Nordson Corporation (NDSN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello. My name is Lara Mahoney, and I am the Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications for Nordson, and I am pleased to welcome you to our Virtual Investor Day. Before we begin, I'd like to cover a few housekeeping items. First, I refer you to Slide 2 of our presentation, where we note that certain statements regarding our future performance that are made during today's event may be forward-looking based upon Nordson's current expectations. These statements may involve a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors as discussed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission that could cause actual results to differ. Also, I'd like to note that we will make references to non-GAAP financial metrics during today's event, including adjusted operating margin, adjusted EBITDA margin and return on invested capital. Although these are non-GAAP measures, we believe they are useful to an investor in evaluating the company performance for the periods presented. You will be able to find definitions of these non-GAAP metrics in the company's recent filings with the SEC and in the appendix of today's presentation, which will be posted on our website after today's event. Today, you will hear from several members of Nordson's senior leadership team. Our President and Chief Executive Officer, Sundaram Nagarajan; Chief Financial Officer, Joe Kelley; and our segment leaders, Greg Merk and Jeff Pembroke. We will also feature a few video product demonstrations and facility tours that will highlight additional members of our team. We have a full agenda that will kick off with Naga sharing an overview of the business as well as his observations and strategic viewpoint since starting as Nordson's CEO in August 2019. Greg and Jeff will then give us an overview of their business segments. And Joe Kelley will share our forward-looking view on strategic M&A objectives as well as our long-term financial targets and capital deployment objectives. Please note, these times listed are purely directional. Our goal is to make today's event as interactive and engaging as possible. So we will have 3 Q&A sessions. [Operator Instructions] The first 2 Q&A sessions will follow our segment presentations. So we will focus on questions specific to the Industrial Precision Solutions and Advanced Technology Solutions segments. At the end of today's event, we will have a robust Q&A, featuring a panel of all of our speakers. We will answer as many questions as time allows, with the goal of concluding no later than 12:30 p.m. Eastern Time. Without further ado, I will now turn it over to Naga.

Thank you, Lara. Good morning, everyone. I joined Nordson in August 2019 after 23 years in ITW, which included leading multibillion-dollar global business segments. My time at Nordson has been an incredible ride. Today, I'm excited to share with you the Nordson story, where we are today and where we are headed. For the investors who are new to our story, you will learn the essence of what makes Nordson strong. For those of you who have experienced the strong Nordson, you will hear where we are going and what we are doing next to make this strong company even stronger. Let's get started. Nordson is a global premier industrial technology company that was founded in 1954 in Amherst, Ohio. Our founders, Walter, Eric and Evan Nord, started Nordson Corporation with the acquisition of an emerging technology in airless spray equipment to apply heated lacquers and paints with higher efficiency and lesser solvents for customers like Dupont. This founding commitment to innovation has continued and now spans a broad portfolio of product offering. Our systems and components play a critical role in demanding applications at a low unit cost in comparison to our customers' total system cost, creating a high-value to our customers. Our steadfast focus on customer and innovation has grown Nordson into a $2 billion revenue company with strong EBITDA margins of 27% with over 7,500 employees in 35 countries around the world. Over the past 6 decades, our customer-centric sales model, combined with a portfolio of precision Technologies as defined a strong note. Over the last 5 years, Nordson has delivered sales growth of 5%, top-tier gross margins, a great indicator of the unique value we create for our customers and solid returns. Our differentiated business performance is protected by a robust portfolio of global patents. In addition, we have consistently returned value to our investors through increased dividends over the last 57 years. Our commitment to serving all our stakeholders is ever strong. A few noteworthy examples are: first, a diversified Board of Directors. Our commitment to sound governance practices can be seen when our Board of Directors, 56% of whom are from diverse backgrounds and experience are actively guiding Nordson to a bright future; number two, strong values and cultures. From the very beginning, Nordson has believed in investing in the communities where our employees live and work. This shines through our Nordson impact programs. The Nordson Corporation donates 5% of our U.S. pretax earnings towards this effort, on average, $10 million a year. A great example of our environmental stewardship is the commitment when our innovative products reduced the amount of hot melt adhesives used to package food and beverages. Let's now talk about what we do. Our systems, approximately 45% of our revenues and recurring parts and consumable stream, which account for 55% of our revenues, help our customers win every day in a very diverse set of end markets. Our 3 major product categories are: precision dispensing and processing systems and components. A few examples in this category are: our melters, hoses and nozzles dispense hot melt adhesives in customer application ranging from food packaging to electric car battery production. Our jetting valves, conformable coating and plasma surface treatment equipment enable the production of sophisticated and fun products in the electronics industry. Our engineered powdered coating systems, including pumps, flow controllers and nozzles, can be found in a variety of industrial applications. Test and inspection system are an emerging product line in our portfolio where we make in line and stand-alone test inspection systems. A high-growth area in our portfolio is the fluid management components like medical balloons, catheters and single-use plastic components. Let me share a little bit more detail about where you could find these Nordson products. In consumer nondurable end markets, you will find Nordson's hot melt adhesive dispensers helping produce 1,200 diapers per minute or Nordson's coding dispense systems helping protect the flavor of your favorite beverage at 500 cans per minute. In medical markets, you will find Nordson's catheters and balloons in the hands of a surgeon, performing life-saving medical procedures. In the high-technology electronics end markets, you will find Nordson's precision dispense systems, enabling the production of advanced semiconductor packages and smartphones. Our high-resolution x-ray imaging system also evaluates these products to ensure they were made well. In the industrial end markets, you will find Nordson's powder coating systems making durable, stunning appearances a reality in cars, construction machinery and home appliances. Later, Greg Merk, Jeff Pembroke and their respective colleagues will share more examples illustrating how Nordson's deep knowledge of critical customer applications, along with our differentiated precision technologies and proprietary state-of-the-art manufacturing processes create high-value for our customers in diverse end markets across the world, the essence of Nordson's success. Today, Nordson operates under 2 business segments with a division-led organization structure. Industrial Precision Solutions, or IPS, is led by Greg Merk and is home to our core legacy notes and businesses that continue to drive profitable growth, represents approximately 55% of our revenues. Historically, IPS has grown approximately 1.5x GDP. It is the steady growth engine of the company with market-leading margins, demonstrating the value that we bring to our customers. Advanced Technology Solutions or ATS, led by Jeff Pembroke, consists primarily of Nordson's emerging businesses that deliver strong growth in medical and electronics end markets, contributes approximately 45% of our revenues. Historically, this segment has grown 2 to 3x GDP through the cycle with attractive margins. And Jeff will share more about the growth drivers that will continue to make that growth achievable. Our global design manufacturing, applications and service infrastructure is a key part of our customer-centric sales model. In addition, this is a significant strength of Nordson and an important lever in our global growth performance. We have 15 major manufacturing locations in North America, Europe and Asia. This, combined with 25 significant sales and support offices enables Nordson to serve its global customers no matter where they choose to compete, design or manufacture their products. Just as an example, we often engage with consumer packaged goods customers in North America to design and specify our systems and components that would produce their packages in a European integrated packaging line to be installed successfully in service in Asia or Africa. This speaks to how Nordson's global infrastructure creates value for our customers. Our direct sales applications and service team also secures a steady stream of aftermarket parts and consumables to keep our customers' lines running smoothly. When I joined the company, pre-COVID, I traveled to many of our global sites and learned about the strong Nordson. Next, through employee town halls, one-on-one conversations, analysis of business performance, customer engagement, guidance of our Board, investor interactions and, more importantly, many candid self reflections with our leadership team, I focus to answer 1 simple question. What is next for Nordson? This comprehensive analysis and introspection led to a crystal clear view of Nordson's of the future. As a team, we concluded that profitable growth is our best opportunity. To deliver on this opportunity, we need to sustain what makes us great, customer-centric direct sales model and a portfolio of precision technologies. Simultaneously, a brutal recognition that to be successful in the next leg of profitable growth, we must add new core capabilities to our playbook and reinvigorate revenue growth. As a first step, with the combination of internal promotion of proven leaders and external hiring of talented leaders, we have assembled an experienced and engaged executive leadership team that is making great strides towards Nordson's bright future. Now let me share with you what this team has built and started deploying to make a strong Nordson even stronger. I am excited to introduce Nordson's Ascend strategy, our road map to a stronger Nordson. The Ascend strategy is designed to deliver top-tier revenue growth with attractive margins and returns. Three pillars of the Ascend strategy are NBS Next, Nordson's growth framework, owner mindset, Nordson's entrepreneurial division led organization, winning teams, Nordson's talent strategy. All 3 pillars of the Ascend strategy are built on the foundation of what makes Nordson special, our culture and values. As I talk to the strategic pillars over the next few slides, it is important to recognize that they are connected to each other. The success of one is predicated on our ability to implement and practice the other pillars rigorously together. This is how Nordson will achieve long-term profitable growth. At the heart of the Ascend strategy is NBS Next, our data-driven growth framework. In the early days of building the Ascend strategy, the team and I recognize to achieve consistent profitable growth we must transform the existing business system beyond the operational excellence into a comprehensive business system. A combination of in-house knowledge, industry expertise and my personal exposure to mature business operating systems allowed us to get a head start in building and deploying NBS Next. NBS Next is rooted in the core belief that a small group of customers and products contribute to significant portion of our revenues and profits. More importantly, investing disproportionately in these customers and products will deliver top-tier profitable growth. This data-centric and disciplined approach to growth is new to Nordson. Last summer, during the strategic planning process, all of Nordson divisions used such a database segmentation approach to define their strategic growth focus and set long-term financial goals. And a little bit more detail about NBS Next. It consists of 5 elements. In our first element, strategic discipline. A database segmentation is used to identify the best customers, products and growth opportunities. Through customer success, product innovation and continuous improvement, we disproportionately invest our resources to overserve our best customers, innovate for the best growth opportunities and build our best products in dedicated manufacturing cells. Organization agility is all about building in Nordson that adapts rapidly to meet the needs of our best customers. We have been deploying NBS Next with a phased-in approach and are excited about many early wins. At the enterprise level, NBS Next was instrumental in our decision to profitably realign our portfolio with the divestiture of the screws and barrels product line. Last year, we also announced structural cost reductions that were based on our strategic disciplined analysis. Simultaneously, we approved new investments in our best growth opportunities, such as funding investments in new equipment within our Loveland, Colorado facility to grow our biopharma components and building a new facility in Mexico to support the needs of our medical interventional products. Later in the presentation, Greg and Jeff will share more specific examples of how this is working in their pilot divisions. This is a journey. And over the next 3 to 5 years, NBS Next will become how Nordson operates with a growth focus. The second pillar of the Ascend strategy is owner mindset. To achieve Nordson's next chapter of profitable growth, we must create an agile organization that our leaders are empowered to make growth-focused decisions close to the customer. To enable this agility and drive consistency in how we develop, implement and practice NBS Next, we reorganized the company into the 2 previously described segments in March 2020. These 2 segments are now made up of entrepreneurial division led organizations. Throughout Nordson, we want to develop an owner mindset, which is characterized by all decisions being made as close to the customer as possible under the guidance of NBS Next growth framework. This autonomy enables our divisions to serve our customers better and faster than our competition. Division leaders and their respective teams are owners. Owners would do what they say, the Nordson accountability. In the near term, entrepreneurial and agile divisions provide us a clear line of sight to deploy NBS Next, customizing the deployment in each division to best serve their customers and products. Finally, the winning teams pillar in the Ascend strategy is our Talent strategy. It begins with our leaders, not only at the top but at every level of the organization. Our expectation is that we inspire trust with what and why leadership to create followership as we deploy NBS Next. We bring the best ideas from various backgrounds and experiences to solve problems. We empower and role model owner mindset to encourage decision-making as close to the customer as possible. In the end, winning teams is about creating an engaging culture that attracts and retains top talent that is key to delivering on our profitable growth goals. Now let me describe what the successful execution of the Ascend strategy will deliver. Imagine that you are in March 2025, and a stronger Nordson has successfully executed the Ascend strategy. I am confident that we will have reached our targeted milestone of being a $3 billion company with 30% EBITDA margins. This target will be achieved through a combination of organic growth within each segment, as well as acceleration of acquisitions, which Joe Kelley will discuss in more detail. This profitable revenue growth will be sustained through the disciplined and high-quality practice of NBS next. Our growth will be fueled by a Nordson that is agile, innovative and strategically focused with an owner mindset and led by a winning team. We will have evolved from our core as a diversified fluid dispensing company into a diversified precision technology company. Soon, you will hear my colleagues talk more about how the Ascend strategy will sharpen our growth focus and deliver on our incredible potential. In short, Nordson is shifting from what we have been to what we can become. Today, you're going to hear from Greg, Jeff and many Nordson Global colleagues about how secular growth drivers across an attractive portfolio of end markets will power Nordson's profitable growth. We are positioned to win in these opportunities as Nordson's proprietary precision technologies remain a competitive advantage, and how NBS Next is being deployed in our divisions to drive this growth. Joe will outline how the Ascend strategy execution will enable us to deliver balanced organic and acquisitive growth with clear measures of financial success. In short, you will hear, we are on our way to become a top-tier revenue growth company with attractive margins and returns. Now let me welcome Greg Merk, Executive Vice President of our IPS segment.

