Olivier Leonetti
Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Johnson Controls International
Thanks, George, and good morning, everyone. Let me start with the summary on Slide 7. Total sales grew 3% to $6.9 billion, while organic sales increased 2% with another strong quarter from our Service business, which grew 9% organically. The cyber incident was a 1% headwind in the quarter. Adjusted segment EBITA was flat year-over-year with margins declining 50 basis points to 16%. Price/cost was positive, and we delivered strong productivity savings, achieving our $340 million target for the year.
Turning to our EPS bridge on Slide 8. Adjusted EPS of $1.05 increased 6% year-over-year and include a $0.04 headwind from the cyber incident. Operations contributed $0.03 of the growth in the quarter, benefiting from positive price/cost and our ongoing SG&A and COGS actions. Below the line, we saw favorability from non-controlling interest and a lower share count.
Let's now discuss our segment results in more detail, on Slides 9 through 12. Beginning on Slide 9. Organic sales in our shorter-cycle Global Products business, excluding the 2% headwind from the cyber incident were flat year-over-year, with price upsetting a decline in volume. Global Products saw continued strength in Commercial HVAC, which grew high-single-digits, after growing mid-teens in the comparable period one-year ago. Demand remained strong and our leading position in Commercial HVAC was further extended in fiscal 2023.
Fire & Security declined low-single digits as inventory further rebalanced as lead times improved materially year-over-year. Industrial Refrigeration had another strong quarter, growing over 45%, driven by EMEA/LA. Global Residential declined high-teens, driven by a greater than 30% decline in North America and a high single-digit decline in Rest of World. North America faced challenging year-over-year comparisons as we were still working out of a backlog from last fiscal year. In Europe, the heat pump market overall experienced lower growth than anticipated.
As our book-to-bill business begins to normalize with improved lead times, our Global Products third-party backlog decreased 4% from the prior year to $2.5 billion and remained flat sequentially. Adjusted segment EBITA margins declined 85 basis points, against a tough comparison to 21% as continued weakness in Global Residential offset positive price/cost and productivity savings. One of the biggest factor impacting our Global Products margin performance is due to lower absorption cost in Global Residential business.
Moving to Slide 11 to discuss our Building Solutions performance. Order momentum remained strong with 9% growth. Service orders grew 7% in the quarter and 11% for the full year as our transformation into a service-led organization gains momentum. Install orders increased 10%, led by double-digit orders in North-America and EMEA/LA. Organic sales grew 5%, driven by strong growth in Service of 9%. Install grew 2% organically against a tough comparison. The cyber incident was a 1% headwind in the quarter. Adjusted segment EBITA increased 5%, while margins declined 10 basis points as a higher mix of equipment installations and weakness in China offset positive price/cost and saving from productivity initiatives. Strong equipment sales are an important contributor to future higher margin recurring service revenue. Building Solutions backlog remains at record levels, growing 9% to $12.1 billion. Service backlog increased 12%, and Install backlog grew 8% year-over-year.
Let's discuss the Building Solutions' performance by region on Slide 12. Orders in North America increased 8% with continued strength across our HVAC & Controls platform up over 20% year-over-year. Overall, there was robust demand in our office, data center, healthcare, government and manufacturing sectors. Install orders increased 11% year-over-year with solid growth in new construction. Sales in North America were up 8% organically with broad-based growth across the portfolio. Our Install business grew 9%, with continued momentum in new construction, up 25% year-over-year.
Organic sales in Service grew 7% in the quarter and 8% for the full year, driven by strong performance across our shorter-term transactional business, which is the direct result of having a large customer base. Sales across our HVAC & Controls platform grew high-teens year-over-year, while Fire & Security was flat. Segment margins expanded 70 basis points year-over-year to 15.4%, driven by ongoing productivity benefits, the continued execution of higher margin backlog and strength in our higher margin Service business. Total backlog ended the quarter at $8.3 billion, up 10% year-over-year. In EMEA/LA, orders were up 16% with solid contributions of 16% growth from both Service and Install. Demand in Commercial remain strong, growing 50% year-over-year, driven by HVAC & Security.
