Halma plc

Good morning and welcome to our full year 26 results presentation. I'm delighted to be here to present a very strong set of results for the year. Results which once again demonstrate the quality of our businesses and the strength of our sustainable growth model. A model built on decades of disciplined choices around the markets we operate in, the companies we acquire and the leaders we trust to run them. And I'd like to start today by thanking everyone at Halma for their individual contributions to our record performance, a performance we should all be incredibly proud of. Together, we continue to make a meaningful difference by pursuing our purpose of growing a safer, cleaner, healthier future for everyone, every day. Carol will provide more insight into our financial performance shortly, But first, let me start with the highlights. It's fantastic to report our 23rd consecutive year of profit growth. And I'm really pleased to see these results underpinned by strong, broad-based organic growth delivered across all three sectors. Our results include a premium growth contribution from the continued scaling of our photonics business. More here from Carol shortly. We've delivered strong margins, high returns and good cash conversion. And this performance enabled us to reinvest at a record level well over £600 million in the significant opportunities we see for future growth, including a record year for both R&D spend and M&A. These results reflect the cumulative benefit of decades of disciplined choices, and a model that enables a virtuous cycle of growth where strong performance funds further investment in innovation, talent and acquisitions. You'll recognise the core elements of our sustainable growth model on this slide. In our half year results in November, I shared how our model underpins my confidence in the long term prospects for Halma. The strength of our model lies in the way its elements are interlinked and work together, allowing our businesses to respond with agility to new opportunities while remaining aligned to our group strategy of delivering sustainable compounding growth and returns. Critical to this is the exceptional talent across Halma, which acts as a key enabler and a multiplier of performance. ensuring that as we invest, adapt and grow, we continue to compound value over the long term. In the second part of my presentation, I'll share the core elements of our continued investment. But first, let me hand over to Carol for more details on our financial performance in the year.

