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FLIR Systems Inc (FLIR)
Q2Â 2019 Earnings Call
Jul 24, 2019, 9:00 a.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Greetings, and welcome to the FLIR Systems Second Quarter 2019 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions].
It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Carol Lowe, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Ms. Lowe, please go ahead.
Carol P. Lowe -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Thank you. Good morning everyone and thank you for joining the call. Please note that our earnings press release and presentation slides referred to on this call are available under the Events & Presentations section of www.flir.com in our Investor section.
Before we begin, I need to remind you that statements made on this call, other than historical facts are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and based on our current expectations. Words such as anticipates, estimates, expects, intends, and believes and similar words and expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual result to differ materially, please refer to the earnings press release we issued earlier today for a description of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forecasts.
The forward-looking statements we make today speak as of today and we do not undertake any obligation to update any such statements to reflect events or circumstances occurring after today. We will be discussing our results for the quarter, primarily on an adjusted non-GAAP basis. We believe that non-GAAP information is useful because it can enhance the understanding of our core ongoing operating results and facilitate consistent comparison of results over time.
A full reconciliation between GAAP and adjusted measures is in this morning's earnings press release. With that, it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Jim Cannon, President and CEO of FLIR Systems.
James J. Cannon -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Carol. Good morning everyone and thank you for joining FLIR second quarter 2019 earnings call. With Carol and me today are Travis Merrill, President of our Commercial Business Unit; David Ray, President of our Government & Defense Business Unit and Sonia Galindo, FLIR's new Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Secretary and Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer. Sonia brings a wealth of experience and we're excited to have her on the executive team. Frank Pennisi, President of our Industrial Business Unit has a travel conflict, and is unable to attend the call.
On today's call, we will focus on a few key messages. First, we achieved organic revenue growth while lapping prior year double-digit growth. Second, our expanding organic operating margins have allowed for reinvestment in the areas poised for long-term accelerated growth.
Third, our Government & Defense business unit continues to achieve strong growth having successfully replaced large sunsetting programs. And lastly, we continue to make exciting progress on our strategic initiatives to fuel, feed and focus the business with the FLIR Method at the foundation to drive long-term value creation.
I'll start the review of the quarter on Slide three of the presentation with a few financial highlights. Carol will provide more color later in our prepared remarks. As announced earlier this morning, we reported second quarter revenue of $482 million. Total revenue growth was 6% and on an organic basis growth was in line with our expectations at 3%.
Second quarter organic revenue growth lapse the 11% organic growth posted a year ago. Foreign currency exchange negatively impacted growth by 1%. Total bookings were down 3% compared to prior year due to orders originally planned for the second quarter materializing in the first quarter of the year, recall we experienced significant franchise program wins and non-programmatic orders in the Government & Defense and Industrial Business Units in Q1.
For the first half of 2019, total bookings are up 14%. Total company 12-month current backlog increased 12% to $670 million compared to the balance at the end of the second quarter 2018. Total backlog also increased 12% to $809 million over the same period.
Adjusted gross profit increased 5% versus second quarter 2018. Adjusted gross margin decreased 70 basis points to 52%. Continued improvement, inorganic gross margins driven by productivity initiatives through the FLIR Method and product mix were offset by the early ramp of recent acquisitions.
Adjusted operating income was in line with prior year, adjusted operating margin was down 140 basis points in comparison to last year due entirely to the dilutive effect of recent acquisitions. We are maintaining our full year 2019 guidance. We continue to expect full-year revenue growth in the range of 8% to 10%, which includes organic growth of approximately 5%.
As we outlined on the first quarter call and unlike last year, we expect second half quarterly seasonality to return to historical averages, with particular strength in the fourth quarter. We also continue to expect full year adjusted earnings per share of $2.30 to $2.36.
As communicated on the first quarter call, our 2019 adjusted EPS outlook includes approximately $0.06 of dilution from the Aeryon Labs, and Endeavor Robotics acquisitions. We realized the majority of that dilution in the second quarter of 2019 and expect these high-growth businesses to scale sequentially from the third to the fourth quarter.