As the decarbonization efforts in Europe continue to gain momentum, our offerings in Industrial Refrigeration and HVAC & Controls increased orders by about 20% across the Industrial sector. By region, order growth was broad-based. Sales in EMEA/LA grew 3% organically, led by mid-teen growth in Service with double-digit growth from both our recurring contracts and our shorter-cycle transactional business. Applied Commercial HVAC and Fire & Security grew low-single digits within the quarter. Segment EBITA margins declined 160 basis points to 7.8%, driven primarily by execution of lower margin jobs within the backlog. Backlog was up 10% year-over-year to $2.3 billion. In Asia-Pacific, orders grew 3%, driven by double-digit growth in Service with healthy growth across our HVAC & Controls platform. Overall, we saw strong demand in the institutional sector growing over 30%.
Sales in Asia Pacific declined 6% as the Installation business was impacted primarily by weakness in China. Our Service business continued the momentum of double-digit growth, increasing 11% in the quarter and 14% for the full year. Overall, Fire & Security grew mid-single-digits, while HVAC & Controls declined high-single-digits. Segment EBITA margins declined 50 basis points to 13.5% as weakness in China offset ongoing productivity savings and positive price/cost. Backlog of $1.5 billion is flat year-over-year.
Turning to our balance sheet and cash flow on Slide 13. We ended the fourth quarter with approximately $800 million in available cash and net-debt declined to 1.9 times, which is lower than our long-term target range of 2 times to 2.5 times. As George mentioned, during 2023, we returned $1.6 billion to our shareholders via dividends and share repurchases. Our free cash flow conversion of 76% was better than our updated guidance. On the working capital front, our receivable collection has extended as our Installation business critical to generate our Service business has grown. We are making structural changes such as more upfront payments to improve our cash collection cycle in the Installation business.
While inventories remain elevated versus historical levels, primarily due to the challenges in our Global Residential businesses, we saw overall inventories improved five days sequentially in the fourth quarter. We anticipate further improvement entering fiscal 2024. We have the fundamentals in place to be a 100% cash conversion company over time. However, continued growth investments and some further restructuring in fiscal 2024 will be headwinds in the fiscal year.
Now let's discuss our first quarter and fiscal 2024 guidance on Slide 14. We are entering fiscal year 2024 with a backlog at historical levels, strong momentum in our industry-leading Service business and broad-based demand across end markets. We're introducing first quarter sales guidance of approximately flat year-over-year as we return to normalized seasonality. Our forecast includes a roughly 1% headwind from the cyber incident, as well as continued weakness anticipated in China. We expect Building Solutions' momentum to continue led by our resilient Service business.
Global Products faces a tough year-over-year comparison as we were working through elevated backlogs in the comparable quarter last year, especially in Residential HVAC and certain Fire & Security indirect [Phonetic] channels. For the first quarter, we expect segment EBITA margin to be approximately 13% and adjusted EPS to be in the range of $0.48 to $0.50. We're expecting a slower start of the year as we return to more normalized seasonality, including the negative impact from the cyber incident and anticipate continued weakness in China. For the full year, we anticipate Global Products to stabilize in the second half of 2024, as backlog continues to normalize and Building Solutions converts its higher margin backlog. We expect organic sales to grow approximately mid-single-digits with Building Solutions leading the growth particularly in service.
Segment EBITA margins, I expect that to expand approximately 25 basis points or greater as price/cost remains positive and mix improve throughout the year. Adjusted EPS should be in the range of approximately $3.65 to $3.80, representing growth of 4% to 9% year-over-year. For the first quarter, we anticipate our normal seasonal cash usage was incremented impact from the cyber incident. We expect free cash flow conversion to be 85% for the full year. Our results and guidance reflect great progress advancing our service strategy enabled by digital, momentum in our commercial products offering, and we enter fiscal 2024 with strong order momentum and record backlog in our longer-cycle Building Solutions business.
With that operator, open up the lines for questions.
