We grew our sales to $761 million, sales were up 20% and earnings per share was up 26% versus last year.
We closed this transaction on November 1 with a purchase price of $4 million.
While the company only generates a little under $4 million in revenue today, this acquisition allows us to support our Industrial segment with the addition of a services business.
With that said, we are raising our top and bottom line guidance for fiscal 2022 based on a few factors; first quarter results, higher sales expectations driven in part by incremental pricing and operating expense leverage.
Total sales were $761 million, which is up 20% from last year, due in part to last year's softness related to the pandemic.
In Engine, total sales were $527 million, up 21% with our first-fit businesses leading the charge once again.
Sales in Off-Road were $94 million, up 45%.
The exception was in the Asia Pacific region where we compared against the sales increase of nearly 40% in the prior year.
In On-Road, first quarter sales were $32 million or down 1.5% year-over-year.
Importantly, excluding this impact, total On-Road sales would have been up about 12% globally and up 7% in North America.
In Engine Aftermarket, sales in the first quarter were $374 million, an increase of 18% from the prior year.
These products accounted for about 30% of total Aftermarket sales and grew about 20% year-over-year.
In the first quarter, sales of these products were up in the mid-20% range and they now account for nearly 40% of our Aftermarket OE channel sales.
Included in these figures is PowerCore, which achieved another quarterly record for Aftermarket sales and increased more than 18%.
Moving to Aerospace and Defense, first quarter sales of $28 million were up 23% year-over-year as the commercial aerospace industry rebounds from the pandemic-related pressure a year ago.
Engine sales were down about 6% in the quarter.
However, this is against a 40% increase last year.
The Industrial segment had another solid quarter with total sales increasing 17% to $234 million.
Sales of Industrial Filtration Solutions or IFS, grew 23% to $166 million with two-thirds of the increase coming from industrial dust collection.
Process Filtration sales, which serve the food and beverage market, grew over 30% due to growth in new equipment and replacement parts in Europe.
First quarter sales of Special Applications were $52 million, up 23% with strong contributions across our product portfolio, including notable increases in our disk drive and membranes businesses.
Also within Special Applications, first quarter sales of venting products grew 19%.
First quarter sales of Gas Turbine Systems or GTS were approximately $17 million, down 28% to almost entirely to timing of orders.
First quarter sales grew 20%, operating income was up 23% and earnings per share of $0.61 was 26% above the prior year.
First quarter operating margin increased 40 basis points to 14.1%.
The increase was from leverage on higher sales, which was partially offset by gross margin pressure.
First quarter operating expense as a percent of sales was favorable by approximately 160 basis points, driven primarily by volume leverage.
Other expense was favorable this quarter by $1.5 million, mostly due to a pension curtailment charge we took in the first quarter of last year.
Our first quarter cash conversion ratio was 32%, down meaningfully from last year, driven primarily by investments in inventory to further support our increasing demand.
Inventory this quarter were up $60 million sequentially and $115 million year-over-year, mainly due to the impact of inflation, a commitment we made to increased levels of inventory to ensure we're adequately prepared to meet demand and supply chain challenges we have had internally with our customers on order deliveries.
As a result, working capital was $71 million, net use of cash this quarter versus a $33 million benefit last year.
First quarter capital expenditures were $18 million as we invested in various projects, including PowerCore capacity expansion in North America.
We repurchased 1.3% of our outstanding shares for $103 million and we paid dividends of $27 million.
We ended the quarter with a net debt to EBITDA ratio of 0.7 times.
We are now expecting fiscal 2022 sales to be up between 8% and 12% with the nominal impact from currency translation.
This increase from our previous guidance of 5% to 10% is driven by Q1 results as well as benefits from additional pricing actions that will be implemented and rolling over the balance of the year.
For the Engine segment, we expect the revenue increase between 8% and 12%, up from our previous expectation of between 5% to 10%.
We are still forecasting low-double-digit growth for the year, due in large part to comping against the COVID-related market weakness in fiscal '21.
We expect sales to be up between 7% and 11%, which brings up the bottom end of our previous guidance range of 6% to 11% by a point.
Special Applications revenue is forecasted to be up low-single-digits versus our initial guidance of down low-single-digits, reflecting stronger than expected growth across the portfolio in the first quarter.
We maintained our expectation for a full year rate between 14.1% and 14.7%.
As a reminder, last year's adjusted operating margin was 14%.
And we now expect gross margin to be down 50 to 100 basis points from the prior year.
To expand further on this point, last quarter we said we expected to pay 8% to 10% more for our raw materials this year, which equated to about 300 basis points.
That estimate is now 12% to 14% or a little shy of 400 basis points.
Additionally, freight and labor costs have now become a more significant headwind than we anticipated, which results in additional 100 basis points of gross margin pressure.
Based on our updated forecast, we plan for a new earnings per share record of between $2.57 and $2.73, implying an increase from last year's adjusted earnings per share of 11% to 18%.
In terms of capital expenditures, we are lowering our planned spend for this year to a range of between $90 million and $110 million.
So essentially, a $10 million reduction to the range we provided in September of $100 million to $120 million.
Given supply chain uncertainty and other variables, the timing of execution on some of our capacity expansion projects could be slowed.
In terms of free cash flow, increased inventory levels, partially offset by the lower capex, result in a reduction to our free cash flow conversion forecast to between 70% and 80%, down from our initial guidance of 80% to 90%.
On share repurchases, we still plan to repurchase about 2% of our outstanding shares this fiscal year.
We previously invested $15 million for our materials research center, which will enable further development of our polymer-based chemistry solutions.
It is also important to note, we increased our R&D budget this fiscal year by 10% over last year.
We are well on our way of reducing CO2 emissions by 6,000 metric tons by the end of fiscal 2022.

Summary:
With that said, we are raising our top and bottom line guidance for fiscal 2022 based on a few factors; first quarter results, higher sales expectations driven in part by incremental pricing and operating expense leverage.
First quarter sales grew 20%, operating income was up 23% and earnings per share of $0.61 was 26% above the prior year.
First quarter operating margin increased 40 basis points to 14.1%.
The increase was from leverage on higher sales, which was partially offset by gross margin pressure.
We are now expecting fiscal 2022 sales to be up between 8% and 12% with the nominal impact from currency translation.
For the Engine segment, we expect the revenue increase between 8% and 12%, up from our previous expectation of between 5% to 10%.
We are still forecasting low-double-digit growth for the year, due in large part to comping against the COVID-related market weakness in fiscal '21.
Special Applications revenue is forecasted to be up low-single-digits versus our initial guidance of down low-single-digits, reflecting stronger than expected growth across the portfolio in the first quarter.
Additionally, freight and labor costs have now become a more significant headwind than we anticipated, which results in additional 100 basis points of gross margin pressure.
Based on our updated forecast, we plan for a new earnings per share record of between $2.57 and $2.73, implying an increase from last year's adjusted earnings per share of 11% to 18%.
Given supply chain uncertainty and other variables, the timing of execution on some of our capacity expansion projects could be slowed.