Finally, we announced the quarterly dividend of $0.17 per share, which will be payable on September 6 to shareholders of record as of August 23. We've made continued progress on our strategic priorities to Fuel, Feed and Focus the business with the FLIR Method as its foundation.
I'd like to highlight a few key second quarter developments that will fuel our business in the near term, feed delivery of our strategic plan and also address more specifics of the FLIR Method. We'll start with fuel on Slide four, where we advanced many near-term opportunities to gain scale in the business.
In the second quarter, The Government & Defense business unit was awarded a $44 million purchase order from the US Department of Defense to deliver unmanned PackBot robots, FirstLook robots and associated accessories with deliveries beginning in the fourth quarter of 2019.
This order is further evidence of the alignment of our long-term strategic plan to position FLIR is a leading unmanned solutions provider with the DoD's modernization priorities, which include utilizing unmanned solutions to protect the war fighter.
Our Industrial and Commercial Business Units also continue to advance franchise programs. As an example, in the second quarter FLIR was awarded a $17 million, nationwide program to protect critical infrastructure in Asia. Representing the largest commercial security project win in FLIR's history. This win is a testament to our growing solution orientation with thermal camera, visible camera and software capabilities, all part of FLIR's winning proposal.
Turning to Slide five, FLIR has launched many exciting new products across the portfolio, since our last earnings call. And I'd like to highlight a few. Earlier this month, the Industrial business unit launched a new people counting sensor for retail business environments call the Brickstream 3D Gen 2. This new version includes a unique employee filtering feature designed to provide retail and shopping businesses with more accurate customer traffic data and sales conversion metrics.
Additionally, in June, the Commercial business unit launched traffic data. An intelligence thermal traffic sensor solution for smarter and safer cities. This is a thermal traffic camera that operates in all conditions integrated with the recently acquired of cyclical data analytics platform to detect, track, classify and communicate insights to traffic managers.
This product is a great example of how FLIR is integrating more software capabilities into our sensors to facilitate customers making more intelligent decisions to save lives and livelihood. Also in June, the Government & Defense Business Unit introduced several upgrades to the Griffin 510 portable gas mass spectrometer to help responders analyze and identify drugs, chemical agents and other toxic substances faster and more effectively during field operations.
Major new features on the G510 gives users access to an expanded on board drug library. As well as a new quick search capability for chemicals and hazardous substances. Lastly, we introduced our second regional data set for autonomous vehicle makers. The enhanced San Francisco data set features over 10,000 annotated images across 11 image classes in multiple weather conditions.
With this much improved dataset developed at the epicenter for many ADAS developers. It serves as a reference to demonstrate the increased awareness and therefore safety, that thermal brings to challenging conditions in our urban environment.
With over 15 years of experience in automotive FLIR has the only automotive qualified thermal sensor that is deployed in over 600,000 cars today, for driver warning systems. As highlighted on Slide six, we made additional strategic investments in the second quarter that will feed delivery of our long-term strategic plan. As you know in early April, we continued our minority investment strategy via our investment in DroneBase.
A global drone operations company that provides businesses access to one of the largest unmanned aerial surveillance or UAS pilot networks. Also during the second quarter, we acquired New England Optical Systems or NEOS our recognized leader in niche optical applications for the design and manufacture of high-end optical lens assemblies used for visible, thermal and multi-spectral cameras.
There thermal zoom solutions are enabled by the NEOS electronic lens controller, which provides enhanced focus performance while zooming as well as predictive maintenance metrics. This investment continues our vertical integration strategy, delivering a complete camera solution to our commercial and defense customers. We're pleased to welcome the NEOS team to the Industrial business unit.
Turning to Slide seven. In 2018, we introduced the FLIR Method. Which is comprised of six elements. With an emphasis on one FLIR Lane management and continuous improvement. In 2019, we are building upon our 2018 momentum, while implementing the elements of acquisition and integration discipline, customer driven innovation and talent management.
With some of the largest acquisitions in FLIR's history recently completed the discipline around people, process and technology continues to be refined. The integration of our recently acquired unmanned businesses continues as planned and we strive to achieve world-class performance around this TFM element. As an example of our customer driven innovation FLIR can point to winning the prestigious Red Dot Award for Excellence in Industrial Design in each of the last three years.
