As we announced last night, first quarter adjusted earnings per share was $1.66, a 44% increase from the prior year.
Our chopper pump introduced in 2018 has been proven to reduce maintenance costs by 75%.
Together, these two products are on track to drive $30 million of incremental sales by 2025.
In February, we presented, in addition to our triple offset valve line, the FK Tri-X product that is true breakthrough focused on replacing other valve technologies and expanding our addressable market by another $500 million for this product line.
This valve is completely new in the industry and delivers four to 6 times better flow than the competition, while maintaining the superior sealing technology of a triple offset valve, and therefore, reducing the total cost of ownership by 50%.
This product provides more resistance to delamination and corrosion and lasts over 10 times longer than competing products.
We just exited our best quoting month ever for this product, which was introduced in 2019, and we are on track to deliver sales approximately 4 times last year's levels.
To date, 147 denominations of specified Crane Currency's technology and 10 new denominations over the last 12 months, including the first for our new BREEZE product introduction.
For example, paper yields in our Swedish substrate operation are up 8% over the last 12 months, a material improvement that directly improves profitability.
When we announced this acquisition in late 2017, we targeted $1 of earnings per share accretion by 2021.
Based on where we ended the quarter, I am very confident we will exceed that $1.
Balancing these factors, we are raising our adjusted earnings per share guidance by $0.65 to range of $5.65 to $5.85.
At the midpoint, that reflects 50% adjusted earnings per share growth.
We are raising our core sales growth forecast by two points to a range of 4% to 6%.
Sales of $288 million increased 12% driven by a 6% increase in core sales, a 5% benefit from favorable foreign exchange and modest acquisition benefit.
Fluid Handling operating profit increased by 24% to $39 million.
Adjusted operating margins increased 120 basis points to 13.4%, reflecting strong execution on productivity, benefits from last year's cost actions and the higher volumes.
Sequentially, trends in Fluid Handling improved across the board with foreign exchange neutral backlog up 4% and foreign exchange neutral orders up 15%.
Compared to the prior year, backlog increased 5% and orders increased 2%.
In February, we guided to core growth of 0.5%, which is now expected to be in the mid-single-digit range.
Our original guidance for favorable foreign exchange of 2% is now running closer to 4%, and we still expect an incremental acquisition benefit of approximately $5 million this year from I&S.
Margins should also exceed our original 12.5% guidance.
At Payment & Merchandising Technologies, sales of $338 million in the quarter increased 13% compared to the prior year, driven by 8% core sales growth and a 4% benefit from favorable foreign exchange.
Segment operating profit increased 176% to $85 million.
Adjusted operating margins increased 1,500 basis points to 25.3%.
And while currency core sales increased 52%, our high-margin Payment business core sales declined 12% and is still several quarters away from a full recovery.
Given all those favorable trends for 2021, core sales growth is likely to reach the high single digits this year, somewhat better than the 6% we originally guided to, with favorable foreign exchange now, a little above 3% benefit for the year.
Margins are now likely to be above 20% on a full year basis, but we certainly expect margins to moderate somewhat as the year progresses.
At Aerospace & Electronics, sales declined 20% to $154 million with segment margins of 16.9%.
In the quarter, total aftermarket sales declined 29%, driven by a 43% decline in the commercial aftermarket and a 5% decline in military aftermarket sales.
Commercial OE sales declined 32%, but the defense OE business remained solid with sales up 4%.
On a full year basis, the core sales decline should be a couple of points better than the 8% decline we guided to earlier this year.
We still expect segment margins to recover back to north of 20% fairly quickly after 2021 as the commercial markets continue to recover on a substantially lower cost base.
For this year, we expect margins modestly better than the 15% that we guided to in January.
Engineered Materials sales increased 6% in the quarter to $54 million with 11.8% margins.
We had very strong cash flow performance in the quarter, generating $45 million in free cash flow compared to negative $43 million in the first quarter of last year.
During the quarter, we also received $15 million from the sale of a property in Long Beach, California that is excluded from free cash flow given required classification of an investing activity.
Since 2017, we have received proceeds from real estate and other asset sales made possible by restructuring activities of approximately $47 million, which means that much of our restructuring has actually been self-funded.
At Investor Day in February, I told you that we had very limited acquisition capacity today growing to about $750 million by the end of this year.
The adjusted tax rate in the quarter was 22.2%.
For the full year, we now expect an adjusted tax rate of 21% rather than the 21.5% prior guidance with the fourth quarter tax rate likely the lowest of the year.
As Max explained, we are raising our adjusted earnings per share guidance by $0.65 to a range of $5.65 to $5.85, reflecting the strong first quarter performance and our expectation that end markets and execution will be ahead of where we forecast them earlier this year.
For core sales, we now expect core growth of 4% to 6%, up two points from our prior guidance.
Foreign exchange has also become more favorable over the last several weeks, and we now expect favorable foreign exchange translation of 2.5%, up from 1.5% in our prior guidance.
Free cash flow guidance was increased to $300 million to $330 million, up $35 million from prior guidance, reflecting higher earnings.
Corporate expense is now expected to be $77 million, up $12 million compared to the prior guidance, reflecting a number of changes, including some timing items, some legal fees and higher bonus accruals.
Remember, last quarter, we discussed about $0.06 of earnings that we shifted from the end of last year into our first quarter given timing and logistics issues.

Summary:
As we announced last night, first quarter adjusted earnings per share was $1.66, a 44% increase from the prior year.
Balancing these factors, we are raising our adjusted earnings per share guidance by $0.65 to range of $5.65 to $5.85.
Compared to the prior year, backlog increased 5% and orders increased 2%.
As Max explained, we are raising our adjusted earnings per share guidance by $0.65 to a range of $5.65 to $5.85, reflecting the strong first quarter performance and our expectation that end markets and execution will be ahead of where we forecast them earlier this year.