Thank you, Mark. Good morning, everyone. A very warm welcome and thank you for joining us this morning. I'll be taking you through the detail behind this excellent set of results. First, let's take a look at our performance against our financial targets. It's been another year of strong financial performance, driven by broad-based growth, strong returns and healthy levels of cash generation. Throughout the presentation, I'll focus on the numbers, excluding the small one-off from the Nuvonik transaction that we completed in the first half of the year. First, we have delivered very strong revenue and profit growth well ahead of our targets. Organic revenue up 16%, well above our 5% target, even excluding the premium photonics growth. With EBIT growing an impressive 19%, resulting in an exceptionally strong EBIT margin of 22.7%, up 110 basis points towards the upper end of our target range. This means we've delivered EPS growth of 21%, far exceeding our KPI target of 10%. Our strong growth and returns enabled us to continue to invest for the long term, with our companies investing 123 million in R&D, representing 4.7% of group revenue. Fantastic to see our M&A momentum driving acquisition profit growth of 8.3%, above our KPI target of five. We also achieved 93% cash conversion ahead of our KPI target of 90%. This reflects good cash management and working capital control across the group. And finally, given the strength of profit growth, ROTIC was 16.2% up 120 basis points. Now let's look at our revenue growth in more detail. This slide bridges the year on year reported revenue growth of 14.4%. Organic revenue growth was very strong at 16.2%. This was broadly spread across all three sectors, with most of the growth volume driven with price increases a typical one to 2%. Additionally, organic revenue benefited from the premium from our photonics business, which accounted for around half of this growth. Acquisitions including Lamedy Nori, Brownline, E2S and Safetec contributed 2.5% to growth. There was a currency headwind of 2.8%, primarily due to the depreciation of the US dollar against sterling. Let's now move to the profit and margin growth. Adjusted EBIT grew by 20.3% and a particularly strong 19% on an organic basis. This was ahead of revenue growth, reflecting the strength of the top line, focused operational delivery, targeted product and portfolio management, and good overhead control, all combined with continued investment across our companies. Acquisitions contributed 3.9% of profit, again ahead of revenue contribution, reflecting the quality of businesses we have acquired. Disposals were also modestly accretive to margins. The currency headwind was similar to that of revenue at 2.8%. Moving on to the sector commentary. Starting with the safety sector, where it's great to see further positive momentum following two years of double digit profit growth. This broad base performance was underpinned by growth in each of safety's four sub-sectors. Revenue grew by 6.5% on an organic constant currency basis. Healthy levels of customer demand underpinned strong momentum in public safety and good levels of growth in fire and worker safety. Growth was further supported by the continued rollout of new products across the sector. Adjusted profit grew 16%, 13% on an organic basis, making it our third year running of double digit organic profit growth. Profit margin increased by 260 basis points to 26.8%. This is a historic high for the sector, driven by the sector's continued strong revenue growth, companies optimising their product and portfolio mix, good cost control and the benefits of active portfolio management. It's great to see our safety companies continuing to make substantial investments, investing ahead of revenue growth. R&D spend increased by 12% to 56 million, which equates to 6% of sector revenue, reflecting the significant opportunities they've identified to deliver future growth. Safety has also had an active year for M&A, acquiring two great companies in the year. These were E2S, our largest acquisition to date for £226 million and Safetec for £64 million. Together, they broaden our fire safety portfolio and strengthen our position in industrial markets. Now turning into environmental and analysis. On this slide, we have shown E&A's performance excluding the Nuvonic one-off. There's a slide in the appendix that shows the numbers, including this benefit. The E&A sector delivered very strong organic revenue growth of 34.4%. It's good to see double digit growth across all three subsectors, with photonics within optical solutions being particularly strong, which I'll return to shortly. In environmental monitoring and measurement, growth was driven by demand in the US and Asia for gas detection and management solutions. In water analysis and treatment, growth benefited from strong demand for water infrastructure products and solutions in the US and UK. Profit grew by 30% to 241 million and by a similar amount on an organic basis. This reflected a profit margin, which was 40 basis points lower at 23.5%, which was mixed driven. Like the safety sector, it's great to see the substantial growth opportunities ahead reflected in a healthy increase in R&D investment, which grew by 23% to 35 million. As I noted at the half year, this is a lower spend as a percentage of sector revenue compared to the other sectors at 3.4%. reflecting the premium growth in Photonics, where R&D is part of the revenue we earn. It's also pleasing to see a strong 4.3% profit contribution from acquisitions, including Brownline and Minicam's bolt-on, Haythorn. I'd now like to spend a moment on the Photonics premium growth, providing some additional colour on what we do for this customer. As a reminder, we acquired Avvo Photonics in 2011, a business that displays many characteristics that are typical of a high quality Halma company. The company's exceptional ability to identify and capture growth opportunities has developed into a relationship of more than a decade with a large hyperscaler technology customer. While the relationship remains commercially confidential, we can share a little more about the nature. It's characterised by a close technical collaboration, applying our customer's IP alongside our own expertise in the co-design and manufacture of optical switches. And we've been working with the customer on multiple generations of the technology for over a decade. In FY26, the premium growth accounted for approximately eight percentage points of the group's organic revenue growth, resulting in a photonics growth rate of 52%. This means the customer now accounts for 20% of group revenue. This is an incredible success story and a testament to the strengths of the local management team in delivering at scale enabled by the support of the Halma model. Looking ahead, trends in this market are clearly dynamic and there will always be technology choices in fast growing markets and the pace of development and rates of growth shaped by various supply side constraints across the data centre market. With a combination of strong customer demand and our continued scaling, we currently expect premium growth of approximately five percentage points of group in FY27, implying a growth rate of a further 30%. This builds on the exceptional growth already achieved with revenue having more than doubled over the past two years as the local management team have successfully and rapidly scaled the business. Now let's move on to our final sector, healthcare. Pleasing to see the continued recovery in healthcare with revenue up 6.3% on an organic basis and profit up 10%, with good levels of growth across all three sub-sectors. This reflected good execution against a background of broad-based recovery in healthcare end markets. supported by improving customer confidence and demand for products and solutions to help facilitate patient diagnosis and treatment and greater efficiency for healthcare providers. You will notice that in this set of results, our healthcare sector companies have been recategorised into three new sub-sectors, better reflecting the patient's journey. Discovery, prevention and diagnostics perform strongly. driven by good demand in vital signs monitoring and eye health diagnostics. There was broad-based organic revenue growth in therapeutic solutions with strong demand for our respiratory device and surgical instrument products. Performance in healthcare enablement was driven by demand for solutions which improve healthcare delivery efficiency. Sector profit was 10% higher, delivering a margin which was 100 basis points higher at 23.9% as a result of stronger revenue growth, continued discipline on pricing and product mix and good control of overheads. As with the other two sectors, our healthcare companies are well invested with R&D at 5.2% of revenue, reflecting their confidence in the growth opportunities in their end markets. There was also good profit contribution from acquisitions of 2.3%, reflecting the quality of businesses we have acquired. I'll now talk about our cash flows and balance sheet and how we are investing for future growth. The cash generative nature of our companies means we are in a position to invest well over 600 million in the year to support future growth while maintaining a strong financial position. The group maintained good cash management and working capital control, with working capital at 18% of revenue in line with our normal range. Our first capital allocation priority is organic investment to support our long-term growth, represented here by investment through R&D and CapEx of £179 million. Together with good underlying working capital management, this delivered cash conversion of 93%. Our second capital allocation priority is continued value enhancing acquisitions. This year we invested a record £475 million on acquisitions. And our third is a progressive return to shareholders through the dividend, with £90 million returned representing our 47th consecutive year of dividend growth of 5% or more. And finally, our leverage is just over one times net debt EBITDA, reflecting the level of acquisitions made in the year and well within our operating range of up to two times. Moving on to my last slide, which is our guidance for this year. We've made a positive start to the 2027 financial year, and whilst the economic and geopolitical environment remains uncertain, and our companies continue to experience varied conditions in their end markets, we expect to deliver low double-digit percentage organic constant currency revenue growth. This includes an expected premium growth of approximately five percentage points from our photonics business. Adjusted EBIT margin is expected to be in line with FY26, excluding the one-off from UVonic. I will now hand you back to Mark.