Lastly, I'd like to discuss the Talent management element of the FLIR Method. In addition of providing the employees with leadership and development opportunities. We hold a robust Global Talent Review or GTR, to align key talent with our long-term strategic objectives. In fact, we completed our second annual GTR in June here in our new Arlington, Virginia headquarters.
Let me now turn the call over to Carol. For her review of the second quarter financials, Carol?
Carol P. Lowe -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Jim. On Slide eight, is a summary of our second quarter financial results. Please note with the exception of cash flow, all of these financials are on a non-GAAP basis. Reconciliation to GAAP data is included in the filed appendix.
Jim has already highlighted our Q2 2019 revenue growth of 6.5%; adjusted gross profit increase of 5% and flat adjusted operating income as compared with Q2 2019 -- 2018. While gross and operating margins declined on a year-over-year basis, those expanded organically. As expected, and previously communicated the acquisitions made to advance our unmanned strategy negatively impacted margins. These investments are critical to the execution of our long-term strategy, and we look forward to their positive contribution to our second half performance especially in Q4.
Operating cash flow reached $121 million in the first half of 2019, compared to $153 million in the first half of 2018. The decline in operating cash flow as compared to 2018 was due to timing and certain working capital balances, as well as other operating assets and liabilities.
In the second quarter, we repurchased approximately 500,000 shares for $25 million, increasing our year-to-date share buyback to approximately 1 million shares. We also returned $23 million to shareholders in Q2 through the payment of dividends for a year-to-date payment of $46 million. Our cash balance at June 30, 2019 was approximately $269 million.
As Jim mentioned regarding our 2019 outlook, we continue to expect full-year revenue growth in the range of 8% to 10%, which includes organic growth of approximately 5%. As we have communicated since first providing our 2019 outlook in February, we expect stronger second half revenue growth versus the first half. We currently expect Q4 to be stronger than Q3 with both higher revenues and higher earnings generated in the last quarter of the year.
Our full year adjusted earnings per share outlook of $2.30 to $2.36 includes approximately $0.06 of dilution from our recent unmanned acquisition with slightly more than half of that dilution already reflected in the second quarter results.
Turning to Slide nine. I will highlight performance from each of our business units. Beginning with the Industrial Business Unit, second quarter revenue was $189 million driven by strength in cooled thermal cores that was largely offset by lower demand for test and measurement products. And the transition from hand-held to UAS based offering. It is important to note that the Industrial business unit delivered impressive growth of 14% in Q2 2018.
Operating income for Industrial was $62 million, 7% higher in Q2 2018. Operating margin improved 200 basis points, year-over-year driven by favorable product mix and productivity gains achieved through the FLIR Method. The Government & Defense business unit saw revenue growth of 23% year-over-year including contributions from the Endeavor Robotics and Aeryon Labs acquisition.
On an organic basis, the business grew by 13%, lapping 11% organic growth the previous year. Government & Defense showed strength across all businesses and was led by growth in UAS and surveillance. Government & Defense operating income increased 8% compared to the second quarter of 2018. Total operating margin declined 350 basis points due entirely to the recently acquired unmanned businesses.
During the second quarter, Government & Defense current backlog reached $472 million to end the quarter, a 34% increase over the second quarter of 2018. Having successfully replaced large end of life program, book- to-bill for Government & Defense stands at 1.2 for the first half. The Commercial business unit second quarter revenue was down 7% year-over-year, including 3% negative impact of foreign currency exchange.
The Maritime business is experiencing negative growth that correlates directly to industry conditions. Additionally, the OTS realignment has created near term headwind. But we're pleased with the team's efforts to reposition our products for the professional. We experienced healthy top-line growth in the second quarter and our ITS and security businesses. Operating income and operating margin for the Commercial business decreased 25% and 300 basis points year-over-year respectively.
Despite record productivity improvements through the FLIR Method. Revenue declines in our maritime and OTS businesses, foreign currency exchange and US import tariff negatively impacted our financial performance in the second quarter.