Thank you, Naga. Hello, everybody. I'm Greg Merk, and I'm responsible for Nordson's IPS segment. It's a pleasure to have the opportunity to speak with you today about Nordson. Nordson truly has a great story. From the customers we serve to the diverse markets where we play to the framework for our future growth. Nordson is really a great company, poised to expand. We have a strong business that's well positioned to just get better. For me, I grew up in Nordson, starting as an intern and later as an employee at our Nordson KK subsidiary in Japan, way back when the share price was in the single digits. I've been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to learn this business from the bottom-up and in different parts of the world. Living and working in Asia, Latin America and, more recently, here in the United States has given me just a great appreciation for what Nordson does around the world and how we can make a difference. I've had quite the journey, and I can honestly say, I've never been more excited about our future. There's a few key messages I'd like you to take away from today's presentation. Firstly, Nordson IPS has a product portfolio of highly differentiated products with very strong brand recognition around the world. Many of our solutions are proprietary. Some are tiered for the local market, and we're known for being the fastest, longest-lasting precision dispensing solution. Independent of the market we're serving, our customers look for us for technical strength. Secondly, we've got a broad and well-trained direct sales and service team to ensure the consistent delivery of value to our customers and support with components leading to a significant aftermarket revenue stream. This is the Nordson experience. Repeatability and reliability are both big drivers of customer loyalty, and this proximity allows all our businesses to be the first partner of choice for any new developments that should come up. Lastly, in addition to our solid base businesses, we have line of sight to several strong growth opportunities where we can leverage our dispensing and our coding know-how in new applications and new markets. Deployment of global direct resources, coupled with year-over-year investment in R&D enables us to keep pace with changing customer as well as marketplace needs. Now as you look at IPS, we've got about a $1 billion business with strong margins that's really geographically diverse and continues to grow. I see the passion our teams put into developing new products, new solutions and delivering for our customers. It gets me even more excited about tomorrow. We're a global business, serving a diverse array of end markets. But we understand our customers better than anybody else. When a customer chooses Nordson, they know they're getting consistent, reliable and a very trusted partner. We support our customers with parts and consumables, so a significant percentage of our revenues recurring. Once again, this topic of consistency, combining our core strength in the direct sales and service model as well as product innovation, coupled with the new NBS next growth framework, we're well positioned to deliver sustainable, profitable growth. Today, our strategic focus is in the following areas. We've got machinery and process innovations. It's the core of what we do. We do it well on a daily basis for our customers, and I only see us expanding and growing alongside all of them. Emerging markets and our ability to tier, even as well-known as we are in the industry, we've identified markets for growth. And oftentimes, with products specifically designed for these markets. In new applications, we'll be able to drive growth by introducing new products and technology but still providing the highest levels of customer service and support. A few examples might include EV battery, automotive electronics, such as heads-up displays, environmentally friendly packaging, such as recyclable aluminum containers as well as things like fabric bonding, where we might replace tape for stitches. Recapitalization of our installed base is a great opportunity. A Nordson product is a workhorse. It lasts many, many years. But when it's time for our installed base to replace their existing and often outdated technology, these customers always come back to Nordson. And deploying NBS Next into our divisions, back again to what Naga spoke about. NBS Next because it's critical for our company's growth. Getting all of our colleagues familiar with and bought into NBS Next is critical to our continued expansion. I'll touch on the deployment of NBS Next in the IPS segment briefly in the later slides. As we move to the divisions and the products of IPS, all products in this segment reduced material consumption, increased line efficiency and enhance product appearance. Components are used for dispensing adhesives, coatings, paint, finishes, sealants and other materials. The segment primarily serves the consumer nondurables, industrial and durables markets. Our Adhesives division is our largest group with a good 50-50 split in sales between systems and parts. The majority of our core systems within all adhesive businesses consist of a tank that melts the polymer, a heated and pressurized transfer hose and an applicator that dispenses the molten adhesive with high-precision and usually at very high speeds. Our PPS division represents about 1/4 of segment sales with a good part of that being consumables. Common PPS products are large laminating dyes, extruders and other water pelletizers. Our systems are used in thermoplastic melt stream in plastic extrusion, injection molding, compounding, polymerization and recycling processes. Our Industrial Coating Systems, or ICS division, represents about approximately 20% of segment sales, split 60-40 between systems and parts. When you think of ICS products, they're typically powder coating systems, container coating, and also our liquid finishing businesses as well as some UV curing systems. The way I look at our business, you can really put our end market into 3 distinct buckets. Consumer nondurable and industrials are our base business. It represents about 3/4 of everything we do. It's a great place to have our core as we know the market and we know how to win. As we saw during the crisis in 2009 and again in 2020, these core markets lend a tremendous amount of stability to Nordson overall. Leveraging what we know in these core markets will drive consistent and margin-rich growth over the plan period, contributing to both the top and the bottom line. Our final area of focus are new opportunities. Here we focus extensively around enabling automation. I touched on this a little bit earlier but we drive growth by continually introducing new products and technology, providing high levels of customer service and support, capturing rapidly expanding opportunities in emerging geographies and by leveraging existing technology into new applications. For example, one of the areas we're starting to see some really nice pickups is in EV battery manufacturing. It's an area that we continue to benefit from. Ongoing automation across a wide variety of applications is beneficial to this business as manufacturers want to bond and separate and fill in a consistent and automated way we benefit. So think about adhesive dispensing, allowing our customers to automate their manufacturing processes, replacing things like tapes or clips. We have quite a few of these new growth adjacencies. So when you look towards spaces like these new growth opportunities, we can capture market growth at slightly higher rates than what we'd expect to see in our traditional more core markets. So when we look at why Nordson wins and we take adhesives as a proxy because it addresses a very broad industrial portfolio, our key to sustained and profitable growth is to leverage our repeatable formula that utilizes our most recognizable and differentiated strengths from our core, and we apply them to new as well as adjacent markets. While that might sound somewhat simplistic, when you consider what we do and enabling trends like automation, you get a good feel around how future broad manufacturing trends will lend themselves well to Nordson's growth. Our technologies enable our customers to incorporate automation, not only to eliminate inconsistent or inefficient manual manufacturing processes but also allow for a broader range of use in materials leading to supply chain and process savings. Now we're seeing more and more in sustainability trends around the world in the general market. And we've reacted in kind with technologies to reduce the cost and volume of raw materials like tapes plastics, corrugated boxes and adhesives themselves. Using less of something usually means being more precise and more repeatable. And that falls squarely in our wheelhouse around the world. As more and more of the global population move into the rising middle class, our businesses benefit as disposable income increases, they now have the ability to purchase more use-specific items like single snack packs or single-use coffee pods. We're well positioned globally to provide direct sales and support to large multinational customers that are striving to develop new markets and support their trends and for emerging consumers with differentiated lifestyles. Now that we've spoken about our IPS business and our end markets, I'd like you to hear it from the people that live it every day. Please watch this short video about our ICs and adhesive businesses told to you by our leaders from around the world. And make sure you look for both the proprietary technologies and the unique applications that really speak to what make this business so special. You're going to enjoy it. [Presentation]

I hope that you enjoy learning more about our IPS segment and maybe learn something new from these global leaders and that you could see their excitement. Now I'd just like to spend some time sharing how IPS is applying the Ascend Strategy that Naga went through. I'll focus on NBS Next, which is our guiding light to allowing us to capitalize on every opportunity for accelerated growth. While we had an NBS Next pilot in fiscal 2020, our global teams effectively launched this fiscal year and are making strong progress on aligning with NBS Next principles, transforming our factories, our focus and putting plans into action. I believe wholeheartedly that the NBS Next platform will allow for accelerated growth. There's a lot of goodness in each of these businesses. Great, innovative and largely proprietary products, diverse and global customer base as well as strong brand recognition. Focus and resource allocation is now key to acceleration. Our continuous improvement effort leverages data from strategic discipline output to have a culture that increases efficiencies while allowing for impactful deployment of top resources. We've already had some positive results at 1 of our manufacturing facilities in Georgia, leveraging focus on what we've identified as our top products and then using cellular manufacturing concepts to make that better. This has started driving improvement in delivery time, quality and inventory levels of top products in those facilities. Focusing on our top products allows us to serve our most demanding customers even better. Our leaders are all in with NBS Next because we're no longer looking and talking about what success looks like. Instead, we actively see the outputs of success through the implementation of NBS Next. It's a very exciting time for all of us. IPS' long-term organic financial targets. They're really simple and very clear. The priority is growing the top line and delivering in excess of that 3% growth. We have confidence in capturing that consistently as our base businesses are mostly noncyclical and the industrial markets we serve collectively make up about 3/4 of our current focus. Businesses and applications we know, simply maintaining share in these applications should generate strong growth over the next 5 years. On top of this market growth, the success of our Ascend strategy will enable accelerated growth rates as we focus on our most profitable opportunities, leveraging our differentiated product portfolio and precision technologies to solve customer problems. Focusing on the top end markets and deploying the right resources will allow for strong incremental top line growth. This combination of base market growth, plus our successful execution of the Ascend strategy will assure organic growth in excess of 3% over that next 5-year horizon. With the margin strength we enjoy in this segment, this organic growth will fall largely to the bottom line, driving margin expansion, which we're planning in excess of 400 basis points. Ascend will also include benefits that we'll capture from our NBS Next opportunity as it truly becomes the way we do business. We've already got some confidence here as even in these beginning stages, we've seen some real-life examples of truly delivering on this margin expansion over and beyond volume. The divestiture, for example, of the screws and barrels product line is a great example of NBS Next in action that will continue to benefit our bottom line. As a result of the divestiture, we'll see margin improvements going forward. General simplification of our business, including our products, what we offer and our business processes will also help us. NBS Next helps us leverage the clearest path to success. While we're a very good organization today, we've already seen that we can be even better tomorrow. We're poised for accelerated growth. We're ready to grow, and we have the framework to move this part of the business in a positive direction. We have a differentiated product portfolio, precision technical capabilities and diverse end markets with exciting opportunities. We're growth focused. And now with NBS Next have the framework to reach our aspirations. And finally, our leadership team is strong and they're energized. Naga spoke about winning teams. Well, that's about having the right people in the right position, empowered to make good decisions. We have a powerful mix of seasoned leaders with some really strong newer management that's bringing in new perspectives. Coupling this winning team with our Precision Solutions, global customer-centric model and the NBS Next framework makes me more than confident we'll deliver on the long-term growth objectives we're sharing today. With that, I thank you for the attention. I hope you enjoyed it. Appreciate you allowing me to walk through the IPS segment. And I'm going to turn it back over to Lara for Q&A.

Thank you, Greg. We are now going to take a brief 5-minute break, which we will do ahead of each upcoming Q&A session. So please use this time to submit your questions by clicking on the Q&A icon in the right-hand corner of the livestream portal where you are currently viewing this event. We'll now use this time to compile your questions. And the first panel will include Greg Merk, Naga, and our Chief Financial Officer, Joe Kelley. We'll see you back here in 5 minutes. Thank you. [Break]

Great, and we're back. So thank you very much for submitting your questions. I'm excited to introduce our panel, including Greg Merk, who you just spoke with; our CFO, Joe Kelley; and Naga, of course. So jumping right in. Naga, the first question is for you. You mentioned that key customers make the majority of sales and earnings. So relating to kind of our segmentation discussion of the Ascend and NBS Next conversation. Your previous employer has been very successful with its 80/20 approach, where the top 20% of customers generate approximately 80% of sales and earnings. How do you connect that to what you're talking about with NBS Next?

