Joe Giordano — Managing Director, TD Cowen
Hey, guys. Good morning.
Eric Ashleman — President and CEO, IDEX Corp
Morning.
Joe Giordano — Managing Director, TD Cowen
Just curious on how to think about the guide here. One Q comes in 5%, two Q guided 3%-4%. Given the orders here, why should the second half organic decelerate from the pace that we're on now? Is this just, "Look, there's a lot going on in the world, and we're just playing it safe"?
Sean Gillen — CFO, IDEX Corp
I think HST should continue at a pretty similar clip as we've mentioned. High single-digit to double-digit growth at HST, and that's really driven by the order backlog, as you referenced, where we've seen that momentum. I think in FMT in particular is where we saw good performance in the quarter. The end of the quarter was stronger than the beginning, seeing some sequential improvement. As we outlook for the year, still seeing or forecasting a growth outlook that's a bit flat. That's probably a little bit of the macro world.
You know, one quarter into the year, some uncertainty in the macro world, and what we're seeing, the visibility, keeping that around flat. That's a little bit of color as, you know, first half of the year as we move into the second half.
Joe Giordano — Managing Director, TD Cowen
What needs to happen at HST to get margins back to like that, you know, 30-ish percent range that you were at a couple years ago? Is that incumbent on life sciences picking back up? What's kind of needed there to get back to historical highs?
Sean Gillen — CFO, IDEX Corp
Yeah, good question. I think there's two pieces to that. One is the recently acquired businesses, which are performing quite well and are driving a lot of the growth, as more of the growth in that business has come from the acquired businesses. Their still margins are strong, but they're not quite at the segment average yet. What we'll take to get there is, as we've talked in the last couple of quarters, some continued focus on 80/20, to drive margins higher in the acquired businesses. As they get their margins up and the growth continues to come from them, that will have a mixed benefit. Then the other piece is, as you mentioned, life sciences, you know, kind of flattish to slightly down in the quarter.
That's a nicely profitable business for us, so a little mix there. Would expect growth to return to that, as we go forward as well.
Joe Giordano — Managing Director, TD Cowen
Awesome. Thanks, guys. I'll jump back in the queue.
Matt Summerville — Analyst, D.A. Davidson
Thanks. A couple questions. Just on one of the last points Sean made, can you give a bit more context as to why you expect to see what sounded like maybe some sustained inflection from here in the life sciences portion of HST? Then I have a follow-up.
Eric Ashleman — President and CEO, IDEX Corp
I think the life science business is about exactly where we thought it would be. The core Fluidics and Optical Filters franchises that drive the bulk of the profits there are still growing low single digits. Honestly, the drivers on both sides remain the same. Pharma, really strong. The pressure points coming largely from both the China market for our end customers and then the funding, NIH funding, academic pressures that we've seen for a while now. I think for us in the first quarter, you remember about a year ago, you know, this was just starting to play out. Now we're pretty deep into it. I think most people are expecting that it'll remain at this pressure.
We had a call here that coming into the year, we thought, you know, these customers, some of our customers that depend on us were going to be a little guarded in some of the inventory positions of IDEX product. We saw that play out as we thought. You know, the dynamics here remain exactly as we've been talking about over the last few quarters. Kind of low single-digit growth, some positives, some negatives and, you know, but a ton of innovation and things that are going on here that I think longer term is going to give us a lot of confidence in where this market's going to go.
Matt Summerville — Analyst, D.A. Davidson
Can you also maybe highlight just how you saw incoming orders cadence through the first three months of the year, what you're seeing in April thus far across the businesses? Specifically, I'd be curious as to how the general industrial book-to-bill has been trending in both FMT and HST. Thank you.
Eric Ashleman — President and CEO, IDEX Corp
Yep. Yep. I mean, it's a little different, depending on the segments. You know, the HST side with the momentum that we're seeing there has, you know, less of a non-linearity profile. It's just been generally pretty strong for a while kind of saw it that way play out that way in the quarter. On the FMT and FSDP segments, which are certainly more, you know, fragmented, broadly indexed to industrial markets. You know, that was interesting. It was pretty soft in the beginning of the year in January. It came back a bit in February, it was a much stronger March. We've kind of stayed at that level here in April.
The one thing that's interesting, we've talked a lot about the businesses that we use as diagnostics for kind of near term health, while those were overall positive, you know, they didn't move positive in a uniform way. You know, we don't have sort of every member seeing the exact same thing. It's a little mixed. Even the project business that we saw in there, we don't get a lot of it, but we. You know, that tells us something too. Almost all of those you can trace back the successful ones back to, you know, some of the same mega trends that we're referencing in HST. Data center work, energy grid, things like that. I think it's improving.