While it was a challenging quarter for Commercial and we expect these headwinds to persist, we are committed to our full-year 2019 guidance. I will now pass the call back to Jim.
James J. Cannon -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Carol. I'm pleased with the overall performance we delivered in the second quarter, but as our team often hear me say, I'm proud, but not satisfied. We are committed to driving strong organic growth in the second half of the year and our current backlog positions us well to deliver revenue growth for 2019 of 8% to 10%.
We will continue to accelerate our efforts, leveraging the FLIR Method and remain diligent in our daily task, to consistently exceed our commitments with integrity and our purpose to innovate the World's Sixth Sense to save lives and livelihood. I'll now open up the call for Q&A. Operator?
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instruction] Our first question today is coming from Asher Carey from Baird. Your line is now live.
Asher Burton Carey -- Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated -- Analyst
Hey, Jim. Just first a clarification, you have -- we've adjusted out of $4 million cost, that previously wasn't included, what was that charge in the quarter?
Carol P. Lowe -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
So are you looking at the GAAP reconciliation?
Asher Burton Carey -- Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated -- Analyst
That's right. Yeah.
Carol P. Lowe -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Okay. Which specific items, I mean?
Asher Burton Carey -- Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated -- Analyst
It's classified as other 3.951?
Carol P. Lowe -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
So there were certain expenses that related to some older legal matters as well as some product warranty for a company that's FLIR had purchased and those warranties extended to contracts that existed prior to the acquisition. So, some items that were very data did not related to any current operations within the past two to three years for the company.
Asher Burton Carey -- Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated -- Analyst
Got it. Okay, all right, thank you. And just as a quick follow-up on Industrial Performance. Segment was up in tough comps and still had a great quarter. I was wondering if you could be curious to hear about any specific areas of strength or areas of weakness that you saw in the quarter?
James J. Cannon -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. Our Industrial business, we're really proud that they lap some really strong organic performance in the prior year as we mentioned. And at -- the heart of it, our OEM business there that makes various sensors and components for other companies as well as feeds the rest of FLIR continues to have great success, there probably one of the earliest adopters of the FLIR Method with Lane projects throughout the business, and they've done a really good job ramping and scaling production of our uncooled cores, the Boson in sourcing other products as well as Neutrino, cooled cores.
Also important to note in the Industrial business, our machine vision business. That it benefited from a boon in smartphone production in Asia. That was a very difficult thing to comp and we've seen in the quarter, a return to positive bookings as they focused on a host of different industries life sciences, for example, in North America.
So really proud of the Industrial Business Unit's efforts throughout the quarter and continued efforts as we go into the second half.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question is coming from Jim Ricchiuti from Needham & Company. Your line is now live.
James Ricchiuti -- Needham & Company -- Analyst
Thank you. Question, just with respect to the normal seasonality in the second half and the sequential ramp from Q3 to Q4. Is that mainly driven by the Government & Defense business or/are you expecting a stronger sequential business conditions in some of the other business units as well?
James J. Cannon -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, we really see it across most all of our businesses. Last year was abnormal year typically FLIR has a stronger second half than a first half. Last year we had a very strong first half as we look at the bookings that we've made entering the year, and current backlog not just in Government Defense, but across a host of the businesses, we see a return to that sort of more normal seasonality of a stronger second half versus first half and in particular we noted the fourth quarter. We see a ramp from Q3 into Q4 with particular strength in the fourth quarter.
James Ricchiuti -- Needham & Company -- Analyst
Thank you. And there is a follow-up question, if I may, Jim. You alluded to, I think some headwinds in some of the industrial, commercial areas of the business and I wonder if you could be a little bit more specific as to where you're seeing and maybe what's changed in that regard from earlier in the year?
