“We continue to expect to return substantially all ME&T free cash flow to shareholders over time through dividends and share repurchases.”

In context

“rsus the fourth quarter of 2024. Machine dealer inventory was about flat and grew less than we had anticipated due to better-than-expected machine sales to users in Construction Industries and Resource Industries. As I mentioned, backlog increased versus year-end 2024 by $5 billion or 17%, driven by strong order rates in all three of our primary segments. Our backlog of $35 billion is a record. Moving to Slide 6. We generated ME&T free cash flow of $200 million in the first quarter. The decline versus last year is primarily due to lower profit. We deployed $4.3 billion to shareholders through nearly $3.7 billion of share repurchases and about $700 million of dividends paid. We remain proud of our Dividend Aristocrat status, as we have paid higher annual dividends for 31 consecutive years. We continue to expect to return substantially all ME&T free cash flow to shareholders over time through dividends and share repurchases. Now I'll turn it over to Joe. Joe Creed: All right. Thank you, Jim, and good morning, everyone. I'll start today with a discussion of our second quarter outlook and a range of scenarios for the full year for discussing our end markets. The first quarter ended with positive momentum after another quarter of better-than-expected sales to users and record organic growth in our backlog. However, the potential impact of tariffs has increased uncertainty and the situation remains fluid. I'll start with our expectations for the second quarter where we have the best visibility and then cover the full year. Based on our current view, we anticipate sales in the second quarter to be similar to prior year. Sales growth in Energy & Transportation will be offset by lower machine sales in both Resource”