It's better than, you know, we had obviously modeled originally for the quarter, but I would still put it in sort of a mixed place, and I think largely that's because of the overhang of the geopolitical situation.
Matt Summerville — Analyst, D.A. Davidson
Looks good. Thank you.
Nathan Jones — Managing Director, Stifel
Morning, everyone.
Eric Ashleman — President and CEO, IDEX Corp
Morning.
Nathan Jones — Managing Director, Stifel
I guess I'll follow up on the short cycle industrial question. Maybe you can talk a little bit more about the pieces of that that you where you're not seeing some improvement and maybe what you think is required to get those businesses going in the right direction again.
Eric Ashleman — President and CEO, IDEX Corp
Well, in the, in the few places where that played out, I'd say those businesses are a little bit more indexed to, you know, chemical markets and some of the ones that we mentioned, or kind of core energy. Their exposure there probably explains some of it. They're also probably the most fragmented businesses. You know, a lot of the orders there are one or two here, and they have really quick lead times. If somebody is uncertain, they're the kind of businesses that you really don't have to make much of a commitment because we're gonna be able to quick turn all of the product. I would say that's, you know, those would be the two characteristics.
This wasn't a lot of businesses, but there is some mix, there is a mixed nature of how these ran out over the last four months.
Nathan Jones — Managing Director, Stifel
Fair enough. I'm gonna ask the HST margin question a little bit differently. You've seen good positive growth for the last three quarters, and the incremental margins have been in the low 30s%. I think I would have expected, and I think you would expect long-term those incrementals to be higher. Can you maybe just run through the pieces that are keeping those depressed? I know you talked a little bit about acquisitions. There's probably some drag on that. maybe just some color on what's depressing those a little bit, what it takes to get back to kind of, you know, maybe into the 40s% on incremental margins. When you think you'll be able to get those incrementals to move back to a more historically normal level. Thanks.
Sean Gillen — CFO, IDEX Corp
Yeah. You know, for the last quarter or two and in this quarter, you know, the flow-through in HST was about 33%, so in that low- to mid-30%, as you referenced. As you think about kind of the guide for the year, we see that improving slightly, getting to kind of those mid-30%. All that's really in line with where we expected it to be for the year so far. Then in kind of what needs to happen to have it tick up, I think it's a couple points, you know, which I referenced. It's the acquired businesses which are below the segment EBITDA margins of kind of 26%-27%, as we take some 80/20 actions.
What I mean by that is as we start to prune some pieces of the portfolio within those businesses that are dragged on the margin within the acquired businesses and continue to grow the higher value add, higher margin parts of the acquired businesses. I'm thinking Muon, Micro-LAM, and Mott being some of the ones that have some room for improvement in overall margin. That's kind of point one. You know, those acquired businesses, a lot of the growth you're seeing are coming from those businesses. As they continue to provide more of the earnings power, getting their margin up will help increase the flow-through towards that 40%. Then part two is life sciences, which is a nicely profitable business for us.
As that grows, it has strong leverage and EBITDA flow-through. Haven't seen that in the first quarter or two, but for all the reasons that Eric mentioned, you would expect that to improve as we move through this fiscal year. In terms of getting to 40%, as I mentioned for the year, you know, the guide contemplates kind of mid-30% flow-throughs. I think as we get into next year and some of those 80/20 actions take hold and some improvement in some end markets, I think we'll get towards that 40%.
Nathan Jones — Managing Director, Stifel
Thanks for taking the questions.
Deane Dray — Managing Director, RBC
Thank you. Good morning, everyone.
Eric Ashleman — President and CEO, IDEX Corp
Morning, Deane.
Deane Dray — Managing Director, RBC
Hey, you called out some strength in the water business in FMT. Just kind of give us a sense of where that demand is. You know, how much of that is kind of the flow business versus projects, and what are your assumptions for the balance of the year?
Eric Ashleman — President and CEO, IDEX Corp
No, it remains a really strong part of the story. You know, the municipal facing side of that's, you know, kind of our core inspection and analytical software piece has been really good. We had some nice equipment sales in particular, this particular quarter to back that up. The hardware side was nice. Again, to remind people, it's a really great business that's very focused around storm water, storm water flow. Flow conditions and remediating those are a big part of what they do. That remains really relevant as we see, given the nature of infrastructure and catastrophic weather events. It's just really well-positioned.