James J. Cannon -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. There are really two places where we're seeing these headwinds inside of our Commercial Business Unit. In our Commercial business unit, our traffic business continues to flourish. Growing in a pace that's leading the Company and expanding margins, but in two parts of the Commercial business unit, the OTS, our outdoor and Tactical Systems business. If you'll recall, last year, we made a deliberate decision to reorient that toward the professional. So we made some moves in the business, we've rationalized the product offering, we're focusing upon different channels to market and we're seeing what we expected is near term headwinds, as we pivot that business toward professional law enforcement or foreign paramilitary organizations. The Maritime business though has seen some headwinds from macro economic concerns. As we entered the year, we had good innovations across the maritime business with our Axiom MFDs, with the DockSense product that has assisted docking solutions that we premiered at the Miami Boat Show and others with great response. But partially due to weather concerns and other macroeconomic concerns, we see new boat registrations down we see boat sales down and that slowing growth in the maritime industry in general is translated into negative growth in our maritime business.
Now, we also have been working in our maritime business to expand the customers that we focus upon. So you know, in late 2017, we won the SINS program with the Coast Guard, we've been innovating features into our MFDs to help the professional on the water with search and rescue in border protection and we've seen some wins in those areas. But not enough to offset the slowing new boat registration and new boat sales that affect our maritime business directly.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question today is coming from Michael Ciarmoli from SunTrust. Your line is now live.
Michael Ciarmoli -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst
Hey, good morning guys. Thanks for taking the questions here. Carol, maybe first, just housekeeping. On the slide nine where you're showing the segments, you're showing a government book-to-bill 0.96. But I'm coming up with something closer to 1.2 considering the backlog expanded year-over-year. Is that accurate, I mean it. The book-to-bill was above one in Government for the second quarter?
Carol P. Lowe -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yes, so we -- for government for the -- well for the second half, we have 1.2 on the book-to-bill, and then for the quarter we're at 0.9 in total.
James J. Cannon -- President and Chief Executive Officer
For the first half.
Carol P. Lowe -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, for the first half and in the quarter is the lower amount.
Michael Ciarmoli -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst
Okay, OK. Got it. And then just maybe sticking with government. Maybe could we get a little bit of color on the program pipeline, any opportunities that are out there either large or small, domestic and international and kind of how your view in the current marketplace even with the -- what looks to be a three-year budget deal in place?
James J. Cannon -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, David, do you want to address that question.
David Ray -- President, Government & Defense Business Unit
Sure. So we're continuing to see some expansion in our current rate program out of our core [Indecipherable] business. We think the modernization efforts now that the government has a budget in place is going to continue to flourish in the second half and we expect to see some benefit there -- there deals we have internationally that we expect to close in the second half. But also there is some franchise programs as part of our new acquisitions. The [Indecipherable] opportunity as well as Robotic Combat Vehicle in Endeavor that really a promising sort of longer-term efforts that will see some opportunities for growth, with respect to new bookings in the second half of the year. So, on balance between those franchises in the backlog we build. We've built in the first half of the year, it's going to be a good mix of continuing to execute was expected in the second half with continuation of building that backlog into 2020.
James J. Cannon -- President and Chief Executive Officer
And I'll just add, David. The second half is really important to us with our Soldier Borne System program. As you know, we were awarded that earlier in the year, we've been working really hard to field that program, it's now been fielded to the initial units to receive the Black Hornet. And so we're working very hard through the second half of the year to make sure that program is successful as it is so important to protect our soldiers on the battlefield.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question is coming from Jeff Kessler from Imperial Capital. Your line is now live.
Jeffrey Kessler -- Imperial Capital LLC -- Analyst
Thank you. I know you visited the Maritime situation before. But just wondering -- the -- you did have a very large amount of new product introduction, particularly control systems, control panels for boats. And I'm wondering even with the amount of new products, you had out there. The decline in registrations offset that is what you're saying?
James J. Cannon -- President and Chief Executive Officer
That's correct, Jeff. Yeah, we're again real pleased with the performance of our products and this year we've been able to capture with MFDs and other controls. I mentioned DockSense earlier. Also, I am pleased with the team's effort to shift into professional markets in the Maritime arena. We mentioned Maritime Law Enforcement Border Protection etc., but those efforts still aren't quite mature enough to offset the decline that we see in new boat sales and with those new boat sales typically that directly drives the adoption of our products. So yes, Jeff, you're correct with that state.
