You are given a text that consists of multiple sentences. Your task is to perform abstractive summarization on this text. Use your understanding of the content to express the main ideas and crucial details in a shorter, coherent, and natural sounding text. 
Text: We're glad you can join us today.
I'm Jim Lucas, Senior Vice President, Treasurer and Investor Relations.
Actual results could differ materially from anticipated results.
This is certainly a historic time that we are experiencing in the last few months have tried the patients in the entire world and Pentair.
I would like to extend my sincerest sympathies to all that have suffered lost during this horrific global pandemic.
We're taking care of our customers, and we continue to focus on delivering the best financial results possible.
They truly represent the spirit of our culture, and I appreciate their dedication, their courage and their contributions to the first quarter results.
We were very pleased to deliver adjusted earnings per share for the quarter that was above the high end of our prior guidance range.
Inclusive of the challenges from COVID-19 that initially impacted our business in China earlier in the quarter and then globally toward the end of the quarter.
We also recently announced that key hires for CFO and for our previously announced segment structure.
Bob joins Pentair after a long successful career at NCR, where he was essential part of the company's transformation from a hardware and systems manufacturer into a software and services provider.
We also announced the hiring of Mario D'Ovidio to lead our Consumer Solutions segment.
Mario joins us most recently from Electrolux and brings a strong background from several consumer-influenced businesses focused on multiple channels.
Mario will bring a growth mindset and a sense of urgency to our Consumer Solutions businesses.
Jerome Pedretti, who has been with Pentair for nearly 15 years, will lead our Industrial & Flow Technologies segment.
Jerome has held experiences at Pentair and has proven himself as a developer of talent.
He also embraces our PIMS processes and culture and will utilize his experiences to improve the operating capabilities of the Industrial & Flow Technologies businesses.
Finally, we announced the elimination of the COO role, and that Karl Frykman will help oversee an orderly transition with Mario, and will also work with me through the end of the year as a special advisor.
Turning back to market demands.
While we formally withdrew our quarter and annual guidance at the end of March due to a lack of visibility, we are planning for significantly reduced demand throughout the remainder of 2020.
We do not have clarity at this time around the potential impacts to each of our lines of business or when the markets will recover.
Because of lack of clarity, we are taking appropriate actions to adjust our cost structure while still keeping a focus on the longer term as we expect that demand will eventually return for most of our businesses.
Finally, we are focused on maintaining a strong liquidity position.
Pentair has a long track record of being a strong cash flow generator, and our balance sheet is in a solid position.
We understand that the remainder of the year will be a challenge to bring uncertainty.
However, we believe that our strong operating culture and well-positioned businesses will eventually prevail over this pandemic and its impacts on the economy.
Our focus has been and will continue to be on the safety and well-being of our employees while also being mindful of serving customer demand to the best of our abilities.
Our business in China and Southeast Asia saw considerable negative impact in the first quarter, but we did not see much impact in Europe or the U.S. until later in the quarter.
While we have seen our operations in China return to more normalized levels, demand still has not returned to China and Southeast Asia to levels before the pandemic.
Outside of China, we have seen softening demand at start of April, and we took actions to reduce the bottom line impact of expected revenue declines.
In the short term, we are focused on cost reductions in line with lower revenue levels.
We feel good about our balance sheet, cash flow and liquidity and believe that we are well prepared to survive the storm.
We remain focused on our long-term goals and strategy, and we will continue to prepare to take advantage of opportunities when business recovers.
I wanted to spend a few moments on our portfolio exposure and what demand trends we are currently experiencing.
Consumer Solutions is a $1.6 billion segment comprised of our pool and our water solutions businesses.
As you can see on this slide, Consumer Solutions is approximately 75% residential, and approximately 75% of the revenue serves the installed aftermarket base.
Our pool business is a leader in the North American pool equipment business.
There are approximately 5.5 million pools installed in the ground.
Our dealers continue to operate in most geographies.
And we expect the aftermarket business, which represents roughly 80% of our pool business, to see some short term softness, but not to the extent that we might expect will occur in the new pool construction and remodeling parts of the business.
While we had a solid start to the season in March, we have seen some softness to start April.
We believe that inventory levels in the channel are in line with historic levels, but we will be monitoring demand throughout the season.
Our Water Solutions business is made up of components, residential systems and commercial systems.
Within our components business, we have not yet seen many changes within the important wholesale channel.
Residential Systems, which includes the Aquion and Pelican businesses we acquired last year, are somewhat dependent on in-home visits and retail traffic.
