Richard A. Maue - Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer
Management
No, Matt, I'll take that question. So internally, we didn't perceive – we don't see a $0.20 beat, as we look at our internal forecast and how we saw the guidance playing out for the balance of the year. So, understanding where consensus was, as we look at the business, I'll provide my commentary here. Our second quarter performance was notably stronger operationally, and we did perform modestly better than, I would say, we expected. Notwithstanding the $0.06 tax benefit in the quarter, which followed a $0.03 benefit that we saw in the first quarter, again, roughly a $0.10 benefit overall in the first half, right? And what I'd like to point out is, if you recall back in Q1, I indicated that margins in Fluid Handling would improve in the second quarter based on the business mix that we would see in that segment, and that, in fact, occurred. I'm not sure if everyone saw that or believed it, but that did, in fact, occur. And as I pointed out a little bit earlier, we did execute better than expected from a backlog perspective in Fluid Handling in the quarter. So, we did get a little bit more sales out than we expected. As I just mentioned with Nathan, performance at Payment was strong, Engineered Materials also modestly stronger than we expected, solid mix, benefiting Payment. And then we saw some strong performance execution-wise, productivity-wise in Engineered Materials, along with continued lower costs in the Engineered Materials business. So, we did have a relatively strong performance, a little bit better – I would say, better than we anticipated. Looking to the second half and trying to, I think, couch your question with respect to our revised guidance, the tax rate's going to be higher, so we have a natural – you consider, the tailwind in the first quarter and the headwind in the second quarter, that's meaningful. Q3 margins will abate a little bit. And I want to make sure I emphasize just a little bit in Fluid Handling, again, seasonality related. Our Valve Services business, coupled with some of that modest impact that that execution on the backlog caused and drove for us in terms of leverage rates. And then as you know, Matt, the fourth quarter, we do experience normal seasonality in our business, the Merchandising business, in particular, and of course, in our Engineered Materials business. So, a lot there to digest, but overall, very pleased with our results year-to-date. I think we executed really well and we are cautiously optimistic about the balance of the year. With that said, as Max pointed out, and it's important, our guidance is balanced and considers the ongoing risk and uncertainty that remains in the Fluid Handling end markets.