Thanks, Carol. Fantastic to see the excellent performance delivering on all of our financial targets. In this section, as I mentioned earlier, I want to provide insight into how we think about continuous sustainable investment and why it's so important to our long term growth. Our sustainable growth model enables us to invest for future growth while maintaining our organizational agility and entrepreneurial culture. This means we can keep scaling our model while retaining the core elements of our DNA. As I've shared previously, we're also using this period of premium growth from our photonics business in the same way to further invest in the opportunities we see ahead. ensuring we keep growing sustainably for decades to come. Before I take you through these areas of investment, let me put them in the context of our long-term track record. Looking at our track record on the slide, we've compounded revenue and profit at a double-digit growth rate over the last 20 years, revenue at 11% annually and profit at 12%. This reflects the quality and consistency of execution across our companies, each focused on the delivery of their own strategies in attractive niches and underpinned by long term growth drivers. In recent years, our photonics business has provided a tailwind to that growth. That said, even if we were to exclude its contribution entirely, we would have still compounded at a double digit growth rate over this period. Our decentralized model allows us to maximize the opportunity with our hyperscaler customer while remaining focused on our group strategy of sustainable compounding growth and returns over the long term. Importantly, our model ensures that this premium growth delivered through local execution doesn't distract our other portfolio companies and management teams. They remain fully focused on their own growth strategies, including continued sustainable investment for future growth. And the broad based growth we've shared in our results today being a great example of this in action. Looking ahead, as we focus on maximising the photonics opportunity in front of us, we do so with an understanding that its growth profile differs from that of the wider group in pace, scale and longevity and may result in growth at the group level being more front end loaded. But for clarity, our growth ambition remains as strong as ever. Even from our now much higher base, our objective is to continue our track record of compounding at a double digit rate over the long term. As I've said, we're using this period of premium growth to do exactly that, reinvesting the premium cash flows to further strengthen the wider group as I'll now take you through. You heard from Carol how we've continued to invest significantly in the year. Let me break this down into three core areas. First, our companies continuously invest to grow. Second, we invest in talent, our network and new capabilities to help our companies grow faster. And third, we acquire purpose aligned companies for the long term and actively manage our portfolio. Let me now provide a little more detail on these key areas of investment. Firstly, and as you heard from Carol, our number one capital allocation priority, investing in organic growth. Our companies are already great businesses when they join the group. Our role is to support their growth and continued ability to scale over the long term. A key driver of this being our company's ongoing investment in R&D and innovation. We invested 123 million in R&D in this year. ensuring our businesses remain differentiated, relevant, and well-positioned in their niches in attractive long-term markets. Importantly, R&D is bottom-up, driven by our companies, close to their customers and markets, and aligned to their individual growth strategies rather than being centrally mandated. Ultimately, these investments reflect the confidence our leaders have in the opportunities they see in their markets and our commitment to supporting their long-term growth. Let me bring this to life with a few examples across three areas, new market access, new product development, and incremental R&D. In new market access, Suntec is a leader in clinical-grade motion-tolerant blood pressure monitoring. It's applied its expertise to animal care, extending its core capabilities into an adjacent, faster-growing market. A great example of exceptional agility in capturing a growth opportunity for a period of time whilst remaining focused on the long-term delivery in core markets. For new product development, BEA applied its automatic door sensor expertise to develop its EvoLoop product for automatic car barriers. It replaces the induction loops to improve efficiency and reduce installation time, supplementing organic growth in its core markets. In incremental R&D, Crocon has enhanced its gas detection IQ range by evolving an established product platform extending capability and customer value within its existing markets. The range simplifies gas detection with modular technology, fast servicing and smart connected insights, all without compromising safety or protection. So just three examples of how our companies are continuously investing for long-term growth. Moving to the second area of investment, talent. Talent is important in any business, but in a decentralized group like ours, it's vital. Our decentralized structure relies upon us continuing to attract, develop, and retain entrepreneurial leaders who can grow each business as if it were their own. We take a purposeful, long-term approach to developing leaders. combining internal development with external hires to build diverse, resilient and high performing teams over the long term. We're also making deliberate investments in building a pipeline of leaders through the group, which gives us agility and resilience. During the year, 20 leaders were promoted onto company boards. Nearly 300 leaders participated in our development programs. All of our most recent sector and divisional chief executive appointments were internal promotions. We're doubling our Catalyst graduate program and expanding our rotational placements to focus on AI in our tech team. A great example of strengthening our capabilities while developing the next generation of AI business leaders. We're also investing ahead of need in talent platforms and tools that help our companies develop their own people and reinforcing accountability for talent and culture at a local level to maintain our agility. We further invested in our network. We held our annual Accelerate Senior Leadership Conference in April. and we've facilitated a number of in-person conferences for many of our functional networks, including finance, talent, supply chain, and digital. These events enable leaders to connect, to share experience and access expertise across Helmer, helping them solve problems faster, spot opportunities earlier, and scale proven ideas more effectively. And as the group grows, the value of our network increases and it's becoming an increasingly important source of competitive advantage. But don't take it from me. Let's hear about the strength of the network from some of our leaders at our most recent Accelerate conference.