The part that's, giving it an added boost this year is, we do have a component of that platform that is focused on, high purity water, largely for semicon applications. That has actually been headwind for that, for that group in the last, year or so. It's flipped over. It's now positive and growing as well. We've got kind of both of those firing. That accounts for the high single digit, growth that we posted, and we continue that to sustain.
Deane Dray — Managing Director, RBC
Great. Just as a follow-up, I wanted to ask about M&A activity in your sector, but that was done away. Just, you know, what the implications are and, you know, what the thoughts might be. We've seen some deals in the storm water space, combined sewer overflow. I mean, I think that's just a validation of how much a focus this is. Where do you see growth rates for you all in terms of is it M&A? Is it organic? That's a question. The second one, there was a really interesting transaction in fire and security recently, which I think is a validation of your commitment to this business. You know, two different sectors, interesting M&A away, you know, what are the implications for IDEX?
Eric Ashleman — President and CEO, IDEX Corp
Yeah. Well, certainly, I mean, you're pinging on two spots where we play and, you know, we do very, very good work with, you know, in both cases, very critical technologies applied to get jobs done that are highly valued. I think, you know, both from small deals to large deals in the spaces that you referenced here, you're seeing appreciation, you know, for work of that nature and quality. I think it's a testament, a continued testament to kind of where we are, where we're positioned, and the way that we see those businesses as well. You know, as things play out and businesses change hands, I mean, we always kind of look at that and just see if that has a competitive impact on the market.
We're very close to those worlds and customers and, you know, we'd respond accordingly in any way we had to. I think, you know, bottom line here is it's, I take it as a testament to the quality of the work that we do.
Deane Dray — Managing Director, RBC
Real helpful. Thank you.
Bryan Blair — Analyst, Oppenheimer
Thank you. Morning, guys. Nice start to the year.
Eric Ashleman — President and CEO, IDEX Corp
Thank you.
Bryan Blair — Analyst, Oppenheimer
I was hoping you could offer a little more color on HST visibility, starting with backlog expansion. I think last quarter you had cited around $100 million in year-on-year build. Given the investment trends and project orientation of some of HST's advantage markets, you know, how are you thinking about underlying demand support through the back half and into 2027? Eric, you had, you know, alluded to, you know, solid runway in your prepared remarks.
Eric Ashleman — President and CEO, IDEX Corp
Yeah.
Bryan Blair — Analyst, Oppenheimer
Just curious if you can offer any additional detail?
Eric Ashleman — President and CEO, IDEX Corp
Yeah. Well, as you saw, we, you know, drove a nice backlog number again increase for HST this quarter. It's interesting here. You know, we're getting more visibility than we've typically had, you know, for classic IDEX. You can see that growing in HST, and it's really growing in these faster-growing order wins and application spaces. The nature of it is, you know, these are moving fast. Many cases, these are novel solutions, you know, where we're just kind of bringing them to market. You've got customers here that are trying to ramp pretty aggressively. They're giving us, and as well as other suppliers, some good visibility to the road ahead, you know, to make sure that we've, you know, are properly capitalized.
We've got labor lined up. We've got materials available. We get more than we typically would, let's say, in certainly in FMT and other places, even much of the rest of HST. That accounts for some of it. That being said, you know, it's anything that we've are recognizing here, of course, is within a 12-month period, and it's actually pretty linear as it runs. Also in the discussions that we have with customers as we're booking it and we're working with them, you know, that same, that same spirit runs into discussions about out years.
You know, what comes next in terms of technology is something we talk about, what kind of volume requirements might be needed there so that, again, we get the jump on any capital we and others might need to lay in. That's why we're able to point towards, you know, continued growth beyond a 12-month horizon here because of those conversations that kind of look forward that, again, is a little different from what we've typically experienced in IDEX, but it's something that we had planned to be part of, you know, our growth story here, and it's playing out that way. Hence the, you know, the references to confidence both for this year and the out years.
Bryan Blair — Analyst, Oppenheimer
That's very helpful. Thank you.
Mike Halloran — Analyst, Baird
Hey, everybody. How you doing?
Eric Ashleman — President and CEO, IDEX Corp
Hi, Mike.