Jeffrey Kessler -- Imperial Capital LLC -- Analyst
If we just move into some of your sensors and the use of those sensors in what we'll call, what we call safe cities programs because as you know Securities the area where I am most familiar. And I'm wondering what the progress you see there as I know this is a very long -- a very long tailed type of -- type of development that goes on. But, it's something that I asked the company that once or twice a year, just to give me an idea of where we are in terms of the adoption of various cores and including various cameras that includes your cores for purposes of both civilian and security use in the -- I'm going to call safe cities or secure cities model programs?
James J. Cannon -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. We see that adoption really in two areas. Right now, I mentioned earlier in the prepared remarks, the traffic data that we've introduced with our intelligent traffic systems. We see more and more of a fusion between traffic management, intersection management and monitoring as well as connected and safe cities. So with the acquisition that we did last year with Acyclica, having data and data set management along with that software, along with the sensors in such and intersections help not just traffic management, but safe cities. Also I mentioned -- we had in the quarter, our largest ever $17 million award for our core security business. Monitoring critical infrastructure, something we've long focused on, whether it's power -- water, utilities and more and more we see strength in data centers. Using thermal cameras, really our bread and butter or staple kind of products to secure data centers, because of their obvious benefits.
We've also been working to -- with the Saros camera introduce combined, visible and IR few [Phonetic] sensors, with analytics that can determine whether it's a deer, or a dog versus a pedestrian that's approaching a perimeter and integrating low cost radars, with those solutions as well. So, more and more across the world. But also particularly North America, we see real brand strength in our brand being a US company securing critical infrastructure where concerns around cyber security and otherwise continue to persist.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question today is coming from Josh Sullivan from Seaport Global. Your line is now live.
Josh Sullivan -- Seaport Global Securities -- Analyst
Hey, good morning.
James J. Cannon -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning, Josh.
Josh Sullivan -- Seaport Global Securities -- Analyst
Just within that guidance for accelerated growth in Q4 and on the defense portfolio. The two-year deal here provides the backdrop, but if we still get even a short continuing resolution in Q4. Does that impact your outlook, anyway. Is that already factored in?
James J. Cannon -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Well, certainly, we don't want to continued resolution or any form of the government shutdown that -- that absolutely would impact our business. Right now though we do have some bookings, we want to still go capture, but with the backlog that we have. Again, we have confidence in the guidance that we've issued now, again if there is a sustained CRS shutdown et cetera, I can't say that's fully anticipated inside of our guidance. But we're cautiously optimistic, and with the bookings that we have now with the backlog that we have now, we have confidence in that guidance that we've issued.
Josh Sullivan -- Seaport Global Securities -- Analyst
Right, and then just one on the industrial portfolio. Can you dig into the geographic performance where are the strength any standout the product outperforming or underperforming in Asia?
James J. Cannon -- President and Chief Executive Officer
The strength is really been in the US. In Asia, we've seen some softness, we've seen some softness in our machine vision, business in Asia. Now that can partially be attributed to the boon that we had in smartphone production that slowed, if you will, but also for our instruments business, we had a slow down in the first half related to some import issues, that we needed to address. But in the US and in Europe, but particularly US our cooled cores have really seen a lot of strength. So the geographic performance for IBU, principally, I'd say, US or North America centric, but also Europe as well.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question is coming from Louie DiPalma from William Blair. Your line is now live.
Louie DiPalma -- William Blair & Company -- Analyst
Good morning, Jim, Carol, David, Travis and Sonia.
James J. Cannon -- President and Chief Executive Officer
You got a soft cover, Louie. Good morning to you.
David Ray -- President, Government & Defense Business Unit
Good morning.
Carol P. Lowe -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Good morning.
Louie DiPalma -- William Blair & Company -- Analyst
Defense media report suggests that the US Army's three-year outlook for the Soldier Borne Sensor program is set to scale from around 1,150 systems to over 9,000 systems over the next three years. And the published President's budget request for Robotics which includes Soldier Borne Sensor and the Endeavor MTRs II program shows the budget, increasing from $100 million in 2020 to $209 million in 2023. Is that media report in the budget, generally consistent with your expectations for how Soldier Borne Sensor and Endeavor scales over the next three-years?