Thank you, Lara. And the best way to think about 80/20, first and foremost, 80/20 used in business is pretty unique to my former employee, ITW. What is important to bear in mind here in NBS Next, we use traditional product, customer segmentation approaches as well as portfolio analysis to identify what are the best growth opportunities. And NBS Next is really a holistic growth framework. And in this growth framework, once you identify the best opportunities, then you rigorously invest commercial resources, manufacturing resources as well as product innovation to drive profitable growth of norms.

Good. Greg, this question is for you. Within IPS, you highlighted the market growth rates by end market category on Slide 24. How would you expect your growth to perform relative to the end market growth rates? And how much outperformance is there? And what could drive that outperformance?

Thanks for the question. Good question. I would say there's going to be growth along with those base markets. So we -- where we described, I'd say, 3 quarters of what we do within our base markets. Slightly in excess of those markets themselves, and that's going to come through a lot of our precision technologies, having a proprietary component to them, the new things that we'll be releasing on our market. So when we go out and we recapitalize and we replace existing technologies in the markets where we know how to do that, I believe that, that will contribute to the outperformance of the market. And then when we look into the new segments that we're looking at in terms of you think about fabric bonding, you think about what we're doing in new markets like EV battery, I think that's really yet to be seen. We're not embedded in those markets yet, but as those markets grow, I believe that we'll grow with the markets themselves.

Great. The next question comes from the line of Jeff Hammond. 5-year CAGR is 5.4%, and your new target suggest an acceleration to just over 7% CAGR. Can you remind us how the 5.4% growth rate breaks out between acquired and organic growth? Second, can you talk about the balance between acquired and acquisitions going forward. And just to kind of -- maybe we'll focus on organic because later in the presentation, Joe will be sharing more about our acquisition strategy and how that plays into our balanced results. So Greg or Joe, maybe you'd like to take that one?

Let me take that one, if you don't mind. You're referencing total Nordson numbers there, Jeff. And so let me just comment on the history. As you think about the historical past 5 years, that breaks down roughly 50-50, 50% organic, 50% through acquisitions in terms of the growth rate. And as we go forward, you are correct, it suggests the numbers Naga presented suggests greater than 7% CAGR going forward over the next 5 years. Greg just presented the organic component. IPS will deliver 3% plus organic. Jeff, in the next presentation, will cover his organic piece. And then I will cover the components of the inorganic growth rate going forward. So I'll save that answer, the detailed answer will be my presentation and upcoming in Jeff's presentation. But historically, it was roughly 50-50. And when you go forward on that 7%, it will be roughly 50-50 as well.

Great. Okay. Next question is for you, Greg. Would you comment on the competitive dynamics in the new market opportunities within IPS?

Yes. Well, I'd say that our competitors are aggressive, right? So they're out there. And what you have to consider is we're very selective about where we participate. We choose our markets well and with NBS Next strategic discipline, which Naga just went through, that helps us be even more criterious about where we want to participate. Our win rates are high. I could tell you that the emerging markets for us are growing very, very well. And we've developed new applications and new solutions in those markets, for example, our tiering strategies, where we consistently win a disproportionate part of those markets. So when we find competition in those marks, we feel very comfortable walking in at various levels and taking not only the businesses that we know, participating in the businesses where we're comfortable but also capturing a lot of those new markets that we talked about.

Great. Another question about the EV battery market, Greg. So what is the market opportunity for the EV battery market? How much sales today do you have from EV battery? And what is Nordson's competitive advantage?

So I would say today, we're still hitting singles and doubles. That market is in development. There are decisions being made in technology. I don't think anybody is really sure where it's going to land. But when you come back to Nordson, it really hits our sweet spot. We are good when you need precision, when you need automation. So being able to have that bond exactly where you need it, when you need it there at any speed and have that be automated, that's our sweet spot. That's what we do every day, all day long. And then when you think about our advantage. A lot of those things right now are being done with different types of fasteners, think about double-sided tape or clips. So as things need to get smaller and we need to be more repetitive and you don't want to have that physical labor and how you want it automated so that you get more precision, it lands in our sweet spot. So when I say singles and doubles, our customer centric, our proximity to our customers has really allowed us to be at the front end of a lot of their development. So we're in the development laboratories. We're on a lot of the pilot lines as they get started. So I think we're with the right people. We're with the right customers. And as they develop, we will grow with them and create the right solutions so that we can leverage that for our own growth as well.

Great. So building on that question, given exposure to faster-growing secular trends in e-commerce and EV batteries, which you just mentioned, why can't IPS grow above the historical 1.5x GDP over the next 3 years? And maybe even thinking about that, what percent of IPS' sales are high growth?

All right. So in one of those slides, I forget which slide it is, but in one of those slides, we kind of broke that out. So I would say 3 quarters of what we do is our traditional businesses. That's the coating. That's the waistline coating. That's the packaging, the product assembly and the nonwovens core market. And then there's 25% of that -- that are these new applications. And arguably, some new exciting markets where we can do different things. I would tell you, within these markets, likely the battery, it's yet to be seen how much we can do, how fast those markets will grow, where we really add value, because when you choose Nordson, there's arguably a lot of good math behind that. Our best customers are customers who measure. Our best customers are customers who need repeatability, who understand their own processes. So as you see who wins in markets like EV battery, as you see where we can place with new materials, opportunities for replacing things like stitching or tapes. When you look at e-commerce, every time I look at my porch and I see boxes come into my porch, I see a box that's glued, and I know we won. I'd see a box with tape, and I see it as an opportunity. So there's a lot of opportunity out there. I think that we will outperform in those markets, and we'll grow as those new applications grow. I would say that when you look at how we traditionally defined ourselves, that kind of 1.5% times GDP, the reality is that you have some ins and outs. You have other things going on in the market. As new materials are released and our equipment gets better and runs longer and you have some facility consolidation, you have some headwinds. But against those headwinds, you have our new proprietary technologies being released, and you have these new markets. So we said 3%. But if you look at it 3% plus, I'm confident that through this planned period, we'll deliver. And hopefully, if we do everything right, and we can really apply the Ascend strategy to what we're doing, as it all comes together, there will be some positive surprises along the way.

Greg, if I could add to it, I think what is exciting about the world that Greg and his teams are living in is that all these new applications, these are value propositions that are getting built out right now. And Greg and his team are having successes in fabric bonding, having success in EV market. So the opportunity -- and this is sort of typical of how this business has grown. Lots of always a constant steady stream of new applications coming into our portfolio of things we do. And I think that's why this is an exciting area for Greg and his team.

Good. Okay. So a few questions about Ascend strategy and its impact on culture, really. Greg, you mentioned that you've been with the company for a little while. And how would you describe the differences between NBS Next and the former business system that Nordson had deployed? And then how is your team adjusting? What's engagement like within the business?

All right. So if I compare it to where we came from these past few years, our initial NBS launch was -- I think I described it like a toolkit. So there were significant amount of tools to be applied to your business. And as you look through the broader Nordson portfolio, all of the businesses to kind of picked and choose from that toolkit and applied it in different ways. And we had some good success there. There was a lot of optionality in how we would go and do our businesses, what tools we would use and how we would apply that. I would say from what I've seen, what we've done so far over the last year with NBS Next, where it's really powerful, is that it's really a holistic approach to how we do things. It's how we look at our markets. It's what I said before about being selective in terms of where we play, how we win and who we serve. Who do we want our capacity to go to? What are our best products and our best opportunities for winning over time? And what positions ourselves in the best place with that longer-term growth. So taking this holistic approach and having that ability to look at all of our markets in the same way allows us to do things with talent that we were never able to do before, allows our talent and our strongest contributors to move from 1 group to the other because you look at it in the same way, they hit the ground running. They hit the ground faster. We can take the goodness from 1 organization and bring it to another organization. And it really permeates everything that we do. So if I compare kind of the 2 things, I would say, you compare a toolkit and very strong good tools, some of which we've incorporated, and you compare that to a very holistic approach. And you have everybody running in the same direction, which is really powerful. From an engagement perspective. I'll speak to this team. I can speak to Nordson overall because we have the opportunities to engage with people from around the organization. I would say, you've got a very high level of engagement. A little bit in the beginning, every time there's change, there's some concern, arguably. But I think this leadership team has done a very good job of communicating openly and honestly with everybody about the change and about the benefits of it. And I would really say, as we've gone forward and we've gotten some wins there, it's really created confidence within the team that there's a bigger, brighter future ahead of us.

Great. And then a little further to that. The presentation highlighted internal promotions and owner mindset to drive decentralized governance. To what extent was IPS too centralized historically and what are challenges to transitioning to that decentralized owner mindset structure?

Well, I'd say that the IPS organization is truly global. So we've got a global manufacturing footprint. We have global commercial teams. The vast -- I'd say, the vast majority, but well over 50% of what we sell is outside the United States. So very, very global. My career being global growing up in this organization. So it's very decentralized in nature. And now the architecture of the business really reflects that. It's driving those decisions down to the local level, down to the people that are dealing with our customers and dealing within the environments that we serve. And that really creates an entrepreneurial spirit that can be powerful. So really taking the winning teams concept, stepping it down to the owner mindset and then developing this organizational architecture around it. We started it this year, and it's been very, very powerful. The feedback that you get at the center, because we still have some functions at the center, but the feedback is loud and it's strong. And we're learning to listen and listen better, which allows us to make better decisions and make things faster to the extent we were overly centralized before. I Wouldn't necessarily say that we were overly centralized, but I would say this is a different framework, and it allows our organizations to pivot faster and be much more nimble. And I think that will benefit us long term.

Okay. Greg, help us understand the relative size contribution of the growth opportunities you mentioned for IPS. So recapitalizing the installed base, EV batteries versus emerging markets and even product tiering, which ones are the largest opportunities? And which ones will require the most time?

Good question. So I would say, large opportunity, very close in is e-commerce. Again, every time you look on your porch, think about Nordson, we're working with the largest e-commerce distributors in the world to be in their facilities to help them package in a better way. Packaging, obviously, when you look at the amount of packaging, what they use is very, very important to them. So outside of our core packaging, which we do today, that's a very large opportunity that's actually going right now. Next, I would say was -- is EV battery. And there's a large opportunity there. We actually don't know how large that will be. I think we're going to follow the rate global trends as that becomes more of a technology that's commonplace within people's lives. Fabric as well when you think about how much clothing there is out there and how that clothing is bonded and the repeatability that they need around that clothing and the desire to automate in that space is very, very strong. So as we deploy our technologies, they get to understand the space, understand who the players are, and they understand our value proposition, what we can do to make them more successful, that should expand as well. And then going back to recapitalization, in every 1 of the divisions within IPS, we have installations throughout the world. We have a lot of installations throughout the world. So think about our systems and the systems that we've sold over the last 60 years. Those are our best targets because those are with customers that know us. They respect what we do. They value what we do. They've seen what we do. So as we come out with new proprietary technologies, and it's better proprietary technologies, it's this great opportunity to go in and capture those. So I would say those are probably some of the largest opportunities that we have throughout all of our divisions.

Great. We have time for 1 more question in this Q&A session. Greg and maybe Joe, also, would you comment on how the tiering strategy impacts EBITDA margin? Does it lower -- does the lower end of the product tier carry lower margin?

So let me take a crack at that first, Joe, because this is something we've been doing for a while, and that was the initial challenge. The initial challenge was, I think the easiest way to do tiering is to go and tier on price. And we did. We started that way to test the markets out. So we tested that, but, obviously, that's not a long-term solution. So tiering on price doesn't get you to where you need to be. For me, really, gross margin is a proxy for customer satisfaction with our value proposition. So if you can't get the gross margins that you want, you're really not either articulating your value proposition appropriately or the customers just don't value it or you're not creating value for them. So we put a lot of time and effort into not only tiering at a pricing level, but tiering the technology. So we've tiered that technology to the extent that we're really happy with the margins that we get on the tiered products and that those margins help contribute to the overall essence of what we do. And that as we grow that 400 basis points that you saw in the growth in IPS over the next 5 years, tiering will contribute to that. So tiering at every level has helped us, and within every division. That's something that we don't only do in adhesives but we do an IPS, we can in PPS as well. So where we manufacture, what we manufacture, how we manufacture, who we source from, all of those contribute to our ability to create the right product at the right level at the right price. But make no mistake, we want to continue to have margins to show that we're creating value as we go. Joe?

