan this is Tod. So we've not really disclose that level of detail. We will give you more forward-looking at the investments days - at our Investor Day relative to our strategy. On a forward look on Life Sciences relative to what we're experiencing right now with Disk Drive, the decline has been very acute. It's down between 40% and 50%. And we would look for it to have tough comps for a few more quarters, think about three. And then, we will have lapped this and then we'll be able to start crawling forward. We do believe that it has bottomed. In fact, it looks like it has bottomed in December. But it is also going to balance at these very low levels for the foreseeable future.

Bryan Blair - Oppenheimer - Analyst

Okay, understood. And you mentioned Investor Day, looking forward to that next month. And I imagine we'll hear quite a bit more on this front at Investor Day, but it would be great to hear a little more color on how Isolere furthers the string of pearls M&A build-out of your Life Sciences platform? And how Solaris, Purilogics, Isolere piece together in terms of the platform capabilities and what that signals in terms of your path forward?

Tod E. Carpenter - Chairman, President and Chief Executive officer

Absolutely. We'll give you that complete story on April 4.

Bryan Blair - Oppenheimer - Analyst

Okay, I'll leave it there. Thanks, guys.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Laurence Alexander with Jefferies. Your line is now open.

Daniel Rizzo - Jefferies - Analyst

Hey, it's Dan Rizzo on for Laurence. Thank you guys for taking my question. You mentioned that the China obviously was down given the COVID and the new year, but as we've exited that. Are you seeing order trends pick-up or is it something you're anticipating in the future?

Tod E. Carpenter - Chairman, President and Chief Executive officer

It will be more future looking. We're still feeling the pressures across China. We delivered this quarter even with the tough China story still present. And so, for us, the more positive outlook to China still lies ahead.

Daniel Rizzo - Jefferies - Analyst

Okay. And then, with the strength in A&D, are we now back above pre-COVID levels in terms of demand?

Tod E. Carpenter - Chairman, President and Chief Executive officer

No. We're still more modest in that business. Performing well, but certainly more modest.

Daniel Rizzo - Jefferies - Analyst

Okay. And then, final question. If we head [Phonetic] into a US recession, I guess towards - in the next few months. I mean, could you still easily, or not easily, but could you still hit the low-end of your outlook based upon what you see now?

Tod E. Carpenter - Chairman, President and Chief Executive officer

Well, we think so, just simply because that's why we give the range. And we have factored in everything. We believe we know everything. We're seeing on the incoming into the business. We've baked in our backlog understandings, et-cetera. So we believe that the guidance that we've really given today, I'd really take those scenarios into account. Clearly, the only headwind that we would see is if it would be a much more severe recession than anyone is currently considering, but we've baked into the guidance everything that we believe we know. And as was indicated by the answer earlier, our second-half is a bit more modest at this point with our outlook. So we believe we've taken a very balanced approach and a prudent approach to create this guidance.

Daniel Rizzo - Jefferies - Analyst

All right. Thank you very much.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Rob Mason with Baird. Your line is now open.

Rob Mason - Baird - Analyst

Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Tod, you made the comment that your overall sales outlook had not really changed, but quite clearly, the composition within mobiles changed a bit with first-fit being stronger and Aftermarket having slowed a little bit. The destocking impact, I know you had noted, isolated incidents of that last quarter in the OED channel, and just you speak to where you think that is? How it - when it began? How long it may take to run its course? And how independent in the OED channels actually performed in the quarter if you could?

Tod E. Carpenter - Chairman, President and Chief Executive officer

Yes, sure, Rob. So when you look at where we're at with destocking, it's clear that it was a bit more than we would have expected at this point. However, I would tell you, the OE channel was more severe than the independent channel and the independent channel acted about as we would have expected. We have had a number of people out at across our distributors. We feel as though we're at pull-through levels there. And so, while it could step down a little bit more, we've taken that into account within the guide. We're pretty comfortable on the independent channel.

The one that actually went a little bit further this quarter than we would have expected is the OE channel. They pulled their inventories down a bit more than we would have expected. Perhaps, we should have seen that, knowing that they were the most aggressive relative to the inventory buildup last year, when they couldn't get parts, but that's the net result. So net-net, it's just a little bit more than we would have expected, nothing to suggest, hey, there's a line here to be interpreted into something and we're pretty comfortable with where we are.

Rob Mason - Baird - Analyst

Just, there was also a mention of some of the restructuring charge assigned to customer program exits. And again, you've called those out already earlier this year, your choice to move away from some business. Was this incremental or is this just catching up to the actions you've already called out, the cost restructuring that is?

Scott J. Robinson - Chief Financial Officer

I mean this is some actions we took during the quarter. So that we're continuously focused on managing our pricing and managing our margins, and we want to have reasonable commercial relationships with our customers. And you remember, we had one particular program we talked about last year. This is another program that we focused on and work with our customer to work ourselves out of this particular program, and I think it's a good move for the company. We want to manage the capital required and we don't want to have how-or [Phonetic] revenues. So this is something that we're going to continue to focus on. This one was a little bit bigger than average, and we did take a charge in the quarter to account for it, but it's something we're focused on. And I think our team is doing a really good job of managing pricing and working ourselves out of situations that we don't think are acceptable to the company.