James J. Cannon -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, I'd say directionally. Now again, we want to push much more adoption. As I mentioned earlier, that's why right now, the second half is so important to us. When we look at the Soldier Borne System. It has been fielded now its been noted in the media with the 3rd Brigade Combat team of the 82nd Airborne Division and as they now are adopting tactics techniques and procedures and we're learning about its use. Again, we couldn't believe more and it's lifesaving capability to give that non-line of sight Personal Reconnaissance at the squad level. So yeah, I would say directionally that makes sense. But I think there's still a lot of discovery happening, we know that one of the major modernization priorities of DoD is unmanned systems.
And as you know with the acquisitions of Endeavor and Aeryon. We're very focused on that Group One that small squad platoon company level organic unmanned capability. And we know that, that's going to continue to proliferate over the battlefield. So while we directionally sort of agree with those published comments that we have now. I think what we're going to find in the coming quarters and years as these systems get deployed is tactics and techniques develop around them, in their made a part of doctrine and as we continue to innovate and evolve to make them more capable and accessible, we hope to push that number higher because again it's got such a unique in defining capability that we can provide to war fighter.
Louie DiPalma -- William Blair & Company -- Analyst
Okay. And on this subject of unmanned systems. At a high level, can you talk about the role that FLIR plays in counter drone systems, last week, or it might have been two weeks ago there was a high profile incident in the Middle East of a drone being taken down by a counter drone system and at the Sierra space show a lot of the different defense contractors talked about FLIR's involvement in counter-drones, but you guys haven't really been vocal about it on your earnings call. Can you discuss, I guess what systems or the general rule that you guys plan to counter UAS?
James J. Cannon -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Sure, what we do in several areas. First, I'm proud to say, the article that you've mentioned it was our Neutrino cooled core that was a part of that system that down that aircraft. So we participate at the sensor level with other companies that we provide cooled cores and other sensors into their counter UAS solution, we also are working on our own counter UAS solution and we've demonstrated it in several applications using our own radars, our own EOR [Phonetic] systems. Now we focused on the detect loop. We don't have any technologies or solutions around the defeat loop. So our emphasis has been on providing cooled components and other sensors to folks that are integrating into their counter UAS solutions as well as our own organic counter UAS solution, but our solution is focused more on domestic applications to detect, we don't have any technologies and right now we're not pursuing any technologies on the defeat loop of that counter UAS solution.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question is coming from Noah Poponak from Goldman Sachs. Your line is now live.
Noah Poponak -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Hey, good morning everyone.
James J. Cannon -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning, Noah.
Noah Poponak -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Can you hear me, OK. I'm hearing some feedback, and I'm on a cellphone.
James J. Cannon -- President and Chief Executive Officer
I've got you now. Yeah. You cut out for a minute, but I can hear you now well.
Noah Poponak -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
All right. Maybe I'll just shout. I actually wanted to go back to the adjustments from GAAP to adjusted and also as it pertains to cash flow because there is just more and they're larger in the quarter. And historically, the cash flow is always been there but in the quarter the cash flow to the adjusted earnings. There is a little bit weak. So the first part of the question was just, at what point in time -- I understand the intangible amortization is non-cash you're getting to a cash number, but at what point in time do we just not have the acquisition expenses, the management transition expenses, all of these other expenses. At what point in time, we have a cleaner number and then Carol on the free cash. I know it's lumpy quarter-to-quarter, but where should we expect free cash to come in for the year relative to your adjusted earnings guidance?
Carol P. Lowe -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
So let's talk about the GAAP and non-GAAP items first. So, as you noted, will continue to have the amortization of the intangible assets related to acquisitions as one of the reconciling items because we report at adjusted operating income, not EBITDA. That's how some companies address that different. We expect the executive transition costs, to be complete at the end of this year largely complete. As well as it relates to acquisition-related expenses, those will primarily depend on whether or not we are competing an auction process or their investment bankers involved and that is largely determined by the size of the deal and in terms of who we bring in for support for legal and other special services that are needed in terms of valuation that's required, those will continue to see and again it's just going to be driven by the volume of M&A that we're doing and those are the larger items.