While we have not yet seen a material drop-off in demand, there are concerns over consumer behavior in the short term.
Finally, our Commercial Systems business has large exposure to restaurants and hospitality and have seen significant slowing of demand, as expected, with the closures of businesses in these industries.
While we expect some short-term disruptions for our Consumer Solutions segment, we continue to believe that water quality will remain a key focus for consumers and other commercial businesses, and we anticipate this business will be well positioned when markets eventually recover.
Industrial & Flow Technologies, or IFT, is a $1.3 billion segment comprised of our residential and irrigation flow, commercial and infrastructure flow and industrial filtration businesses.
As you can see, IFT is a more diverse segment than Consumer Solutions with approximately half of sales tied to various industrial markets.
IFT does, however, generate approximately 65% of sales from the installed aftermarket base.
Within residential and irrigation flow, we have seen some slowing among our distributors, but this is more in the retail than professional channel.
This business is where we have some exposure to agriculture.
And while the OEM exposed business is down, our aftermarket business is performing better than it did a year ago.
It is important to note that the majority of the residential and irrigation flow portfolio consists of products that are break and fix in nature and tend to be less discretionary purchases.
Our Commercial & Infrastructure Flow business manufactures larger engineered pumps, and it tends to be a backlog-driven business.
Our commercial businesses have seen some slowing of orders, but backlog has not yet been impacted.
Within infrastructure, which is the smaller piece of this business, we are seeing strong backlog, but we'll be watching orders for any signs of slowing, given this is a long-cycle business.
Our Industrial Filtration business is comprised of a number of product lines that serve a wide variety of applications.
For instance, we have a strong niche in beer membrane filtration and other components to the beer industry.
We also have a sustainable gas business that recycles CO2.
We continue to feel comfortable about our overall portfolio given our large installed base and limited industrial manufacturing exposure.
Our products are solutions that help customers solve needs, and we'll be prepared to serve demand when it returns.
It is hard to leave after 12 years with Pentair, but I believe the company is well positioned and will emerge from this current situation stronger as a leading water treatment company.
This chart is to help illustrate our cost structure and the levers available to us as the top line visibility remains challenged.
Materials is our biggest cost at approximately 40% of sales and is the one piece of our structure that is truly variable.
We are engaged in a number of supplier rapid renegotiations to continuously look for opportunities to further reduce input costs.
The rest of the cost structure has variability, but requires actions on our part, and many of the actions come with costs and/or consequences.
In the short term, we will look to drive manufacturing labor reductions in line with volume declines with temporary measures such as furloughs to keep as much of the team intact for the eventual recovery.
Although a significant portion of our overhead is fixed, we are focused on deferring and reducing nonlabor outside spending.
We are targeting overhead reduction at roughly half of the potential volume drop.
On the operating expense side, we have implemented hiring freezes, and we are driving significant savings from delaying, reducing or eliminating purchase services and travel.
There are other costs to go after depending on the extent and level of the volume decline, and we also recognize if the declines expected globally in the second quarter carry over to the remainder of the year, then sales and management incentive plans may not pay out at planned levels.
We are taking necessary actions in the short term to mitigate the expected top line decreases, and we'll watch closely for signs of stabilization before looking to pull additional levers.
Our goal is to manage through this environment to the best of our abilities while doing what we can to prepare for an eventual recovery.
With liquidity in focus, we want to spend a few minutes highlighting why we feel comfortable with our financial position.
As this slide illustrates, we do not have any meaningful debt maturities for the next few years.
We ended the quarter with $169 million in cash and $326 million available under our revolver.
Given the seasonality of our pool business, we tend to use cash in the first quarter, and our second quarter tends to be our strongest cash-generating period given the collection on the pool receivables.
We do not expect that trend to change this year, and, therefore, we anticipate our financial position strengthening even further as the second quarter progresses.
We ended the first quarter with a leverage ratio of 2.1 times, which is well below our 3.7 times covenant.
Given the dramatically changing environment, we have lowered our capital expenditures forecast by over 10% for the year.
During the first quarter, we repurchased $115 million of our shares, but we suspended the buyback during the quarter and are currently choosing to remain on the sidelines as we focus on our strong liquidity.
This is our standard slide we present each quarter.
On the left-hand side of the page, our free cash flow improved rather dramatically from the comparable period last year.
As we highlighted on our fourth quarter earnings call, we did see some timing issues around payables at the start of 2019, but we believe that this year's performance is more reflective of our normal seasonal pattern.
The right-hand side of the page highlights our debt position at the end of the quarter.