You nailed it.

Great. Okay. Good. Well, thank you, gentlemen. That concludes our first Q&A panel. Thank you, audience, for your great questions. We will again take a 5-minute break after Jeff's presentation. But in the meantime, we will now turn the event over to Jeff Pembroke, who will tell us about the Advanced Technology Solutions segment. Jeff, it's all yours.

Hello, everyone. I'm Jeff Pembroke, and I lead Nordson's Advanced Technology Solutions segment. In my 16 years with Nordson, I have held commercial and operational leadership positions in both company segments, including Industrial Coatings and Adhesive Systems divisions. For the past decade, I have led our Fluid Management division where revenues more than doubled, primarily through organic growth initiatives. During this time, I also created the vision to accelerate growth and further diversify the company by entering the medical technology market and subsequently led the build-out of our industry-leading medical technology platform through a series of strategic acquisitions. Throughout my career at Nordson, I have been able to experience firsthand the unique qualities that make the company so successful in how we are able to continuously build off our foundational strengths to grow in our core markets as well as attractive new spaces. I appreciate the opportunity to walk you through the Advanced Technology Solutions segment today and share my excitement for the future of these businesses. Today, I will share some of the reasons why we remain very enthusiastic about the markets we serve and the growth opportunities associated with them. You should get a deeper sense for our differentiated technologies and why innovative companies around the world increasingly choose Nordson for their most challenging application solutions. Lastly, you will see how our disciplined approach to acquisitions has increased our leadership position in key end markets and added complementary capabilities that our customers value. Advanced Technology Solutions is made up of division in serving medical, electronics and industrial end markets. Each have strong growth potential and value differentiating characteristics that we can further build upon. These are dynamic end markets, characterized by continuous innovation, leading macro trends and challenging applications requiring precision, speed and reliability. We lead with proprietary technology, coupled with intimate knowledge of customer application needs. Our solutions are critical to enabling the success of our customers' process or product. Add to this, our global support network, and you arrive at our value premium over the competition. We will enhance organic growth through acquisitions, with particular focus on our medical and test and inspection divisions. This will allow us to extend our leadership while adding complementary technologies and capabilities. We have delivered double-digit revenue growth over the last 5 years, approximately 5% organically. We have also diversified this segment beyond electronics to reduce cyclicality. Looking ahead, positive growth drivers include global demographic trends, less invasive surgeries, biopharma and disease management, the continuation of the digitalization and data era in electric vehicles and autonomous driving. Using the NBS Next growth framework, we will focus on the most profitable growth opportunities within both the segment and the divisions. Three pilot businesses are currently practicing the complete framework, while all divisions have used strategic discipline to inform their commercial and technology resource priorities. Continuous improvement is now rolling out more broadly across all divisions. We are creating healthy end market balance within the segment along with a favorable product mix. 60% of total segment revenue is now generated from parts or single-use components. As we've transitioned to a division-led organization, we have staffed with a highly talented, diverse group of division leaders with strong capable global organizations below that. This owner mindset at the division level is driving more division decisions closer to the customer and unleashing an infectious spirit of winning teams. Proprietary technology is our key differentiator and source of value in design, manufacturing process and materials. Our products perform a critical function in our customers' process or product as they tend to be low dollar cost, high value-add relative to the total operation or product they enable. Within Medical, now our largest division within advanced technology solutions, we specialize in material conversion technologies and proprietary design, equipment and manufacturing know how. A great example is our polymer solution casting process, which produces specialty wire reinforced cannula. These products incorporate exclusive material formulations, in-house designed equipment and manufacturing trade secrets, all of which have made us the global leader in producing cardiopulmonary canon. Within fluid management, our focus is low volume precision dispense, fluid packaging and benchtop to semi-automated fluid dispensing. A great example is our pico pulse noncontact piezo jetting technology. This product combines industry-leading accuracy and speed to apply micro deposits as small as 0.5 nanoliters at 1,000 cycles per second. Within electronic processing systems, we deliver a combination of precision motion control and dispense placement at high speeds within our customers' manufacturing line. The most recent example of innovation is our Vantage dual head, automated wafer handling and jet dispense system. This technology is capable of dispensing 75-micron fluid streams within 150-micron gaps. To put that into perspective, we are depositing fluids that approximate the diameter of a human hair at speeds that increase productivity 4x to 8x over traditional levels. Within the test and inspection division, our solutions focus on destructive and nondestructive test, inspection, measurement and component counting. We offer a broad range of technologies, such as x-ray, acoustic, and optical to address virtually every application within electronics and a growing number of non-electronics opportunities. The premier example is our XM8000 wafer x-ray inspection and metrology platform, providing high throughput defect and measurement of hidden features of through silicon vias, 3DIC packages, NANDs and wafer bumps using our industry-leading proprietary tube technology and CMOS detectors with extremely high resolution. We succeed with market-leading companies who value technology solutions in the most complex applications. About 90% of our revenue is now generated in the medical and electronics markets, which we expect to grow at mid- to high single digit rates. Growth for Nordson looking forward in these markets will increasingly come from a wider range of applications, as multiple enabling technologies and subsequent devices emerge. Medical is positioned in fast-growing interventional therapies, such as structural heart, cardiovascular and neurovascular as well as areas of more recent innovation, such as biopharma and disease management. Within electronics, there is an ongoing need for increased bandwidth, lower power consumption and smaller chip packages. These are driven by trends in connectivity, data storage, high-performance computing, artificial intelligence and autonomous driving, among others. This results in more advanced semiconductor packaging and printed circuit board designs, power management devices, MEMS and sensors. All of these provide opportunity along the complete spectrum of Nordson Solutions. It is important to point out that our solutions find their way into virtually every market and thousands of applications such as construction, automotive, animal health and general industrial, to name a few. Winning in medical really starts with discipline in selecting where to participate. We serve the world's leading medical device OEMs in the fastest-growing therapeutic areas with highly differentiated single-use solutions. We win through a combination of proprietary capabilities centered around design, process, materials and equipment. And we play a key role early and throughout our customers' innovation process. We've made considerable investments in quality systems, processes and culture. Our quality works care program has elevated our stature as a preferred supplier to the most discerning medical device OEMS. Many industries strive for high quality. However, the medical device industry demands it. We have built quality into every aspect of our business, and it has become a leading differentiator for us. In summary, we combine the most advanced facilities, processes, equipment and design innovation to be the trusted source for the highest quality medical components and devices that improve patient outcomes every day. The following videos of our Loveland, Colorado and Salem, New Hampshire facilities, will allow you to see these capabilities in action. [Presentation]

As you can see, we have made significant investments in facilities, people and capabilities to build a leading position in the medical technology market. Some of the most recognizable innovation in society comes from the electronics industry, where emerging connectivity technologies enable new devices that, in turn, require increasingly small and sophisticated component solutions. Given the critical role we play in electronic device manufacturing, our customers often bring us in very early in the product or process development efforts. Whether it be advanced semiconductor packaging, such as wafer-level and 3D integrated circuits or multilayer complex credit circuit boards. Nordson's leadership in precision dispense and surface treatment technology increased the throughput, quality and consistency of our customers' most demanding processes. Cost of poor quality is significant to our customers and their confidence in Nordson capabilities is a real advantage. For example, more advanced applications, such as autonomous driving and power management, are demanding higher levels of device reliability. As a result, companies are increasing their test and inspection requirements, in many cases, performing 100% in line device inspection. Our broad range of both destructive and nondestructive test and inspection technologies, along with the highest-quality image processing, has us well positioned to continue to win in this space. The following 2 videos of our electronics dispense and inspection technologies will give you a close up view of these technologies. [Presentation]

I hope that helped provide a strong appreciation that our teams remain on the leading edge of innovation to further expand our leadership advantage. Our teams are passionately driving the NBS Next growth framework throughout the segment. Strategic discipline aligns resources around the best growth opportunities and informs our commercial and technology focus. For example, it has helped reinforce our focus on medical interventional, biopharm processing, advanced semi packaging as well as prioritize technology development road maps that create value for our customers within these applications. Continuous improvement drives simplification within our operations that increases service levels of top products. A recent example is within our medical fluid components division, where the team was able to increase capacity through simplification, allowing us to quickly respond to win attractive new business opportunities. Another example is within the test and inspection division, where productivity and quality gains support increasing demand for our leading X-ray products. We see a clear pathway to our ATS long-term organic financial targets. We expect to grow the top line greater than 5%, considering the attractive market growth rates in medical and electronics, which make up the majority of our business. Base market growth should generate 4% to 4.5% growth over the next 5-year horizon. On top of this market growth, the Ascend strategy that Naga spoke about will enable an additional 100 to 150 basis points of above-market growth rates as we differentiate the service level to our best customers and prioritize the best growth opportunities related to new product development efforts. The in-line manufacturing of our top products will enable us to capture incremental volumes with our best customers. This attractive 5% sales volume growth will help drive profit margin expansion. Volume growth alone generates 40% to 45% incremental profit margins given the combination of high gross margins and largely fixed manufacturing and SG&A cost structure. As a reminder, the typical gross margin in this segment has been 50% to 52% the past 2 years. Beyond the volume leverage, the implementation of the NBS Next principles within the Ascend strategy are forecasted to deliver another 150 to 250 basis points of margin, drivers being improved sales mix as we focus on best opportunities, utilizing the tools of segmentation and improved manufacturing efficiency as we simplify and in line the manufacturing of our top products. You saw some of these NBS Next benefits in our business over the last 2 quarters, where margins expanded despite below target organic growth rates. In summary, we have the right differentiated product portfolio. We serve attractive end markets with applications that rely on our value proposition. We have the right growth-focused strategy with detailed implementation tools designed to deliver profitable growth. And finally, we have the right management team to execute the strategy. And when we are successful, we will deliver sustained organic sales growth of 5-plus percent and expand profit margins an additional 500 basis points. Thank you for your time today. We will now open it up to Q&A. Lara, I'll hand it over to you.

Great. Thank you, Jeff. We -- before we begin our panel for Jeff, Joe and again, Naga, we're going to take a brief 5-minute break to compile the questions from the online queue. We'll keep our questions focused largely on advanced technology and then have more of the acquisition-focused questions and some of the other great ones that I see at the end of the event here. So again, we'll take that time. Please enter your questions through the Q&A tab on the upper right-hand side of the screen, and we'll see you back in a short 5 minutes. Thank you. [Break]

Hello. Welcome back. So this panel, we have Jeff Pembroke, Joe Kelley and Naga, and thank you very much for submitting your questions. You can continue to do so at any time during the Q&A. Jeff, first question for you. Medical has historically been growing near 9% or high single-digit rate before the pandemic-related interruption. Why the lower 6% to 8% expected growth rate that we noted in that end-market slide today?

Yes. So we've really been pleased with the medical platform over the last several years since we've acquired it. And I think, you referenced the good growth rates that have met our expectations over that period, high single digits, moving into double digits at times. I think the growth rate that we're talking about here today is really over the cycle, looking ahead over the next 5 years. Of course, last year was a unique year with COVID and the pandemic. I think we outperformed a lot of medical device companies in terms of what we're able to deliver, but it was well below our historical average. We do see recovery coming in the second half of this year. I don't believe elective procedures are back to full recovery at this point, but all indications are, those will be strengthening over the second half of this year and certainly into next year. So we see a recovery of those surgeries, and over time, we might see some switch in areas like cardiopulmonary therapies, which some of that will be shifting more toward interventional. So where we've seen high-growth in those areas in the past, we might see that growth shift to other parts of our portfolio. But we think that's a conservative view. And over the cycle, we feel really good about hitting that and perhaps outperforming that number.

I would also just add that if you look over the previous 5 years, the base that we were starting with in medical, it was smaller. As we enter this next 5-year period, we're starting with a very strong $400 million medical platform. And so when we look at growth rates alone, when we're starting with a small base, beginning the last 5-year period it's a little bit easier to have a higher growth rate.

Yes, exactly. Thanks, Joe.

Within advanced technology solutions, what is the ideal future mix of medical and test and inspection?