Mike Halloran — Analyst, Baird
I'm gonna tell you that I had some user error. I might have hung up on you right when Deane was asking his first question, and I came back on. I apologize ahead of time if I ask anything that's redundant here. Could you help me a little bit with the sequential dynamics you're assuming for the remainder of the year? Obviously, the orders are really good. As we sit here today, the short cycle piece seems like it's going the right direction. All LC tools with a couple of end market headwinds. You know, Eric, maybe simply, do you feel like we're at an inflection point or close enough to an inflection point to be comfortable with the trajectory on those short cycle pieces yet? Obviously, you just talked about the higher growth areas, the investment areas, you feel good there.
Maybe more just on the short cycle dynamic trajectories you worked through the year and how you think about sequentials.
Eric Ashleman — President and CEO, IDEX Corp
Yeah, we did talk about this a little earlier. I think it's worth restating. You know, we definitely saw, you know, a cadence of improvement across really the four months of the year. You know, kind of weak in January, a little better in February, pretty strong March, then it sort of held at that level in April. I mean, I actually think that's a testament to the resilience of these markets in the face of, you know, some pretty concerning or uncertain headlines geopolitically. I did reference, though, as you know, we have these diagnostic businesses that give us some insight into, you know, strength of inflection. That usually comes about when they're all moving in the exact same way.
That's the one piece that I pointed to and said, "You know, we've got a few that are not moving in the same direction." You know, they're okay, they're stable, they're not jumping yet. That matches the conversations we're having. You still see an awful lot of references to what might play out in terms of energy pricing, material availability, all the, you know, usual suspects when something like this is going on in the world around us. I think we're better. I believe it is an indicator of, you know, how strong maybe that industrial world wants to run here. I would also say pretty reasonably guarded because of some of the things that are out there.
The way that we have it modeled, you know, we kinda have it probably appropriately conservatively modeled as flattish running out, kind of not too far from our original assumption. I think that's the right call based on what we're seeing and what we're hearing.
Mike Halloran — Analyst, Baird
Is it fair to say then that the delta in the guidance here, obviously the uptick is partially the first quarter strength, but it's more tied to the internal growth initiatives, the investments you've made internal and with some of the M&A than it is any real change in the cyclical dynamics?
Eric Ashleman — President and CEO, IDEX Corp
That's absolutely true.
Mike Halloran — Analyst, Baird
Okay. Thank you for that. Just quickly, just thoughts on buybacks versus the M&A side of things, how you're thinking about the pipeline on acquisitions as it sits here today.
Sean Gillen — CFO, IDEX Corp
The, you know, pipeline on M&A continues to be active and continues to be kind of focused in that bolt-on type size of deal. You know, we have sufficient capacity to take that on while continuing to maintain the current buyback levels. You know, we did $76 million in the quarter, mentioned that we'd expect that cadence to continue for each of the quarters through this year. At those levels, we still have, you know, more than enough capacity to execute on bolt-on M&A as it comes into focus. I'd say kind of no change from a capital allocation specifically as it relates to repurchase, and then still focused on M&A with a pipeline that's active and focused on that bolt-on world.
Eric Ashleman — President and CEO, IDEX Corp
I would just add that, you know, the cultivation for those tuck-ins, I mean, it continues to improve. The more traction we get on our initiatives, largely almost all of which involve some integration of units, you know, people see that, they recognize that, and increasingly wanna be a part of it.
Mike Halloran — Analyst, Baird
Thanks, guys.
Bryan Blair — Analyst, Oppenheimer
Thanks, guys. I actually cut out a bit. I appreciate you letting me ask a follow-up. I'm not sure if this was just addressed, so apologies if it was the case. I wanted to circle back to FMT trends and just the disconnect between order rates being kind of high single-digit range over the last four quarters, relative to, you know, sales being 1%, give or take, on average. Sounds like trends are generally positive, and there is that disconnect between, you know, order and revenue recognition. Just trying to get a sense of how much conservatism you're baking in versus something else that would, you know, drive a, you know, continued delta on that front.
Sean Gillen — CFO, IDEX Corp
Good question. I think that's where, you know, looking at a quarter or two in FMT can be a little bit misleading because a lot of that order activity is consumed within the quarter. If you look over a longer, call it, you know, kind of four-quarter period, you normalize for some of those movements, that'll help. You know, in the order activity that we saw in the quarter, which was strong at 9% organic, you know, water really led the way on that performance, and we would expect that performance to continue as we have them pegged in kind of that high single-digit growth. We saw some notable bright spots in our mining end markets in the quarter, as well as in just the overall pumps market.
