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Text: A detailed discussion of the risks and uncertainties that may affect our future results is contained in AMETEK's filings with the SEC.
I'll now turn the meeting over to Dave.
AMETEK delivered outstanding results in the second quarter.
Strong sales growth and outstanding operating performance led to a high quality of earnings that exceeded our expectations.
We established record levels of sales, orders, operating income and adjusted earnings per share in the quarter.
This performance comes as we are still early in our economic recovery and reflects the outstanding efforts of our teams.
We also ended the quarter with a record backlog driven by exceptionally strong and broad-based orders growth, providing strong visibility across our mid- and long-cycle business profile.
The five acquisitions we completed earlier this year are integrating nicely and are well positioned to drive strong growth.
Given our second quarter results and our outlook for the back half of 2021, we have increased our sales and earnings guidance for the year.
Now let me turn to our second quarter results.
Our businesses saw robust, broad-based sales growth in the quarter.
Overall sales were a record $1.39 billion, up 37% over the same period in 2020.
Organic sales growth was 25%.
Acquisitions added 10 points to growth, while foreign currency added two points.
Overall orders in the quarter were a record $1.91 billion, a sharp increase of 92% over the prior year, while organic orders were an impressive 44% up in the quarter.
We ended the quarter with a record backlog of $2.5 billion, which is up over $700 million from the start of the year.
Our business has also delivered exceptional operating performance in the quarter.
While global supply chains remain tight, our businesses are doing a fantastic job managing through these challenges as is reflected in our results.
Second quarter operating income was a record $317 million, a nearly 40% increase over the second quarter of 2020.
And operating margins expanded 40 basis points to 22.8%.
Excluding the dilutive impact of acquisitions, core margins -- core operating margins expanded an exceptional 160 basis points to 24%.
EBITDA in the quarter was $387 million, up 34% over the prior year's second quarter, with EBITDA margins of 27.9%.
This operating performance led to earnings of $1.15 per diluted share, up 37% over the second quarter of 2020 and above our guidance range of $1.08 to $1.10.
Our businesses also generated strong cash flows in the quarter, which position us well to continue investing in our businesses and on strategic acquisitions.
In the second quarter, operating cash flow was $287 million, and free cash flow conversion was 114% of net income.
Let me provide some additional details at the operating group level.
Both our Electronic Instruments Group and Electromechanical Group delivered strong organic sales growth with excellent core margin expansion in the quarter.
Sales for EIG were a record $934 million, up 44% over last year's second quarter.
Organic sales were up 27%.
Recent acquisitions added 16%, and foreign currency added nearly two points.
EIG's second quarter operating income was $227 million, up 42% versus the same quarter last year.
And operating margins were 24.3%.
Excluding acquisitions, EIG's core margins were 26.3%, expanding an impressive 170 basis points over the comparable period.
The Electromechanical Group also delivered strong sales growth and outstanding operating performance.
EMG's second quarter sales increased 24% versus the prior year to $452 million.
Organic sales growth was 21%, and currency added three points to the quarter.
Growth was broad-based across our EMG businesses with particularly strong growth in our Advanced Motion Solutions business.
EMG's operating income in the second quarter was a record $112 million, up 33% compared to the prior year period.
And EMG's operating margins expanded an exceptional 170 basis points to a record 24.9%.
Now switching to our acquisition strategy.
As we noted during our previous call, we completed the acquisitions of Abaco and NSI-MI at the beginning of the second quarter.
These acquisitions as well as the first quarter acquisitions of Magnetrol, Crank Software and EGS are performing very well, and the integration work for these businesses is progressing as expected.
AMETEK's strong cash flow generation continues to bolster our capacity for capital deployment, including investment in strategic acquisitions.
Our M&A teams continue to work diligently through a robust pipeline of attractive acquisition opportunities, and we expect to remain active over the balance of the year.
Additionally, we're continuing to make key investments in support of our organic growth initiatives.
We remain committed to investing in research, development and engineering of our advanced technology products and to continue to providing our customers with innovative solutions and maintaining our leading positions in niche markets and applications.
In the second quarter, we invested $72 million in RD&E.
And for the full year, we now expect to invest more than $300 million or approximately 5.5% of sales.
For all of 2021, we now expect to invest approximately $100 million in incremental growth investments.
In addition to RD&E, this total investment includes our front-end sales and marketing functions, along with investments to help drive our digital transformation and allow our businesses to accelerate growth.
As noted, operating performance in the second quarter was outstanding with strong core margin expansion despite having to absorb the return of temporary costs into our cost structure.
While we are seeing higher levels of inflation due to the tightness of the global supply chain, we are capturing higher levels of price given our differentiated solutions and allowing us to maintain a healthy price versus inflation spread.