Yes. So I don't think we can put a hard number on that, but I think both of those divisions are areas that we've communicated are a focus for continued acquisition growth and a lot of organic growth as well in those divisions. So I fully expect to see medical remain sort of the largest division in the segment, and we'll continue to add to that. And also fully expect that test and inspection, as we execute on that strategy, will become a much larger portion of the segment than it is today.

Great. On Slide 32 and 33, you flip ATS by end market in 2 different ways. Could you give us a directional sense of relative margin levels by end market or category and where the opportunities for improvement reside?

Yes, sure. So on Slide 32, that was more a product kind of look at how we break out -- on Slide 33, more of an end market breakout. So we've got really good, as I mentioned in my comments, really good margins across the segment. In all divisions, we tend to get paid for the differentiation of the value that we bring to our customers. So really nice margins across the businesses. We think there's improvement as we apply NBS Next. We're going to our strategic discipline, and we're looking for areas where we'll invest disproportionately. And some of those areas are going to take us into kind of looking at our footprint. So if we look at Medical Interventional Solutions, as Naga mentioned earlier in his comments, we're making an investment in an additional Mexico facility to really get those more labor-intensive type of assembly products and manufacturing appropriately placed in the right manufacturing environment. We also think, as we -- in our electronics businesses, as we grow the top line with our fixed cost structure, we do tend to see very good leverage of volume growth.

So building on some of where you're investing your resources, what are examples of data segmentation and action, both for medical and electronics, in terms of reallocating resources away from something specific and doubling down elsewhere? Also, how does attrition factor into the organic growth forecast?

Yes. That's a great question. And it gives me an opportunity to highlight one of the real kind of tiffanies for our group as we started down NBS Next and really strategic discipline and looking at our data, it caused us to look -- particularly in the medical division, it caused us to look at where the real growth opportunities were in that business. It allowed us to really separate out what we call fluid -- medical fluid components, which is a really fast-growing part of the segment in that business. That's where our biopharm processing, a lot of the vaccine-type manufacturing is taking place that we're participating in really well. So it allowed us to break that off a bit separately and really disproportionately invest in the growth -- to capture the growth. And also, it allowed us within Interventional solutions to take a look at the therapeutic areas that we had been focusing on. And quite frankly, we were focusing on many really trying to participate and very broadly in that space. And as the team went through our strategic discipline, went through the segmentation data, it really showed us that we could grow faster and more profitably focusing on a few areas like delivery catheters, balloon catheters and some complex delivery systems. And so it really did inform how we structured these divisions, how we resourced them. And that's where all of our product innovation and commercial focus is right now in those areas that came out of the NBS Next strategic discipline.

Great. So switching to product innovation. Has the Vantage system that we showed in the video, been introduced to customers? Do you think that Vantage could result in meaningful incremental orders due to the semiconductor shortage and recently announced factory expansion? So if I could expand on that a little bit, Jeff, maybe you could talk a bit about kind of semiconductors in general and what our applications are because we have a few questions about that, and then how -- what our applications are and where we fit into the semiconductor process.

Yes. So I'll answer the first question around Vantage. So that is, as you saw in the video, a leading-edge technology. That technology, we're right now introducing to the marketplace. We're starting to see orders. It's contributed very nicely to what we've seen as an increased order uptick in our electronics businesses, as we mentioned in the first quarter. So that is just rolling out right now. We've worked closely with some of our leading customers on the development of that system. So we do think it's going to play a significant role in the success of our electronics business and specifically the EPS division going forward. I think relative to semiconductor capacity, I think we've all seen announcements from a lot of the large chip manufacturers investing around the world in additional capacity to kind of make up for some of the shortage. And so we'll see that kind of capacity ramp-up over the next year or 2. We certainly can help in this area with Vantage. So it's got a dual head. It increases speeds and productivity 2x -- 2 to 4x over rates today, so we can increase the output essentially as our customers try to increase the volume of semiconductor units. Where we play, historically, we've played in the back end. So semiconductor chip packaging and printed circuit board assembly is really where we play. But as the industry is moving more upfront toward wafer level packaging -- chip packaging, we have an opportunity to play there in both the systems that you saw in the test and inspection, video or XM8000, that's an automated wafer handling inspection system, and the Vantage system that you saw bring us closer to the front end of the process. And so we are now able to play in one of the fastest-growing emerging areas of advanced semiconductor packaging. So it's really exciting.

Very good. So how much of a mix is semiconductors within the ATS system sales today?

Yes. It plays a large role. It's probably one of the largest segments of where we play in electronics. Now we also -- again, we haven't talked much about it, but we do have an upfront technology in plasma surface treatment. So this is where we do a lot of pretreatment of printed circuit boards and wafers prior to downstream assembly and packaging. We've seen nice order and growth rates in that area. So that's really more on the printed circuit board side. And then we do a lot in -- on the back-end and inspection technologies, we're doing a lot of inspection of devices, right? So this is inspection of finished devices like a phone or a tablet or a power management system that might go on an electronic vehicle. So while semiconductors plays a significant role in our electronics business, it really breaks down into semiconductors, printed circuit boards, devices and even components that we do a lot in micro speakers and camera modules and all those types of components that might go into electronic devices. So we play across that whole spectrum.

Thank you, Jeff. So with medical market growing 6% to 8%, electronics at 4% to 6%, isn't our 5% organic growth target criteria under demanding? Why wouldn't Nordson be capable of notable market outgrowth here?

Yes. So I think it's important to point out that we're referencing a growth rate over the cycle, and so over the next 5 years or so. And as we know, particularly in the electronics side, we can see that market go through cycles. Unfortunately, right now, we feel like we're in the early stages of a bit of a growth cycle there. But if you go back to 2019, the overall electronics industry grew less than 1%. Last year, the overall electronics industry was down a bit due to COVID, and so we think semiconductors are growing probably high single digit, printed circuit boards may be mid-single-digit over the next couple of years. So we think over time, this number is a fairly conservative kind of number that we feel really good that we can meet and hopefully outperform.

And I'll remind you that the sales CAGR in this long-range plan is 5% plus. So you do the math, we look at 90% of this segment's end markets are medical or electronics with those attractive growth rates, that's the driver behind 5% plus.

We should probably also note, Joe, as well that, that's an organic number.

That's an organic number.

Organic number, and we do expect to be very active in acquisition within the segment as well over that period.

So ATS organic growth has struggled in recent years, as you pointed out, even pre-pandemic. What is the impetus for a reacceleration to a 5% CAGR? What's changing? And can you comment on timing around growth picking up?

Yes. So I mentioned a bit earlier that -- so the segment has grown 10% over the last 5 years, half of that has been organic, so we have done well. And really, the medical division has really driven a lot of that. But if you go back at the end of 2019, I think some of us were feeling the softening of industrial manufacturing. And there is still 10%, 15% of this segment. We address more industrial assembly type applications, and then of course, we all know what happened last year. So I think the last couple of years have been really unique in a lot of ways, but we feel really good about going forward to answer the question, given a couple of things. One, the electronics growth cycle that we feel like we're in. And I mentioned earlier in my comments, a lot of the drivers, a lot of the things that are driving that. And they are drivers that are more widespread and distributed than maybe in the past. So in the past, maybe there are 1 or 2 applications that disproportionately were driving growth, but if you think about going forward in electronics, it's really connectivity which is connecting all kinds of devices. It's artificial intelligence. It's high-performance computing. It's autonomous driving. And so we think that there's a broader range of applications for us to participate in going forward, which is really going to be nice. And then the last comment on why we think we'll see growth pick up, again, is on the medical side. We were experiencing very nice steady growth for many years, right up until last year's pandemic and the elective surgery piece sort of slowed us down. But we do, again, see that kind of picking up as vaccinations bit more widespread and as economies and markets in the hospital system opens up further. We fully expect as we go through this year and into next year to see a recovery in Medical.

And Jeff, if I would add, what you're also seeing in your businesses in C&I is doing nicely, sort of early indicator of what the growth is coming there. And on the medical side, you've done fairly well on the biopharmacy-related, vaccine-related growth, so I think there are already indicators in the business that this -- these growth expectations are reasonable and then broad growth for the segment.

Very good. Are there opportunities for test and inspection business in the battery industry or even other industries all in?

Yes, there are. And we're -- so specific to the battery industry around testing and inspection on the back end, so we are participating. Again, I mentioned power management systems earlier, so these are systems that go into every electric vehicle that sort of manage the source power into the use power in the vehicle. And we're seeing good growth in systems relative to our management. There are additional kind of opportunities. If you look at one of -- back to NBS Next and strategic discipline. One of the things that came out of that for us was we had a sort of opportunity in components, where historically, we've sold systems in that space. But we really -- our leading technology is in our 2, and our detective technology. And that's proprietary. And so now, we've got a small group looking at how do we take that proprietary technology into markets outside of electronics, where, for example, industrial or medical, so for dosimetry for radiation, things like that, where we can sell our components into noncompeting industries and markets. And so that's been really exciting, and we've actually seen a few small wins so far this year in that area.

Lara, I would add, I think testing and inspection is incredibly important for us to stay focused on what we're doing, which is what Jeff's team is working on, is high-resolution, higher-speed inspection, right? That's sort of their sweet spot. And there may be a wide variety of other applications. But I think Jeff's team is very selective around where we add value, and that's where we're aimed, and we do see the opportunity that that applies.

Great. We have time for one more question in this Q&A session. In the NBS Next process, easier to do in the electronics and medical group due to existing customers and product concentration. Is there low-hanging fruit in the ATS segment related to the strategically dealing with lower-volume customers and products?

Yes. So I would say the application of NBS Next is -- we see it kind of the same across all the divisions. It's got -- as Greg mentioned earlier, in his divisions as well as kind of in my divisions in the segment, we're seeing that we're able to apply it the same way everywhere. We're seeing a lot of consistencies. When we look at segmentation and we look at how our businesses break out, every single business sort of has a disproportionate amount of the value coming -- the contribution coming in from top products. And so I don't think it's any different in those businesses. I think it is good within electronics and medical that we have a really well-understood set of customers that we've been serving for a number of years, is the world's leading companies in both medical and electronic world. So we're very encouraged. We're excited about what it's doing for us, both on the front end -- one of the things I want to mention about NBS Next that I think is wonderful is it's really -- it's an integrated system. So it integrates upfront strategy, which informs your commercial deployment, which informs your product innovation and then it informs your operations, right, so how you can simplify your operations. And so it's integrated, is what I would call it versus a set of tools. I thought Greg said that well earlier. And so the teams are extremely excited. What's getting them excited is the early wins. In our fluid medical -- fluid components business, where we did some simplification, we were able to free up capacity that allowed us to capture some of this vaccine in biopharm, explosive growth that we've seen, we were able to capture it because of the work we were doing with NBS Next and simplifying our operations. The other example would be in our test and inspection, with our top-of-the-line 2 -- X-ray 2, we worked on that line. We've increased productivity over 20% at a time when orders are picking up and we could really use that capacity. So I think the teams are getting really excited when they start to see these kind of wins. So we know it's working.

Good. Okay. Well, that concludes this portion of our Q&A panel. We will now turn the call over to Joe Kelley, who will give us an overview of the M&A growth strategy as well as our long-term financial target. So with that, Joe, I'll turn it over to you.