Some of that was a little bit of, you know, demand coming in Q1 that we might have expected in Q2, that probably led to the order growth being at 9% in excess of the sales growth and in excess of what we expect for the balance of the year. I do think, as you mentioned, there's a touch of conservatism as you think about the guide on flattish growth in FMT. You know, Eric's touched on it. I mentioned it earlier in the call. There's a piece of that as well, given that we're just one quarter in, the world's kind of uncertain. While the trend seems to be pointing in the right direction, you know, not extrapolating that for the balance of the year.
Bryan Blair — Analyst, Oppenheimer
Okay. All makes sense. Appreciate the color.
Andrew Buscaglia — Analyst, BNP Paribas
Hey, good morning, everyone.
Eric Ashleman — President and CEO, IDEX Corp
Morning.
Andrew Buscaglia — Analyst, BNP Paribas
There was some sort of a trend we're picking up this earnings season, just some companies talking about these higher energy prices. You know, the near term, maybe some volatility, long term, maybe positive impact for their businesses. I know direct energy exposure is not huge for IDEX, I'm wondering how you're thinking about your business in that context.
Eric Ashleman — President and CEO, IDEX Corp
Well, yeah, we do have a segment involved in energy. A lot of it's downstream, custody transfer. We're kind of the cash register for a lot of the industry. It never directly correlates. It's not a well head kind of business. I would say higher energy prices and activity tend to have kind of a derivative impact positively over time. We saw some of that in the first quarter. You'll, you know, you'll note, you know, we didn't list energy as a significant pressure point, whereas we have in some of the preceding quarters. We've seen, you know, certainly more activity there, more money being put to work, U.S. exports, all of that stuff. As that happens, it generally kind of back feeds into the markets that we're a part of.
We've kind of got that in a slightly better place. We'll watch it as it, obviously, this whole story runs out. There's a lot of volatility there, but, you know, the energy exposure at IDEX at least now has moved more to the green.
Andrew Buscaglia — Analyst, BNP Paribas
Yeah. Okay. That's interesting. Yeah, Eric, you know, the last couple quarters, you know, the execution's been strong. You're talking about, you know, 80/20 and the growth investments you're making, is there any other subtle changes to the 80/20 process that's been going on under the hood? Are you know, doing anything differently in terms of that process that's driving these better margins?
Eric Ashleman — President and CEO, IDEX Corp
Yeah. Well, I think the two extensions of the playbook, which we've had in place a long time here, really it's in the areas where we're growing and acquiring businesses. You know, we're integrating some of the units together into these growth platforms in the way that are a little different from kind of classic IDEX. When you do that, it does add another dimension. It's kind of making it taking a two-axis story and makes it three axis. You have to be cognizant of how you define 80s and 20s, how you allocate resources, sometimes crossing business units. We're doing a lot of work this year to kind of write that code, codify it, and train it in those areas.
As I referenced in my opening comments, I mean, what's exciting about it is the scale of opportunity here also grows. You're seeing some of that come onto the board here. You know, I had a graph in the slide deck that showed sort of this, you know, difference between a customer set that's declining as we focus on the winners and then sales and margins, you know, ramping on the backside of that. That's that code book at work, that extension. Very, very exciting piece of it, very much pivoted towards growth. Of course, you get almost one-for-one margin support as we grow the company. That's a great question, and that's sort of the new chapters that are being written right now.
Andrew Buscaglia — Analyst, BNP Paribas
Yeah. Interesting. Thanks, Eric.
Dan DiCicco — VP of Equity Research, BMO Capital Markets
Great. Thank you for taking my question. just slide four, space and defense, were a lot of these products already in place, or have you kind of tweaked and tailored some of these solutions and platforms to better align to these markets? Is there any more opportunity here down the road?
Eric Ashleman — President and CEO, IDEX Corp
Well, I mean, this whole industry, particularly on the space side, is developing really fast. There's almost always something new there. We're actually leveraging, you know, kind of an early incumbency position. You know, we long ago studied this market, kind of helped. Frankly, I'd argue we helped it develop. As we've done that, you know, that's given us presence in the rooms with, you know, the people that matter to help solve problems along the way. You have an incumbent position that was very thoughtfully deployed, and then that access point allowed us to see where things needed to go from there, and then our innovation stream is actually enabling it. I'd argue you have some of all of that. Then just, you know, as a space, there's a reason we highlight it here.
I think it's tremendous in terms of growth potential, you know, both in terms of depth of applications as well as the number of people that are starting to play here. Just couldn't be more excited about it. Absolutely.
Dan DiCicco — VP of Equity Research, BMO Capital Markets
Great. Thanks. Then just maybe if you could just touch quickly on your overall exposure in just power generation and then more specifically around fuel cell power support. Thanks.