Rob Mason - Baird - Analyst

I see. I see. If I could slip one more in real quick. Just Scott, maybe just to return to the margin outlook for the second half of the year and you touched on some of the moving pieces there with inventory valuation gross margin. But just again, at a high level, it looks like margins would step down - at the midpoint of your guidance, the margins would step down on maybe 5% more volume in the second half versus the first half? How much of the step down should I think is in the gross margin line versus growth in opex? [Speech Overlap]

Scott J. Robinson - Chief Financial Officer

I think - yes, fair question. I think the opex will be relatively stable. That's a lot easier to control. And as you spend, you expense. I think it all is related to gross margin. And I apologize for the volatility in our income statement, but I think it's kind of a function of the times that we live in, and our finance team does an excellent job of managing the variances and making sure we properly account for those, and we have to roll those off as the inventory rolls off.

And so it's a little bit volatile. I think next year hopefully it will be a lot smoother in terms of gross margin and easier to understand. But we do have a little bit of volatility in those quarters, especially the sequential quarter comparisons, which challenges everyone's ability to understand it. That's why I say, I think you want to try to take a little more of a balanced view and look at the first, second and third quarters together and you'll have a better view of the margin. Just to give everybody a feel, if you track the margins going back to Q2 of last year, 31.1%, then a 31.5% and then a 32.9% in Q4 of last year for 32.6% for the full year. And then, this year we did a 33.9% in the first-quarter and a 34.5% in the second-quarter.

So you can see our pricing actions are coming through as we promised and the costs that we're experiencing with this strong inflation is being capitalized in the inventory and then expensed off. And this is kind of the peak of it we think. Our costs seemed to have stabilized, so we're happy about that. And we'll take it forward from there. So hopefully that gives you a little bit more color for both you and Bryan.

Rob Mason - Baird - Analyst

It does. It does. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Nathan Jones with Stifel. Your line is now open.

Nathan Jones - Stifel - Analyst

Good morning. This is Matt on for Nathan Jones. I just wanted to talk about Life Sciences. Outside of the Disk Drive business, can you talk about the growth in food and beverage and bioprocessing and the opportunities there?

Tod E. Carpenter - Chairman, President and Chief Executive officer

Sure. Food and beverage, Matt, grew in the quarter above 20%. And so we continue our real positive momentum within the food and beverage initiatives that we have pressing forward. Unfortunately, obviously the headwind in the Disk Drive has muted that rather significantly. And again, I do want to emphasize that when it comes to the Life Sciences pieces, we'll give at Investors Day, a very forward-looking strategic view of how all of the acquisitions that we have made, as well as our food and beverage initiatives really contribute to our strategy forward-looking.

Nathan Jones - Stifel - Analyst

Okay. And then, turning back to kind of mobile aftermarket sales, with regards to inventory, is there an underlying markets starting to contract? Do you believe the contraction is all due to more inventory normalization?

Tod E. Carpenter - Chairman, President and Chief Executive officer

It's more balanced. It's more inventory across the overall channel; Ag still holding very good, construction is holding good, over-road trucking is good, mining is good. So it's just more a sign of supply-chain really normalizing. And so people have more confidence and they're just walking down slightly, inventory management.

Nathan Jones - Stifel - Analyst

Okay, great. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Dillon Cumming with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.

Dillon Cumming - Morgan Stanley - Analyst

Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for the question. I apologize for fixating on this a little bit. I just wanted to come back to Life Sciences one more time. You know can you just talk through the decision to include Disk Drive in Life Sciences? I think going forward right, you talked about how Disk Drive is still a secondarily more challenged market, relative to the more positive outlook you have for process and filtration. Was it more about the margin profile? Like, what really caused the, I guess the impetus to include Disk Drive in Life Sciences?

Tod E. Carpenter - Chairman, President and Chief Executive officer

Disk Drive belongs into the Life Sciences sector because the technologies of membranes are all how you - are all included in that sector and how those technologies really apply directly into the Life Sciences sector. So expanded Polytetrafluoroethylene to be able to make membranes is really critical to the long-term strategy of how we view Life Sciences. And when you look at what we're inventing out of our Disk Drive based businesses, that has allowed us to go into other medical based applications, etcetera.

So, it's really a foundational technology view and then how that foundation then builds up directly into the end markets, enabling products to be invented on in the in between to solve customer problems. And that's why it really belongs in Life Sciences. It happens to deliver to Disk Drive today, and it's been terrific for us in inventing great membranes that now we can parlay over into our Life Sciences sector, and that's why it's there.

Dillon Cumming - Morgan Stanley - Analyst

Okay. Yes, that makes a lot of sense. And then, if I can just ask on the Industrial Solutions margin expansion in the quarter. I'm just wondering if you can kind of expand on that a bit. I know you called out the inventory valuation, kind of gross margin tailwind at the company level. But I'm not sure if that benefit was felt more acutely in Industrial, if there was a more idiosyncratic price-cost benefit or what was actually driving the outsized margin expansion there?

Scott J. Robinson - Chief Financial Officer

Yes. I mean the Industrial business had a really strong quarter. They had good price and they had good volume. And so they grew pretty significantly, 12.8% and 16.7% in local currency. So our Industrial team is hitting their stride and they had strong incremental margins this quarter and that includes a currency drag, so the business performed well. And we were coming off of COVID, so, admittedly so, we have weaker comps there and we had a cost issue last year. So the overall margins for the company were pretty weak last year and we're coming off of weak comps and really good performance for the Industrial team this quarter. And so you see that strong operating margin growth. And so we're really pleased and grateful for their performance.

Dillon Cumming - Morgan Stanley - Analyst

Great. Very helpful. Thanks for the time.

Operator

There are no further questions at this time. I turn the call back over to Tod Carpenter for closing remarks.

Tod E. Carpenter - Chairman, President and Chief Executive officer

That concludes today's call. Thanks to everyone who participated. And we look forward to seeing you at our Investors Day, April 4, and reporting our third-quarter results in late May. Have a great rest of the day. Goodbye.

Operator

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