Good morning. My name is Joe Kelley, Chief Financial Officer for Nordson. It is my privilege to be here with you today. I joined Nordson just over 8 months ago from Materion Corporation, a $1 billion public advanced materials company, where I had served as a CFO for the previous 5 years. I am very excited and honored to be part of the new Nordson leadership team as we embark on delivering the next chapter of the Nordson growth story. Naga, Greg, Jeff and their respective teams have given you good insight to the current portfolio of businesses, products and technical capabilities that we are leveraging through a clear and disciplined ascend strategy to deliver organic growth. The ascend strategy is not an organic-only growth strategy, but rather directly impacts our M&A activity, and more broadly, portfolio management decisions. M&A is a critical component to our long-term $3 billion revenue and 30% EBITDA margin target. We think about our M&A strategy in a very disciplined but executable way. Grounded in the strategic disciplined principles of NBS Next, we have identified both strategic and financial criteria, which guide our efforts in this area. On the strategic side, we are looking to complement what makes Nordson great today. So when we look at targets, we ask ourselves 3 questions. Do we like the business? Do we like the markets? Is there a cultural fit with the business model? More specifically, we are looking for assets with products grounded in defendable precision technologies that create a point of differentiation for the customer. We look at the end-market exposure, understand the growth rate of the market and the specific applications serving the market. Like Jeff and Greg reviewed, there are several end markets where the external market factors or megatrends make them inherently high growth. Finally, the customer-centric business model, which has served Nordson so well, we view as critical to selling truly differentiated products where the technology features are the point of value creation for our customers. Looking at the financial, similar to the strategic criteria, we are disciplined in how we analyze acquisition targets. The financial criteria, which we look very closely at are the organic sales growth rates and gross margins. The sales growth rate criteria helps ensure the target is serving attractive end markets and/or applications within a market. Gross margins are great evidence of product differentiation and the amount of value provided by the precision technology the target provides. The acquisition target sales growth rate should be attractive when compared to the Nordson organic growth rate. While the gross margins may not be at the 50% plus margin, which Nordson delivers today, they need to have the potential for delivering Nordson-like gross margins. When we think about EBITDA margins of targets, we like to see margins around 20% or 20% plus. When we look at purchase price assumptions, we focus on returns and ensure the targeted acquisitions are creating value for our shareholders by generating returns greater than our cost of capital in the 3- to 5-year time horizon. This combination of strategic and financial criteria will guide our M&A activity. Given our disciplined criteria, combined with our existing core competencies, we have focused our M&A efforts in 3 specific areas: medical device components. Today, we have a $400 million business in this space with core competencies around design, fluid management and interventional solutions. The available market is large and remains fragmented with significant niche applications that compete based on technical differentiation. The growth rate for select applications within this space, have an attractive growth profile based on the market characteristics that Jeff reviewed. Test and inspection. Similar to medical has attractive market characteristics based on external megatrends around big data and the Internet of Things. As technical and reliability demands continue to expand, the needs for high-precision testing and inspection equipment will grow in line, if not ahead of the market growth. We have an established presence in the space and technical expertise related to x-ray, optical and acoustic capabilities. The market is large and relatively fragmented. There are commercial and operational synergy opportunities as we look to expand our technical capabilities and product portfolio, allowing us to successfully compete for assets in this space. Beyond our focus on medical and test and inspection, we also remain diligent and looking at complementary precision technologies. We have existing best-in-class precision technology around numerous aspects of liquid dispense as well as a global direct sales and service footprint, which could be leveraged if we were to identify a complementary precision technology. M&A plays a key role in the past to the targeted $3 billion in sales over the next 5 years. The organic growth, which Jeff and Greg reviewed, is a significant contributor, and there is a recent divestiture. But acquisitions will need to account for almost half of the top line growth needed to hit the targeted $3 billion. As you know, acquisitions require assets to be available, and therefore, the timing of this growth is not entirely in our control or smooth throughout the next 5 years. That said, we are looking to add greater than $500 million of acquired revenue over the next 5 years. Our pipeline, as you would imagine, includes a combination of medium-sized targets, some strategic technology buys, like you saw with the vivaMOS acquisition, and there are larger deals we look at. We remain active and disciplined in the M&A space and view it as a key component of our strategy to reach $3 billion and 30% EBITDA. Now that we have collectively presented the strategy for delivering organic and inorganic growth, let me spend some time bringing it all together in financial terms at the consolidated Nordson level. As Naga covered in his opening remarks, and you saw firsthand in the segment presentations and facility tours, we are starting with a very strong global business, with $2.1 billion in sales, delivering 27% EBITDA margins. This business has an impressive track record of delivering top line growth and margin expansion. Looking back over the past 5 years ended 2020, we delivered a 5% compounded annual sales growth and expanded profit margins 300 basis points. As we look at the next 5-year period, we anticipate accelerating the sales and profit growth rate, while maintaining our attractive 13% or higher return on invested capital. When you look at the high-level metrics of 7% plus sales growth and 10% profit growth over the next 5 years, this is modestly better than what was delivered over the last 5 years. The way I think about this increase in the growth rate of sales and profits is this is the benefit of the Ascend strategy and all of its components being implemented on top of the already strong base business with a truly differentiated product portfolio, which serves attractive end markets. The targeted $3 billion revenue is generated by a combination of organic and inorganic growth, resulting in a 7% plus compounded annual growth rate. You heard from Jeff and Greg how the combination of end market growth rates plus the enhanced growth coming from the execution of the NBS Next growth framework will deliver an organic growth rate of 4% plus. The acquisitions focused in those 3 strategic areas of medical, test and inspection and complementary precision technologies is forecasted to contribute an additional 3% plus. This is net of the recently announced divestiture of the screw and barrels business. A final thing I would say about the targeted sales growth of 7% plus is the focus of the Ascend strategy is growth, and NBS Next provides practical tools and techniques to ensure each division delivers on their above-market organic growth aspirations and what we -- and that we acquire businesses with the right growth profile. The targeted 300 basis point profit expansion over the next 5 years, like the sales bridge, is a combination of organic and inorganic factors. Starting with a 54% gross margin business with a largely fixed SG&A cost structure, we traditionally deliver 40% to 45% incremental margins on sales volume growth. With organic growth targeted at 4% plus, these incremental margins will result in expanded EBITDA margins. Secondly, NBS Next initiatives around simplification, improved product mix and improved operational efficiency will enhance margins another 200-plus basis points beyond normal volume leverage. I would be remiss if I didn't remind investors that they started to see these enhanced incremental margins in Q1 of this year. Finally, you have the impact of acquiring $500 million plus in revenue. The plan assume the EBITDA margin on the revenue we acquired comes in at approximately a 20% margin. While this dilutes the Nordson EBITDA profile, it creates opportunity for margin expansion and value creation through the execution of the NBS Next strategy. To target assets with only Nordson-like EBITDA margins would not be an actionable strategy that allows us to deploy the amount of capital we are looking to deploy. Plus, acquiring high-quality assets with differentiated products, already generating 20% EBITDA margins, allows for Nordson to leverage its core competencies and create meaningful shareholder value while still delivering top-tier EBITDA margins of 30%. I remind investors of our financial criteria for acquisitions which included generating returns north of our cost of capital in 3 to 5 years. Expanding profit margins of high-quality assets enables these type of investment returns and is something Nordson has demonstrated the ability to do. Given the strong cash flow generated by a profitable base business, there is a significant amount of cash generated that needs to be allocated appropriately. When it comes to capital allocation, we think about it aligned in 3 separate focus areas. First, being organic growth investments, which typically deliver the greatest return at the lowest risk. As you heard from the leadership team earlier, innovation efforts around our differentiated product portfolio and our global direct sales model require investments as does the maintenance of our infrastructure and capacity expansion. These organic growth investments typically are low risk. And our global manufacturing footprint is not really capital intensive, leaving significant capital for the other investments. Acquisitions has been a contributing source of our growth over the past several years, and we were able to identify assets that met the strategic criteria at the time. I already laid out our strategic and financial criteria for acquisition targets going forward. We will remain disciplined in the execution of M&A. And based on the assets we are targeting, we anticipate allocating a significant amount of capital to M&A to support our profitable growth aspirations. Final is returning capital to shareholders in the form of dividends and share buybacks. As Naga covered in his introduction, Nordson has a rich history of paying and increasing its annual dividend for the past 57 years. This tradition and philosophy reflects confidence in the business cash flow and a commitment to return a portion to shareholders every quarter. However, we are not a high-yield dividend payer and nor do we aspire to be one given the growth opportunities we see for this business. We also returned capital to shareholders in the form of share buybacks, traditionally designed to offset dilution from equity issuances. These are our capital allocation priorities and what was contemplated in the financial targets. However, rest assured, this is regularly assessed and alternatives are evaluated as market conditions fluctuate. Here, you see the 5-year history of capital allocation and the assumption going forward the next 5 years. Acquisitions was and is forecasted to continue to receive the greatest amount of capital and is forecasted to increase from the historical 50% allocation to closer to 60%. Our balanced approach between share buybacks and the dividend will continue to account for approximately 30% of the cash deployed. Organic growth, given the capital-light nature of our manufacturing process, will only require approximately 10%. The slide graphically shows the significance M&A has played in the past and is forecasted to play in the future. Nordson has several core competencies, which drive the profitability of the company. These distinct capabilities around precision technologies and the direct sales model are great strengths to leverage as we look to deploy capital on acquisitions and create shareholder value in the process and then also return favorable ROIC north of the cost of capital. Maintaining the strong return on invested capital and balance sheet is core to Nordson. We are proud of the 13% ROIC and have no intention of diluting this as we grow through the combination of organic and inorganic initiatives. We are fully aware of the challenges of maintaining a 13% plus ROIC while deploying a significant amount of capital on acquisitions. This is where, similar to the EBITDA margin story, growth and profit expansion of the base business will increase returns which, in turn, will create room for M&A investments, which will generate returns north of the cost of capital in 3 to 5 years. We maintain a very strong balance sheet, with plenty of available liquidity and are very comfortable with leverage ratios of 1.5 to 2.5x debt to EBITDA. Our targeted financial performance has us maintaining within this leverage ratio range over the long term. However, as I mentioned earlier, it's not like M&A targets become available every 6 months in $100 million increments. It is a dynamic market. And we will be comfortable stretching beyond 2.5x debt to EBITDA for the right acquisition and then quickly work back to the 1.5 to 2.5 range. This concludes my financial review, and I will now give the presentation back to Naga who will provide some summary comments before we open it back up for questions.

Thank you, Joe. Today, you've heard from Greg and Jeff about the secular growth drivers across an attractive portfolio of end markets. Nordson is positioned to win in these opportunities as our proprietary precision technologies remain a competitive advantage. Greg and Jeff also described the ongoing deployment of NBS Next in our divisions to drive profitable growth. Finally, as you heard from Joe, the Ascend strategy execution will deliver balanced organic growth as well as acquisitive growth with clear measures of success. We are on our way to become a top-tier revenue growth company with attractive margins and returns. As we close, I want to thank all our Nordson colleagues around the globe who have had a critical role in building and deploying the Ascend strategy. Nordson is starting from a position of strength with great raw materials such as customer-centric direct sales model, precision technologies, diverse end markets with attractive growth drivers and high recurring revenue content. The Ascend strategy, with NBS Next growth framework at its core, will add to these strengths and help us deliver the profitable growth goals. I'm extremely pleased with the momentum in our divisions to build Nordson into a diversified precision technology company with $3 billion in revenue and 30% EBITDA margins in the next 5 years. It's an exciting time to be in Nordson. Thank you very much for your attention. And now we'll take your questions.

Thank you, Naga. Before we take our last Q&A or start our last Q&A panel, we'll take a final 5-minute break. As always, please submit your questions in the Q&A tab, and we'll use the remainder of our time for questions. So we will see you back here in 5 minutes. Thank you. [Break]

Welcome back. So thank you for your time and attention during today's call. We're now opening our final portion of the presentation for our Q&A panel of all of our presenters from today. So I'm pleased to welcome back Greg Merk as well as Joe Kelley, Naga and Jeff Pembroke. So let's get started. Joe, can you talk about our acquisition pipeline? Does the pipeline support your ability to accelerate acquisition growth? Can you make any comments on near-term trends across the business relative to full year '21 guidance?

Yes. So today, we have a robust pipeline. And before I talk about the pipeline, I will also comment that I was encouraged in 2020 that we were able to execute despite the pandemic 2 acquisitions, both 1 in test and inspection and 1 in our medical. So we remained active. And I would tell you here 2020, we continue to be very active. So as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, the pipeline consist of some technology buys, but I would say the majority is in that $50 million to $150 million range focused in medical and test and inspection space. We do have a smaller number, but we do look at some larger deals that would stretch our leverage ratio, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks. But I would tell you, we're very active. We have walked away. We remain disciplined as it relates to our strategic and financial criteria. And so there have been deals recently that we have walked away from as we progress through the process. Because as you appreciate, we're looking for attractive assets. And so we're going to have to pay market multiples and be competitive, but we continue to be disciplined in terms of the returns and making sure that we're paying -- generating shareholder value as it relates to returns on investments.

So building on that question, what multiple do you expect to pay on M&A deals?

The multiple question again, I tell you the multiple depends on the returns, right? And so when we look at acquisitions, and we looked at the generally very attractive assets, it's about the cash flows. And what can we do with them? What synergies can we bring? We have a lot of core competencies within our Nordson business today. And how can we leverage those to grow the cash flow? And that's what I would tell you dictates. It's the return on the cash flows that the cash flow has generated. I would tell you it's what dictates the multiple we're willing to pay. But at the end of the day, to buy these attractive assets, we're going to have to pay market multiples.