Eric Ashleman — President and CEO, IDEX Corp
Yeah. Well, we mentioned in our data center applications, in the pneumatic space, we've long talked about, you know, that's some of the work that we do there. It's behind the meter power gen, you know, to power data centers essentially with standby power. We do a very, very critical job there of thermal management within those applications. Yeah, that is an area that we've capitalized on, we've, you know, helped support and are excited about for the future.
Dan DiCicco — VP of Equity Research, BMO Capital Markets
Great. Thank you.
Vlad Bystricky — Analyst, Citigroup
Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for thanks for taking my question.
Eric Ashleman — President and CEO, IDEX Corp
Morning, Vlad.
Vlad Bystricky — Analyst, Citigroup
Nice quarter obviously and like the positive outlook for 2026. I did wanna ask you mentioned some price cost pressures impacting gross margin in one Q. Can you just talk about what price cost was in the quarter, how you see it evolving going forward through the year, and whether you're expecting to take or need to take incremental price related to, you know, tariffs or any other inflationary pressures?
Sean Gillen — CFO, IDEX Corp
Yeah. Good question. You know, for the quarter, to the EBITDA line, price cost was a net positive. You know, not to the same magnitude that we saw in a couple quarters in the last year, given, you know, tariff pricing actions. Positive to the quarter, would expect that to continue, kind of be net even, a little bit positive. We're not contemplating any second-round price actions in the guide as it stands today based on what's happening in the world. If it continues, and we need to do those things, those are of course actions that we'll continue to do. I think the tariff example is a good one in that it shows that the, you know, the businesses within IDEX have the ability to move price in accordance with what they're seeing in cost.
If we do start to see some sustained, price pressures, or we expect that on the cost side, we will revisit our price assumptions and actions with our customers. For the quarter, positive kind of for the guide, expect that to continue and can be revisited, depending on what happens in the businesses.
Vlad Bystricky — Analyst, Citigroup
Got it. That's helpful. Appreciate that, Sean. I think you talked a little bit about life sciences, you know, where you're seeing sort of some pressures in China and at NIH. I guess could you just talk more about, you know, how you're thinking about the potential for a more positive inflection within life sciences in HST over the coming quarters or into 2027?
Eric Ashleman — President and CEO, IDEX Corp
Yeah. Well, you know, we're gonna focus where we can focus. That's in core innovation with the customers that we've long, you know, had relationships with. There's some great things there. We're seeing that now playing out positively in largely in the pharma space. You know, there's just a number of things going on in that area. Even some of the questions around geography, you know, how that's gonna all play out given that the, you know, the world turns in different ways there. I'd say we actually are helping customers think through that too because, you know, we've got great global scale. So if people wanna reposition assets or target different markets around the globe, we can support that.
We're talking through, you know, those situations with customers too. For us, we're just gonna focus on what we do best, which is, you know, kind of double down on the global span that we have, the scale that we have within the business. Remember, those have long been integrated units where people are used to working together and driving that scale of solutions, and then bring innovation to bear in the markets that are inflecting the most positively.
Vlad Bystricky — Analyst, Citigroup
Got it. Thanks for that, Eric.
Rob Wertheimer — Analyst, Melius Research
I apologize. Thank you. You've had a lot of success in some of the growth investments you've made, and I'm curious how much kind of remains in the pipeline, products you haven't launched, products you're developing. You know, maybe you could characterize how far along that curve you are. My second question, I'm not sure you'll want to answer, but you know, of the total order growth, maybe in dollars, how much was attributable to kind of your, you know, I don't know, new markets or advantage markets or growth investments you've done versus the general cyclical rebound? Thanks.
Eric Ashleman — President and CEO, IDEX Corp
Sure. Look, I think these spaces have a lot of potential, not just this year, but in later years. You know, it's one of the reasons we've indexed so positively that the years past 2026 we see as being very good for us because we're involved in the discussions. We're working on the technology. We're talking about problems that need to be solved. We know kind of when those would go to market and how they would run out. Obviously, you know, the investment cycle here has got multiple chapters, and we're exposed to it. To your second question, it's related actually to the first.
I mean, I wouldn't give a specific number here, but I mean, you know, much of what we're talking about is you can point back to recently acquired units, very specific investments, the choices that we made to link to units of this quality. A fair amount of it is coming from there. What I particularly like about it is it's, you know, we're kind of pinging these different worlds from multiple points. We think of those as entrances. You know, entrances into really great application spaces, each one of which has their own, you know, subsequent chapters to write through our innovation efforts. We talked about data centers. You know, we talked about kind of behind the meter power gen over there.
