Anurag Maheshwari
Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at 3M
Thank you, Bill. Turning to Slide 6. We had a strong finish to the year with Q4 performance coming in better-than-expected. Total adjusted sales were $5.8 billion with organic growth up 2.1%. All three business groups had positive adjusted organic growth in the quarter and performed better than our end-markets. In the 4th-quarter, global IPI was up 1.4% year-on-year and the markets we serve trended in-line with expectations. Consumer electronics remained stable, automotive OEM builds were flat and consumer retail discretionary spending was soft.
Geographically, our growth was led by China, up high-single-digits, driven by our electronics business, where we continue to gain share and saw modest front-loading from an anticipated change in tariffs. The US was up low-single digits despite the challenging macro backdrop with growth in aerospace and general industrial. And EMEA was down low-single digits due to the continued weak environment, including a high single-digit decline in auto bills.
Adjusted operating margins were 19.7%, down 20 basis-points year-over-year and adjusted EPS was $1.68 or $0.05 better than the midpoint of our guidance. The better performance was driven by $0.09 of volume leverage, higher productivity and lower restructuring charges, more than offsetting the unexpected $0.04 headwind from FX due to the significant recent US dollar strength.
I will provide a quick overview of our growth performance for each business group on Slide 7. Safety and Industrial organic sales grew for the third consecutive quarter with 2.4% growth in the 4th-quarter. This growth was broad-based with six out of seven divisions posting positive growth. We saw particularly strong demand for e-bonding in electronics and hearing and body protection in personal safety. In addition, growth was driven from a large few power grid orders as anticipated in Asia and the US for aluminum high-capacity conductors and power cable accessories for data centers.
For the year, safety and industrial sales were approximately $11 billion with organic sales growth of 0.7%, led by strength in e-bonding, cable accessories and auto body repair. Roofing granules had another year of mid-single-digit growth as we continue to capitalize on the multi-year roof replacement cycle. Transportation and electronic adjusted sales were up 2% organically in the 4th-quarter. The consumer electronics business showed continued strength, growing high-single-digits, driven by solid volumes through the holiday season and continued share gains.
Aerospace was again up double-digits in the quarter, while the auto OEM business was down mid-single digits, reflecting continued weakness in global car and light truck bills. For the year, Transportation and Electronics had adjusted organic growth of 3.4%, driven by electronics, aerospace and auto. Our electronics sales were up approximately 12% from strong market demand combined with new product introductions and spec wins that drove share gains. Despite a challenging Q4, our auto OEM business was up 2% versus a 1% decline in auto build rates. And the aerospace business grew double-digits again for the year and 50% over the past two years, reflecting our focus on growth portfolios.
Finally, the consumer business returned to growth in the 4th-quarter, up 1.2% organically. Home-improvement led the way up low-single digits, driven by strength during the holiday season for command, Scotch tape and paint protection products. And for the year, our consumer business was down 1.2% with low single-digit growth in-home improvement sales, mainly command, more than offset by low-to mid-single digit declines in the other divisions.
Let me summarize our full-year 2024 financial performance on Slide 8. On the back of strong 4th-quarter performance, we finished the year with total adjusted sales of $23.6 billion and organic growth of 1.2%. All of our business groups were in-line with our guidance and from a geographic perspective, we saw solid organic growth in Asia-Pacific, up 4.4%, driven by consistent strength in our electronics business. In the US, despite IPI being down 0.3%, our business was up 0.7% driven by electrical markets, aerospace, cable accessories and home-improvement. EMEA was down 1.3% due to the decline in auto builds and the weak industrial and manufacturing environment. Our adjusted operating margins expanded 280 basis-points above the high-end of our guidance range of 250 to 275 basis-points to 21.4% 0.4%.
This performance was driven by benefits from volume leverage, productivity, solventum transition service agreement, cost reimbursements and restructuring, partially offset by FX and investments to drive growth in the business. We delivered $7.30 of EPS for the year, up 21% and at the high-end of our guidance range. Over 80% of our year-on-year performance was driven by strong operational execution. Finally, we delivered free-cash flow of $4.9 billion or 111% conversion, which included net working capital improvement of eight days and returned $3.8 billion to shareholders in 2024.
Please turn to Slide 9 as we look into our 2025 guidance. As Bill indicated, we expect organic sales growth of 2% to 3%, earnings per share of $7.60 to $7.90, representing growth of 4% to 8% and free-cash flow conversion of approximately 100%, all on an adjusted basis. We expect all business groups to grow low-single digits, which is in-line with or above macro. We expect this higher-growth trajectory to be supported by a focus on commercial excellence, improvement in-service levels and new product launches. We have largely moved past product portfolio prioritization headwinds and the small amount that remains is incorporated into our guidance and won't be specifically called out going-forward.
Our EPS growth is anchored by margin expansion in the range of 130 basis-points to 190 basis-points, which reflects our relentless focus on operational excellence. Adjusted free-cash flow conversion is expected to be approximately 100%, driven by strong operating income growth and a focus on working capital management. Adjusted CapEx of approximately $1 billion will be in-line with depreciation and amortization.
Let me take a minute to walk-through the EPS drivers for 2025 on Slide 10. We expect EPS growth of 4% to 8%, driven by operational performance that is partially offset by non-operational headwinds. We are confident that our focus on operational excellence will contribute $0.70 to $1 or 10% to 14% to adjusted EPS growth. This growth will come from volume, restructuring and net productivity more than offsetting growth investments and stranded costs. We expect non-op headwinds of approximately $0.40, half from FX due to recent strengthening of the US dollar and the other half from below-the-line items, including pension expense, net interest and tax, partially offset by share buyback. We plan for our gross share repurchase program in '25 to be approximately $1.5 billion.
Putting all this together, we expect strong operating performance and capital deployment to drive EPS growth. As we think about the cadence through the year, we expect sales and EPS to be split equally between the first and second-half, in-line with historical trends. Within the first-half, we expect Q1 sales growth to be similar to Q4 and earnings will reflect the annual equity grants, which last year were deferred to Q2. This will result in Q1 earnings being similar to that of last year and we expect sequential improvement into Q2 as we lap the spin items with earnings being approximately equal between the two halves.
I want to take a moment to thank the 3M team for the strong finish to the year and I'm confident in our ability to deliver another strong year in 2025 with growth acceleration, strong margin expansion and return cash to our shareholders in excess of $3 billion.
With that, let's open the call for questions.