As we relate to cash flow. I guess one thing just to provide a little bit more clarity about the, when you first look at the decline year-over-year in cash flow, it's really driven by the timing of when sales are realized and we had higher sales in June of '19 as compared to '18 when you then compare that to June of '18 compared to '17. So last year, cash flow was benefited by receivables and timing of sales, it was a positive net $12 million to cash flow, this year for the first half it's a negative $35 million, again just on timing. So that's the net delta when you're comparing '18 cash flow to '19 cash flow of approximately $47 million. So that's a big impact of it.
We've not really provided guidance on cash flow, we expect to continue to be able to exceed at the cash flow from operations level. We've always been at more than 100% and will expect to continue to deliver that on a year-on-year basis.
Noah Poponak -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Okay, I appreciate that. That's really helpful. And then I just wanted to ask on the Government margin, kind of 31 in change, at the end of last year 27 and change in the first quarter than 24 and change this quarter. And I totally get the acquired businesses and some of the new efforts there and the potential to grow revenues significantly from them, them to dilute the margin, but I don't know how much they dilute the margin sustainably and so yeah, I guess, which of the last four quarters is more indicative of the kind of normalized two to three year out run rate margin in that business?
James J. Cannon -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Well, I mean, we don't want to guide the future specific margins of our Government & Defense Business Unit, except to say as we've talked about before. We're constantly managing that arbitrage between competing for larger programs that could have a dilutive effect, as well as driving innovations and non-programmatic business. They can be accretive, you mentioned the acquisitions and we talked about there dilution inside the quarter is they advance through the year. We expect them to begin to contribute, to positive margins in the Government & Defense Business. So as we've said at the macro level, we are still committed to 23 points operating margin in the Government & Defense business is a key contributor to us maintaining or exceeding that guidance.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question is a follow-up from Michael Ciarmoli from SunTrust. Your line is now live.
Michael Ciarmoli -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst
Hey, thanks guys. Thanks for taking the follow-up here. Just to maybe stay on that. I mean, you've got the 29%, 2021 bogey [Phonetic] out there for government margin. So is that still good and then separately, you've got that 2021 target of 30% for Industrial margins and I mean on that front, you put up close to 33%, it sounds like you're even dealing with some headwinds in the instrument margins. So should we be thinking there could be upside to that industrial margin longer term and then basically 29% still good for government?
James J. Cannon -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, I mean, as we talked about in our Investor Day, and we still remain committed directionally to those kind of margins in the businesses. But quarter-to-quarter, we have lumpiness across all of our business units that can drive margins a couple of 100 basis points one way or the other. So I wouldn't say, after one quarter that's sustained upside for industrial and/or dilution for Government & Defense.
Again as the business mix ebbs and flows, but I will note across all the businesses, Industrial, in particular. But Government Defense and Commercial as well. We're also working really hard with the FLIR Method to drive productivity and we've seen now well into 2019 that effort beginning to take effect. So whether it be some tariff headwinds that we've seen in the Commercial Business Unit or mix shifts or -- as we mentioned, some of the dilutive effect of the recent acquisitions. We've got a productivity engine that I'm real proud of right now that's beginning to fire, so again as we go back to what we communicated at Investor Day and what we're guiding to in the year now, still very much in line with that direction.
Operator
Thank you. We reached the end question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over to management for any further or closing comments.
James J. Cannon -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Well, again I want to thank all of you for joining the call today. As well as your interest in our company. As always I especially want to thank the over 4,000 FLIR employees across the globe for their continued passion and dedication to our customers. We look forward to updating you on our third quarter 2019 financial results in October. Thank you.
Operator
[Operator Closing Remarks]
Duration: 54 minutes
Call participants:
Carol P. Lowe -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
James J. Cannon -- President and Chief Executive Officer
David Ray -- President, Government & Defense Business Unit
Asher Burton Carey -- Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated -- Analyst
James Ricchiuti -- Needham & Company -- Analyst
Michael Ciarmoli -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst
Jeffrey Kessler -- Imperial Capital LLC -- Analyst
Josh Sullivan -- Seaport Global Securities -- Analyst
Louie DiPalma -- William Blair & Company -- Analyst
Noah Poponak -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