We're also involved in really interesting things related to optical switching and how that's gonna play out. We've got valves there that are positioned around liquid cooling and other aspects of thermal management. Broad semi exposure, which has been very positive for us. You know, involved in everything from consumables to metrology to lithography. We've got these nice little entry points, each one of which again just has this sort of extended discussion about here's what we need today, here's what we're gonna need tomorrow, and here's what we're thinking about in terms of the future. You know, water in the FMT space has some of those same characteristics. You know, We're providing data and data sets to people that are now starting to think about how that could be commingled with their own AI applications.
Really like how the investments that we have made link to advantage spaces and then have this nice runway potential.
Rob Wertheimer — Analyst, Melius Research
Thank you.
Robert Jamieson — VP of Industrial Technology, Vertical Research Partners
Morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Just a quick one on CapEx and just the step up that we're seeing this year. I know no change in guidance, but is this more related to capacity or automation investment? Is that more specific like the HST segment? Just trying to think about, like, where that bulk of the incremental investment's being directed towards.
Sean Gillen — CFO, IDEX Corp
Good question. As you mentioned, you know, we have guided and no change to the guide on that front. An increase in CapEx for the year, it's really supporting all the growth that you're seeing. It is overweight towards HST. There's the nature of the business, there's no one or two really big ticket items in terms of CapEx that we need to drive the growth. It's really across a variety of the businesses, but we are allowing for more growth CapEx to be spent in this year to help support the growth and the demand that we're seeing. That's in the form of equipment and other things, you know, like that to help support the growth. Not a huge step up, but a meaningful one.
It's still relatively low in terms of kind of the overall size of the business. You have budgeted for some growth in CapEx for the year.
Eric Ashleman — President and CEO, IDEX Corp
This is actually an area where 80/20 helps us a lot as well, in line with our component orientation. 'Cause if we make choices, you know, to, let's say, move on from a small part of a business, very often it's the same capital or the same technology that we would run faster-growing applications across. It actually kind of gives us an internal funding source or an offset so that, you know, it keeps CapEx increases at a nice level too. That's another lever that we have that comes out of 80/20 work.
Robert Jamieson — VP of Industrial Technology, Vertical Research Partners
That's great. Super helpful. Just taking a step back, just given the strategy and, you know, the pivot over the last couple of years on advantage markets with secular tailwinds, I mean, what are maybe some of the top two or three secular themes, you know, outside of AI, where you think that IDEX is most under indexed today and potentially willing to invest more aggressively in?
Eric Ashleman — President and CEO, IDEX Corp
Well, you know, I mean, when you step back, what's nice about the changes that we made is I actually start with the things that are constant. You know, we essentially always have kind of moved either fluids, gas, or light. That's basically what we're doing, even in these advantage spaces. We've got great technologies, great access here. I'm particularly excited in terms from an end market perspective. You know, we highlighted space and defense for a reason. I think that's, you know, just getting off on the ground. We were there from the beginning. Our positioning there is really good. Our optics technologies in specifically tie very nicely to that world.
Here's where the acquisition work comes in very handy because we're actually kind of moving technologies and joining them across a couple of the businesses here to create solutions that are pretty novel and really could only kind of come from us. That's part of the thesis too. I think, you know, how we position MSS, the Material Science Solutions platform, that's where optics sits. I mean, that whole thesis really gives us a nice jump off point into virtually every market that we've talked about here that is advantage. You know, continuing to expand it through bolt-on tuck-in work, that's why we're excited about that as well. There are some other things we'd like to bring in as our presence increases.
Some more to come here, but I think off to a great start and kind of playing out the way that we had hoped and expected.
Robert Jamieson — VP of Industrial Technology, Vertical Research Partners
Thank you.
Brett Linzey — Analyst, Mizuho
Hey, good morning all. Question regarding your CapEx intensive businesses. I guess as you parse through the composition of your growth and activity, how are those performing versus the more OpEx-oriented businesses? I guess as IDEX has grown in areas like material science and defense and space, what does that mix look like today and how has that evolved?
Sean Gillen — CFO, IDEX Corp
I'd start by saying, I mean, none of the businesses we're in are that capital intensive. So, you know, you're seeing an increase in CapEx, but it's really in line with growth, and angled towards the HST segment as well as some other platforms where we're seeing that growth. I don't think that there's a material shift in the CapEx intensity of the business. We're just allowing for some capital to support the growth that we're seeing. No, no material move in terms of what you should expect in terms of CapEx for our businesses going forward.