Let me add to what Joe was talking about here. I mean first and foremost, it's really important to remember. Our acquisition strategy is very disciplined. It starts with the strategy. We have clear guideposts around what we would acquire, what we would not acquire. It starts with differentiated physician technology-based business. It depends on the attractive end markets, right? Remember the question that Joe first said, do we like the market, do we like the business, and is that a fit with the company? So I think the strategic counter is of course before even we talk about multiple, clearly, we need to pay market multiples to be able to play and be successful here. And I think, as Joe outlined, we are very disciplined around the financial criteria around being able to generate ROIC that are above our cost of capital in 3 to 5 years. So I think you've got to think about a growth from a strategic filter as well as a financial return perspective.

Yes. And I might just add that a good example in medical over the past several years as we've done quite a few deals in that space, multiples tend to be higher, but it also disproportionately higher growth rates in the company as well. And so I think we take that into consideration also.

Great. Joe, could you explain how you calculate ROIC?

ROIC. Well, we define ROIC as NOPAT. So net operating profit after tax divided by invested capital, debt plus equity -- net debt, sorry, plus equity.

Thank you. In terms of the principle of accelerating acquisitive growth, how important is [indiscernible] meaning the definition of adjacencies?

Let me take that, Lara. I think it's really important to remember where we are focused on. We're focused on medical. We're focused on test and inspection. Those are the 2 primary areas we are focused on. And we believe this marketplace, it is fragmented. We have opportunities, and we have proven track record in both these areas of building businesses and operating them at the Nordson-like levels. So those are the 2 areas we'll be very focused on. But as Joe described to you, we -- there are opportunities for us to look adjacent pretty close to where we are, and we do that on a regular basis. We have a growth and innovation team that is focused on identifying new opportunities that have Nordson-like business criteria. And so we're going to remain disciplined. I don't believe we need to expand our definition, but I think closer to the core would be a good way to think about it.

I can complement there too, Naga, because even when you look at our segment, while we're very finally attuned to our organic growth opportunities and mostly focused there, should there be interesting opportunities that we find based on our market presence and our partners and where we're participating in the markets, we would look at those. And we continue to look at those, and we consider those as we go through the longer-term plan. But again, really focusing on that organic, but we would never pass by one of those great adjacencies and great opportunities to couple with our strong businesses that we have today.

Great. Joe and Jeff, it seems like the vaccine phenomenon really actuated some of Nordson's potential in biopharm processing. To what extent does this debug a fresh M&A lens to pursue acquisitive growth on a broader process industry player?

Yes. So I'll take that. We were very fortunate a number of years ago to identify this move from reusable equipment and systems in biopharm processing to single use. And so the industry has evolved over the last several years and continues to evolve to single-use systems. These are bag systems typically, where they're kind of mixing and manufacturing the drugs, and they have a lot of tubes and bag ports and clamps and those types of fluid components. So we identified this opportunity a number of years ago when we saw the industry starting to move towards single use. And we went down a very aggressive path of building out our product portfolio to serve this industry. And so we are very pleased over the past year that a lot of that innovation, we were able to apply very quickly over to the vaccine development and manufacturing. So it remains a real growing, fast-growing core part of our medical business, specifically our fluid components business. We continue organically to have opportunities to expand our product portfolio there and play an emerging sort of diagnostic testing type of single-use components that are emerging. And we will continue to look for opportunities there. Joe mentioned our pipeline earlier. If I look at our medical pipeline today, there's some things in there relative to some of the more recent trends around biopharm, vaccines and other types of processing type of -- disease processing equipment.

Yes. I would just add, as we look at medical M&A specifically, what we've learned and continue to learn, particularly through the Ascend strategy and the segmentation is that importance of differentiation, but also a defendable differentiation. And so when we look at targets in the medical space, we're really looking for points of differentiation that are defendable similar to what we have built, as Jeff just referenced.

Great. Greg, within IPS, where, either by market or application, do you expect to see or target the Ascend strategy growth acceleration?

Wow. I would say everywhere. We have a great portfolio. If you think about our divisions and the markets that we serve, we've got a great, broad portfolio of products. And we've got divisions that are at different stages of maturity with different types of opportunities. So you've got our adhesives businesses where the opportunity would be on a purely top line growth. We've got very strong margins there. So we're really going to focus on the top line. And then you've got our polymer processing systems and our ICS systems, where you've got a differentiated opportunity for profitability growth. So we're going to focus on profitability there. And the Ascend strategy will bring that focus, coupling in all that we're bringing with NBS Next. So I think it will help us everywhere, where we focus throughout the world that brings the teams together and helps them to move as one. And so you get -- our geographic reach expands as we go into new markets, that will be stronger. As we make choices in those new markets about where we want to participate, we'll make better decisions, and that will allow us to get farther and faster. But when you think about the different profiles and the different P&L profiles that we have in each one of these divisions, I think Ascend really helps us focus on where we can be better. Some are more revenue focused, some are a mix of revenue growth coupled with profitability growth. And when you put it all together, you get those growth rates that we just shared today.

Great. How do we think about gross margin longer term? They've been in decline since 2011, and M&A will likely be more dilutive. Will gross margin go below 50% longer term? Is this a concern?

Let me start there, Joe, and then you can add to it. I think it's really important for us. Gross margin is a great indicator of differentiation. And that's how we think about it. So any of our acquisition assets that we're looking for, we're looking for differentiated businesses. Hence, we pay keen attention to gross margin. And our goal is to -- if the gross margin is slightly below the company average, our -- one of the key assessment is to understand how -- what is the pathway to Nordson-like gross margins. So differentiation equals gross margins. Our goal is to have current 54%, 55% kind of gross margins as sort of our target area. Joe, you want to add some stuff to that?

Yes. I would add. I'm not going to reference going back to 2011, but if you look over the last several years, we have maintained north of 50% gross margin, the 54% range. And actually, in Q1, we had quite strong gross margin. So when you think about the components of NBS Next, several of those will express themselves that we are successful in the execution in the form of gross margin expansion. And so we -- the broad question, how do we think about it, we're very focused on it. We're very proud of our 50% and higher gross margin. And we will continue to drive expansion. But I would point you to the EBITDA margin. And so our EBITDA margin over the last 5 years has expanded, and we're committed to then expand that again over the next 5-year period. And so we are focused on profitability and expanding the profitability as we go.

And I'd complement that as well, Joe. If you think about our gross margins at 54% as a corporation, that's an average. So we've got some that are above, and we've got some that are south to 54%. I would tell you that neither Jeff and I have plans of giving up any of the hard-earned gross margins that we've gained today. But we've got keen line of sight to some of the businesses where we can get margin improvement. And I think as we go over the next 5 years and use what we can get from NBS Next, bringing these teams together and focusing on those right things, we keep what we have today in our higher gross margin businesses, and then we add to the gross margins in those that we know that can perform a little bit better.

Great. Naga, what can we expect going forward from Nordson in terms of ESG disclosure?

Yes. Lara, I think it's a great question. Nordson's ESG disclosure, let's start with what do we do in ESG. I am incredibly proud of all the work our teams do around ESG. We talked about our impact in our communities where we work and live. The company does an incredible. I mean, it's a special part of Nordson. We gave pretty close to $10 million a year towards this activity, very proud of it. We do incredible amount of work around product innovation, helping our customers reduce material usage. We are a very manufacturing-light business. And we have a very diversified core. So we do a lot of the right things and we do a lot of great work in the company. Where you're going to see us is we could do a better job of telling everybody about the great job our teams do. And so I think -- I think it's a good expectation that in the coming years, you're going to see Nordson do a better job of marketing the great work Nordson already does. So it's not a question of doing more work here. I think it is more marketing of the work we already do.

Great. Okay. Next question. What is your appetite for larger acquisitions? And how would you consider financing them if they took you materially above your 2.5% leverage target?

Let me get that started. And then, Joe, you can help me with the second part of the question. The first part of the question, really, size is not the issue. I think you got to start with the things that we've talked about. We've talked about strategic filters, right? We've talked about a focus on differentiation, number one, rooted in physician technologies. Number two, are the markets high-growth, attractive end markets, right? Do you like the market? Do you like the business? And then what is the fit with our customer-centric business model? Those 3 questions really inform us whether we do the deal or not. Size is important, but it is not the most important criteria. And so on the financial side, let me get Joe to help me here so.

And I would just add to that. The pipeline we have, given the -- where we're targeting, it's a large market and a fragmented market in medical and test and inspection. So we do see a robust pipeline of actionable targets. And so we're encouraged by that. Now that being said, the specific question, larger deal, if we were to go up to 2.5x leverage or for the right deal beyond that, it would be a combination of debt and equity that would accomplish that. But I would tell you, the majority of our pipeline is filled with those $50 million to $150 million targets aligned with the strategic criteria that Naga said.

And one thing to add to it, right? Even in the recent past, we've seen the company stretch beyond that 2.5x leverage. But when we do, we quickly work our way back into the ways that we want to be in. So we've done that just recently a couple of years ago right after a significant Vention acquisition.

Yes. We would be comfortable going above the 2.5 for a short period of time and get back. And our covenants, too, are around 3.7.

I would just say that we -- probably the largest deal we've done in the last few years, we did go up around those levels. But with our cash generation, we were able to deleverage quite quickly so.

Okay. Clearly, M&A is a greater priority going forward. Naga, can you provide some details around your M&A experience at ITW and how you expect it will translate at Nordson? Do you foresee a small series of deals or series of small deals? Or do you target some larger ones?

Yes. My experience over a long period of time at ITW centered around both organic and inorganic growth. And most recently, the last acquisition was a fairly sizable acquisition. We're not here to talk about my previous employers, so I wouldn't spend a lot of time there. But the last deal we did was a fairly large $400 million deal before I left the company. What I will point you for Nordson, our opportunity is around these 2 strategic areas we've talked about: Medical, test and inspection. And in both those areas, as Joe mentioned and Jeff has pointed out, it is a fragmented marketplace. We do have opportunities in -- so our sweet spot is somewhere between $50 million and $150 million. Would we like to do $150 million or $300 million all the time? Yes. The answer is yes. But we don't control what comes to market at any point of time. Our sweet spot is between $50 million and $150 million. Over time, would we be comfortable doing a larger deal? Yes. The answer is yes.

And I would just add, as someone who's kind of been involved in a lot of the acquisitions over the past decade or more here at Nordson. Our pipeline does reflect opportunities that some larger ones, we would call scale accelerators, try to get some scale in kind of 1 deal. Those are many times preferable. It takes us much work many times to do a large deal that does a small one. But what we find along the way is where we find some tuck ins, some rollouts and tuck-ins that fit really nicely into our current businesses, and we can really get good synergies out of those. And in many cases, we'll take a -- we'll acquire a company, a product technology that's really good in 1 geographic region, and we've put that into our global network, and we can really accelerate growth with that product line and that technology. And we've proven that a few times as well. So our pipeline sort of runs the gamut of small to larger, and we look at all.

And I would also just add, if you look the past 5 years, acquisition contributed about half of the top line growth. So acquisition for Nordson is not new, jeff, to your point, and we're just looking to accelerate that a little bit. And when you think about the NBS Next and the Ascend strategy and the building of winning teams, it's really -- it's encouraging that, that will build a platform from which we'll increase our likelihood of success as we integrate these acquisitions, for instance, to execute.

Joe, the thing to think about here is $500 million, at least in the Nordson way of thinking. $500 million over the next 5 years is really adding 2 divisions to the company. That's what you're talking about, right? Today, we have 10 divisions. Having $500 million is having 2 more divisions to the company. So are we ready for something like that? Absolutely, we are, right? And would they come in the sequence in which we would like? No. It wouldn't. But I think we're very comfortable with the targets we have set. We're comfortable with the areas we've chosen. You like the strategic filters and the financial rigor that I was bringing in. But more importantly, we are building a new playbook for the company with the Ascend strategy around NBS Next, a comprehensive growth framework, an owner mindset that brings us -- be able to accelerate the scale of the company with a decentralized division-like structure. And with a commitment to winning teams, building the talent we need to be able to deliver on our organic growth promise as well as do the acquisitions that we're looking to do. So that's kind of what we think about this.