While we covered our liquidity position on the previous slide, we would point out that we have a healthy mix between fixed and variable debt.
Our average borrowing rate for the quarter was a very respectable 2.6%, and we ended the quarter with 14.4% ROIC.
Overall, we feel our balance sheet is strong.
And while the outlook for the P&L in the near-term is a bit challenging, given the lack of visibility, we believe that our balance sheet is well positioned to help us navigate through these uncertain times.
For the first quarter, overall sales grew 3%, and core sales also increased 3%.
Segment income grew 13%, return on sales expanded 140 basis points, and adjusted earnings per share increased 21%.
This performance was helped by positive sales mix, price costs and productivity.
Below the line, we saw an adjusted tax rate of 16%, net interest other expense of $7.5 million, and our average shares in the quarter were $168.7 million.
Consumer Solutions saw sales increased 9% with core sales growing 7%.
Pool grew at a low double digit rate against an easy comp and more normal weather patterns.
The pool season appeared to start off more positively this year.
And as John alluded to earlier in the call, it seems anecdotally that pool owners, who are sheltered in place, are opening their pools perhaps a bit earlier than normal.
Our Water Solutions business grew high single digits in the quarter as positive acquisition contribution helped offset sharp declines in China and Southeast Asia that were impacted by the global pandemic.
Within the larger U.S. market, demand had not begun to fall off at the end of the quarter, and we are monitoring trends closely.
The segment had strong segment income performance growing 13% year-over-year, and ROS expanded 80 basis points to 21.8%.
We are pleased with the strong start to the year by Consumer Solutions, but we expect that this will reverse course in the second quarter.
While we plan to manage the cost structure accordingly, we remain focused on the long-term opportunities for the segment.
IFT reported a 3% decline in sales with core growth down 2%.
Residential and irrigation flow saw flat sales performance as positive pricing and a still healthy professional channel was not enough to offset weakness in agriculture and retail.
Commercial and infrastructure flow experienced a mid-single-digit decline in sales as some of the backlog-driven business was negatively impacted by COVID-19 related delays.
In addition, we continue to focus on improving internal delivery rates for this business.
But overall, backlog remains solid, and we are monitoring the order book closely.
Industrial filtration saw sales decline low single digits due primarily to global delays in global projects.
Similar to commercial and infrastructure flow, this is a backlog-driven business, and we will also be closely monitoring the order book for the business.
Segment income was a positive story with a 9% year-over-year increase, and ROS improved 150 basis points to 13.9%.
While mix and price costs were positive contributors, productivity was especially strong.
While its mix of businesses will create some near-term challenges for IFT, there remain a number of self-help opportunities that we remain focused on intently.
While we have suspended our guidance until better visibility returns, we wanted to provide some of our current planning assumptions to help you understand how we are approaching the outlook for the remainder of the year.
First, we are planning for a recessionary environment.
Forecast call for double-digit declines in GDP in the short term, and it is hard to imagine that we would be immune from these external forces.
While we have some businesses that may fare a little better than others, such as our Pool and Water Solutions businesses, other parts of the portfolio might see more significant near-term headwinds.
As a result, as Mark highlighted earlier, we are aligning our costs with the lower expected volumes.
We do have additional cost levers to pull if necessary, but we want to be thoughtful in pulling any of these levers too soon.
We have made a number of significant investments to better position our Consumer Solutions business.
And while we may delay some of those investments, we do not want to cut them off altogether.
Our Pentair employees have been a big part of building our businesses, and I would like to keep our talented teams in place.
And I'm hopeful that we can weather the storm and aggressively pursue opportunities in our segments as the economy recovers.
As Mark highlighted earlier, we feel our liquidity is in a very strong position.
We have historically been a strong cash flow generator, and I believe that we are well positioned financially to weather this uncertain environment.
Finally, our goals remain on protecting our employees, customers and our businesses.
We will continue to optimize our free cash flow and liquidity.
And we expect to deliver the best financial results possible in the near term while focused on our longer-term strategies.
I'm sure when Mark said he would stay to oversee a smooth transition, he never envisioned a quarter like this.
I'm very excited to have Bob on board, and he and Mark are driving a seamless transition.
I am very confident that Bob will be a great replacement for Mark, but I'm still losing and will miss one of my best friends.
I wish you only the best, Mark.
You truly deserve it.

user
for 2020, pentair has withdrawn its guidance.
remains confident in its liquidity position having ended quarter with $169 million in cash, $1.45 billion of total debt.
has taken measures to enhance liquidity including implementing cost savings initiatives and temporarily suspending share repurchases.

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