Additionally, we continue to see the benefits of our various operational excellence initiatives.
For the full year, we now expect approximately $145 million of operational excellence savings.
Now moving to our updated outlook for the remainder of 2021.
Given our strong performance in the second quarter, along with our orders momentum and record backlog, we have again raised our 2021 sales and earnings guidance.
For the full year, we now expect overall sales to be up approximately 20% and organic sales up approximately 10% over 2020.
Diluted earnings per share for 2021 are now expected to be in the range of $4.62 to $4.68, an increase of 17% to 18% over 2020's comparable basis and above our prior guide of $4.48 to $4.56 per diluted share.
For the third quarter, we anticipate that overall sales will be up in the mid-20% range versus the same period last year.
Third quarter earnings per diluted share are now expected to be between $1.16 to $1.18, up 15% to 17% over last year's third quarter.
In summary, AMETEK's second quarter results were superb, with excellent sales and orders growth and high-quality earnings growth exceeded expectations.
Our strong operating performance through the first half of the year shows the strength and flexibility of the AMETEK Growth Model.
Our differentiated technology solutions and market-leading positions across diverse niche applications have allowed us to navigate through difficult economic cycles and emerge as a stronger company each time.
The proven sustainable nature of the AMETEK Growth Model continues to drive long-term success for all of AMETEK's stakeholders.
As Dave highlighted, AMETEK delivered outstanding results in the second quarter with strong sales and orders growth, excellent operating performance and a high quality of earnings.
Let me provide some additional financial highlights for the quarter.
Second quarter general and administrative expenses were $22.5 million, up $5.6 million from the prior year largely due to higher compensation expense.
As a percentage of total sales, G&A was 1.6% for the quarter versus 1.7% in the same period last year.
For 2021, general and administrative expenses are now expected to be approximately $15 million -- or expected to be up approximately $15 million on higher compensation costs.
The effective tax rate in the second quarter was 20.6% compared to 19.5% in the same quarter last year.
The higher rate was driven by the impact of a U.K. rate change and the associated remeasurement of our deferred tax liabilities.
For 2021, we continue to expect our effective tax rate to be between 19% and 20%.
And as we've stated in the past, actual quarterly tax rates can differ dramatically either positively or negatively from this full year estimated rate.
Our businesses continue to manage their working capital exceptionally well.
For the quarter, working capital was 13.9% of sales, down an impressive 570 basis points from the 19.6% reported in the second quarter of 2020.
Capital expenditures in the second quarter were $23 million, and we continue to expect capital expenditures to be approximately $120 million for the full year.
Depreciation and amortization expense in the second quarter was $75 million.
For all of 2021, we continue to expect depreciation and amortization to be approximately $300 million, including after-tax, acquisition-related intangible amortization of approximately $141 million or $0.61 per diluted share.
As Dave highlighted, our businesses continue to generate strong levels of cash given our asset-light business model and strong working capital management.
In the second quarter, operating cash flow was $287 million and free cash flow was $264 million, with free cash flow conversion in the quarter a very strong 114% of net income.
Total debt at quarter end was $2.96 billion.
Offsetting this debt was cash and cash equivalents of $390 million.
As Dave noted, we've been very active on the acquisition front.
During the second quarter, we deployed approximately $1.58 billion on the acquisitions of Abaco Systems and NSI-MI.
This was in addition to the acquisitions of EGS, Crank Software and Magnetrol, which were completed in the first quarter of the year.
Combined, we have deployed approximately $1.85 billion on five strategic acquisitions thus far in 2021.
At quarter end, our gross debt-to-EBITDA ratio and our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio were 1.9 times and 1.6 times, respectively.
We remain well positioned to deploy additional capital and invest in our acquisition strategy given our strong financial capacity and flexibility.
At quarter end, we had approximately $2 billion of cash and existing credit facilities to support our growth initiatives.
To summarize, our businesses delivered excellent results in the second quarter that outperformed our expectations.
The performance of our businesses through the first half of the year, along with our strong balance sheet, tremendous cash flow generation and the dedication of our world-class workforce, has positioned the company exceptionally well for meaningful growth in 2021 and beyond.
Michelle, we're ready to take questions.

user
q2 adjusted earnings per share $1.15.
q2 sales $1.39 billion versus refinitiv ibes estimate of $1.33 billion.
for 2021, now expect overall sales to be up about 20%.
2021 adjusted earnings per diluted share expected to be in range of $4.62 to $4.68.
expect overall sales in q3 to be up in mid-20% range compared to q3 of 2020.
q3 adjusted earnings per diluted share anticipated to be in range of $1.16 to $1.18.

assistant