So do the M&A ideas bubble up from the business segments with NBS Next? Or are they top down?

Yes. I'll get us started and then maybe Jeff and Joe, you guys can add to it. For us, we are a division-led company, division-led company that meets our strategies for acquisitions as well as organic growth start at the divisions. But new platform or new adjacent ideas, certainly, our corporate -- we have a corporate growth and innovation team that is leading that charge. Let me stop there, and Jeff and Joe, you'd be able to...

Maybe I'll take that as someone who's lived this out in the operating businesses. So I think one of the great features of how we approach this and the company is it's really division-led, it's business-led so that it comes right out of our strategy. And the people that are closest to these markets and these customers are the ones determining kind of where the adjacencies are, where we can add scale to an individual business or division. So we're very involved with the operating level inside the business, but we also work very closely with the corporate development team that Naga referenced. We've got a very capable, small but very capable team that really helps us sort of dig in deeper when we find opportunities to help with the pipeline development. And as Naga said, as we look for adjacencies that might be a bit outside of our divisions, we lean on that group really to help us get really knowledgeable really quick in that space. So the businesses are very involved in this.

Great. How are you thinking about GDP growth through 2025 relative to our sales target. Are you no longer benchmarking growth to GDP?

Let me get us started and then, Joe. I think it's important to bear in mind given our diversified nature of end markets we serve, in some businesses, it's a good practice, but in other businesses, it's not. So for example, our electronics business is more a tech cycle. But our consumer nondurable IPS segment where we have brakes businesses has a better correlation. It's really difficult for us to benchmark against GDP. But it's a good indicator for us. It's certainly a consideration. And as we built this model, 5 years out, it's difficult to sort to predict what will happen in the 5 years, but we certainly have a good visibility over the next 2 years. Let me stop there. And Joe, maybe you could add more color to that.

I would just reiterate. I mean, our focus, as both Greg and Jeff reviewed, is our products, our division, but also the end markets and applications. And so it's those attractive applications, in particular end markets or general end markets, which is where we're focused. And so when you look at the mix of our businesses that way with that type of segmentation, we're zoning in on a number. And so over the cycle, we're zoning in on the greater than 3% for IPS, greater than 5% for ATS. And so when I think about those targets, those also work well internally as we communicate internally and drive the teams.

Yes. And I would just say, GDP is a good starting point. Probably in the recent -- in the near term, pretty hard to predict, but it's a good starting point. But you heard Greg and I talk a lot today about within the markets we serve, looking for specific applications that are higher growth within that market so we can try to outperform the market growth rate. And so I think that's how we've sort of built up our sales forecast. And our growth projections is really where can we play within a market in areas of higher precision, more technology that could drive a higher growth rate.

Great. How should we think about the contribution from each segment to reach that EBITDA improvement target?

Yes. So each segment, both Jeff and Greg reviewed their individual component. So Greg in IPS sees a 500 base -- I'm sorry, 400 basis points expansion to contribute will come from that segment. And then Greg, and the AT -- I'm sorry, Jeff and the ATS segment will contribute over 500 basis points.

And like I said, within the segment, I think both Jeff and I have divisions with varying, I'd say, levels of operational efficiency. So there's some component in each of our segments where we know we can focus to get those gains. And there's other ones where we want to focus really on the top line growth. So I think both of us feel very confident in being able to deliver on that promise.

Yes. And as we manage our kind of cost structures, just putting the volume growth on top that we've talked about is going to give us a lot of leverage down to the margin. And so as you track us on this going forward, look at our incremental margin that we delivered in the quarter. And that's how we measure the success and think about it because as both Jeff and Greg mentioned that volume growth and the focus on gross margins that we've discussed earlier, it results in 40% to 45% incremental margins overall.

And probably add to that, I would say, on an annual basis, you will consistently see EBITDA margin expansion come about through business improvement process that we've got in play through the execution of NBS Next. So a combination of business performance improvement for NBS Next and a volume leverage really what it's been [ indicative of ] EBITDA margin that we feel pretty good about.

Great. Great. This is related to packaging. How could Nordson adapt to a possibly growing consumer trend toward reducing packaging waste? Some examples are zero waste grocery and reusable consumer goods containers. Any opportunities in expanding plastic recycling?

Yes, there actually are a lot of opportunities there. We touched on it a little bit before, but that's when our customers come to Nordson, when they have initiatives that they want to go execute on. For example, if you think about a box, a box is made up of sides and flaps. And when you talk about reduction of the material that you're using there, it's not always adhesives. A lot of times, it's that cardboard itself. So the reduction of those flaps, using -- being able to have smaller flaps because the bond is better or have less overlap in those flaps. So think about the edge on the seal could be much smaller because the bond is better or the adhesive is specifically placed perfectly where it needs to be. We help consumers -- we help our customers with that every day. And there's also the ability to reduce the amount of adhesives itself, which when you think about what's going on in the world today with limited supplies and quantities of these raw materials available in the market, our ability to do more with less and at higher speeds really, really helps with all of those end goals [indiscernible] the customers have. We also do things, when you think about packaging, it's also about things that you put on the package. So sometimes people put coupons on packages. Sometimes they put straws on packages. So when you think about efforts to reduce single-use plastic like straws that might go on packages today like on juice boxes, they come to Nordson. How might we put a different straw on this juice box? How might we do this in a [indiscernible] different way so we could use something besides plastic, we could use something that's smaller, we could use less material, all of those things customers come to Nordson. And that's captured within our packaging market.

Great. Nordson's organic growth is low single digits to mid-single digits. Much higher organic growth is expected to become a much more important industrial company's valuation in addition to profitability in a digital economy. How are you pivoting to new industrial growth vectors?

So let me get us started. If you think about the areas that we're focused on, if you start with our core business which was our IPS segment, clearly, we are focused on automation. Automation is a great area for us and something that Greg talked about. Second area, especially if you look at e-commerce, we're significantly focused there. And if you think about in the ATS business with high technology, products that are going to drive the data-oriented, data-driven technology from an economy, they're right there, and we're very focused on that. And medical is -- medical and biopharma. So quite frankly, I feel pretty good about where we are focused and what we are looking forward to. But Greg or Jeff, if you could add some color to for your respective areas?

Yes. So I would say -- I would say that was well said, Naga. And not only do we address those markets, but we participate in that market. So when you think about the new products, what we have, they're not always -- we talk about differentiation, but they're not always only mechanically differentiated. There is a big controls component to that, how we integrate with our customers' process, how those controls work, our ability to not only dispense, but to measure. So we just talk about material savings, how do we measure, how do we know that we did it? So controls are a big part of that as we move to automation the ability for machines and components to work together in harmony and in sync. There's certain things that we can do because of our scale. There's certain things that we can do because of markets that we participate in and insight that we have in the future of direction markets that others just can't. So when it comes down to having a lot of uniqueness in our products, we embed that into our product innovations. So if you start way back in strategic discipline, we decide the markets where we want to participate in that might have the higher growth. We have a tremendous understanding around those markets. And then we build not only the right products, but the controls that will work seamlessly with our customers' control to be able to make that happen. So it's addressing those digital markets and also being part of them. That gives us a lot of insight.

Yes. And I would just add, you guys have hit on all of it. But I'm really encouraged to see that everywhere that we play, in Greg's segment and my segment, you talk about medical and electronics, where there is evolution in technology, where there are sort of demographic or other types of drivers going on, we are sort of at the forefront of working with our customers to kind of realize that technology. So if you think about in medical, it's a move to less invasive surgeries. And that's kind of where our interventional solutions play. On electronics, it's about lower power consumption, increased bandwidth. All those things, higher throughputs to get capacity through. We talk a lot today about how our solutions that we're developing address all those types of things. And so the things that you mentioned about your business, Greg, and kind of what we're doing on my side, I think bodes well for the innovation that's going on in the world today. We're playing a large hand in that. I think that bodes well.

I think to finally wrap it up, right, I mean, what I would tell you is that what we are targeting is the 7-plus percent revenue growth over the period of 5 years, balanced between organic and acquisition-led and a commitment to expand already a strong EBITDA margin, which is 27% to 30%, right. So really positioning Nordson to deliver on the promise it has by adding the Ascend strategy, which really brings a new set of capabilities that enables the company to become a top-tier growth company with attractive margins and returns and really step to someone, the $3 billion, 30% is an important mile marker for us. But that is a mile marker in our journey to become a top tier revenue growth company with attractive margins and return.

Well said. Just a few more questions here before we close. As always, we are available after the event for any additional questions or discussions. NBS Next, the strategic discipline exercise led to the screws and barrels divestiture. Do you see any other notable product eliminations or customer attrition being born out of this ongoing process? Also, based on current asset bases, what are Nordson's current TAMs in medical and T&I?

So let me give a broad response around where we are at on NBS Next and how it impacts. And then maybe Jeff, you could add around the total addressable market. I assume that's the TAM for the product. So NBS Next, strategic discipline is an important way that we identified the best growth opportunity. Having said, what we have looked at our current portfolio of products and businesses and end markets that we serve, feel really good about what we have in the portfolio today, differentiated, have potential to become Nordson-like margins across. So we feel really, really good about it. And then the second point of it is that portfolio analysis is a dynamic ongoing process. We do this as a part of our strategy plan at every division. And so based on what we know today, we really like the markets we are in. Don't contemplate anything sizable as we talked about in screws and barrels, but it is an ongoing process for us. Jeff, if you want to talk a little bit about...

Yes. Yes, just briefly on the 2 markets. So I think, broadly speaking, in both medical and electronics, they can be sort of very fragmented. If you think about how they're defined, they can be defined very broadly. We tend to really focus on where we want to play. And so if you think about a $300 billion, $400 billion global medical device market, we might be targeting a $4 billion to $5 billion segment of precision components, high-margin interventional solutions and components and those types of things. So we really have in medical quite a -- quite an opportunity to continue to penetrate and grow in that space with our solutions. I'd say the same with electronics. It's quite a broad space. We tend to play in some of the areas like advanced semiconductor packaging, advanced print circuit board design, test and inspection, some of the highest automated x-ray image analysis, the best technology there is. And so we tend to play in a small portion -- a smaller portion of a much larger opportunity, but it tends to be in the higher margin, differentiated area where our precision technology really has value with our customers. So I think in both spaces, we still have plenty of room to grow, and we tend to be, as I mentioned a few moments ago, we tend to really be targeting and participating in some of the most attractive applications in both of those end markets.

Great. And then our final question for today, all we have time for, and then again, always available for additional questions afterwards. The -- in our long-term focus, 5 years from today, Naga, you mentioned the IPS top line percent shrinks from 55% to 40% in the future. The question is phrased as, "What are the limitations of IPS future growth?" But I know it's more about growing ATS and maintaining our focus on IPS. But maybe you can use this opportunity or this question to talk about your vision for the future as part of our conclusion or last question here.

Yes, Lara. Thank you, Lara. As you said, I think the way to think about this is we're not shrinking IPS. We are really growing the parts that we have decided that has the greatest growth opportunities. Both our medical business, test and inspection, 2 areas where we believe we have fundamentally strong acquisition opportunities. The organic growth opportunities in IPS is 3-plus percent. It's pretty good. It is in line with what we have done in this business before, and we will continue to do. And as the company gets bigger, the percent may be smaller, but the size of the business is more -- still, it is over $1 billion, and it is a pretty darn important part of the company, and it is an enduring part of the company's legacy which kind of illustrates how we do. So the way I would frame it up is it is our opportunity to grow in medical. It is our opportunity to grow in test and inspection on top of high-base market growth we also have the opportunity to acquire. That's how I would think about.

Great. Good. Well, thank you, everyone, for your attendance. Thank you to our panelists. Again, happy to answer any follow-up questions. And Naga, I'll now turn it over to you for any closing remarks.

Thank you, Lara. I'm excited that Nordson is starting with a position of strength with great raw materials, raw materials that we've talked about, precision technologies, our customer intimate business model, our global service and sales infrastructure and high recurring revenue content and a very diverse set of end markets with very attractive growth profile. I'm also pleased with the momentum we are building within the company to build a stronger Nordson by implementing the Ascend strategy with NBS Next at its core to deliver on $3 billion 30% EBITDA in the next 5 years. Thank you again for your time and interest today, and have a wonderful day.