Eric Ashleman — President and CEO, IDEX Corp
Yeah, that continues to be part of the filter set when we think about a space, a technology set or acquisitions. I mean, we're looking for kind of max innovation at relatively low capitalization requirements. You know, there's not just from the economics of it, but that gives us the, you know, the agility, the optionality of moving the technology fast. It's all kind of part of the filter for us. It's simply rising here because frankly, the growth rates are rising.
Brett Linzey — Analyst, Mizuho
Just shifting over to fire and safety, encouraging to see the strong demand in North America. You noted the relative stability in Europe and Asia. The stable Europe comment, I think, is maybe a change in trend. Perhaps just some color there. Are the local spending priorities maybe firming up and shifting a little bit to the upside here?
Eric Ashleman — President and CEO, IDEX Corp
I mean, I think on the fire and safety European front, you know, I remember call it was late in the summer, last year, we had that turn down kind of unexpectedly. We saw some very specific positioning over to alternate spends. That actually came back to something more normal, at the end of the year, and it's basically remained there. You know, it's not widely growing, but it's kind of back in its normal corridor, and I think that was actually kind of a temporal shift. And then we've seen again, the further from home markets have been stable for a while. As you said, most of the growth strength on the North American side.
Brett Linzey — Analyst, Mizuho
Thanks for the color.
Eric Ashleman — President and CEO, IDEX Corp
Yeah.
Joe Giordano — Managing Director, TD Cowen
Hey, guys, appreciate letting me have the follow-up here. Just like one last kind of bigger picture question on M&A. You know, Eric, as you moved into some of these newer areas, like when you bought Mott, you bought Muon. I think from an investor angle, it seemed a little bit more. Are these more complicated? Is this away from core a little bit more? Obviously those businesses started a little slow and now are doing quite well and are directly aligned with what your strategy is. I'm just curious, as you look back on the last couple of years with these businesses, what's like the takeaway in your head? Does this like reinforce that IDEX knows how to do M&A as a core competency?
Does it inform you on timing of when is appropriate to do this and how much work we need to do through the businesses that are in these kind of markets? Just curious, like, I know we're in a good place to talk about it now, but just curious, like, what you guys kinda, like, took away from getting from where you were when you started to where you are today.
Eric Ashleman — President and CEO, IDEX Corp
Yeah, no. Thanks for that. Well, look, a big part of the thesis here was supporting stronger growth for the company. I mean, that's why we went down this direction. I think one of the insights that comes out of this, given all that you cited, is actually I put it in the end, I put it into a strength category. I mean, these are mission-critical markets where, you know, the uptick on growth takes a little longer than maybe we would, you know, like out of the gate. That actually becomes the moat for us once we get through it. You know, that defensibility of, you know, people that are super risk-averse, gotta make sure everything's gonna work right, make sure that we're a trusted partner.
All those things have always been true at IDEX. They're probably even more true in these kind of critical markets. You know, that delayed some things out of the gate in terms of take-up and adoption. It was, let's remember, a pretty crazy world at the same time. What we're seeing now is the backside of that. Those same characteristics, I actually think are massively in our favor because that's the deep moat that now surrounds us. We're in the room, we're having the discussion. We're at the table to say, "Hey, what comes next? What can we do? What can we do?" Now we have more pieces and parts to play with. We're not a single business in there. We're actually a couple of units to three. We've got more people in the room.
We've got more depth and, you know, we've gained that trusted partner status. I think that's the insight, and I think it's a net positive as we sit here today.
Joe Giordano — Managing Director, TD Cowen
Great color. Thank you.
Eric Ashleman — President and CEO, IDEX Corp
Well, thanks everyone for your interest in support of IDEX. I'd say to sum up here, we're very pleased with the strong start to the year. You know, HST in particular continues to build strong sequential momentum within its target advantage growth markets. As we said during the call, perhaps most encouraging for us is the fact that many of their wins have long multi-year tails that point to really nice growth over time. You know, with FMT and FSDP, we saw some encouraging positive signs of early inflection, but we still most likely need to clear the uncertainty of geopolitical stuff to move materially to the next level of support. Our businesses there are really well positioned to capitalize on that strength as it plays out from here.
I think bottom line, our growth strategy is supported by our growth platforms, expanded through thoughtful M&A and operational integration, are powering IDEX towards a really bright and successful future, and we look forward to updating you as we go along the way. Thanks so much.