The Halma network's been fantastic almost from day one I started. I walked into quite a challenging situation and the team in Asia were super helpful to kind of work something through with us. And then more recently now we want to make some changes in the business and people have come up to us and said, here's some ideas, here's a template, come and see us, see what we've done and see what we can do together.

I'm lucky enough to be on my third Halma organisation and throughout that journey I've been at Halma nearly 14 years now. So I've built a pretty good network. And whenever I come across a particular challenge, I use my network all the time. So whether that be looking at structures, organizational structures and changes that I'm looking to make, somebody across the Helm organization will have done that and will have some great learnings to share with me.

With the HOMA network, it's helped us at Centrac and even me personally through thought partnerships. There's been some market analysis work that other groups have done that I've been able to look at that's helped me in my understanding of different markets that I wasn't really familiar with. So that was all directly just through networking. So I wasn't doing research or getting anecdotal details from AI. It was people that have been in the market, in the field for years, and they shared their knowledge with me for free. Just a quick conversation.

You're meeting all kinds of new different people, and it's just amazing that there's a connection with them. No matter what part of the world they're from, what language is their native language, you just feel like, wow, this is great.

What I would say is the greatest strength about the Halma network is really the diversity that we've got within our business. So it doesn't matter what problem you've got, there's someone within the business that you can go to. It's very rare you have to go outside of the business to actually find a resolution. So it's like having phone a friend on hand.

The biggest thing for me at Halma is, yes, we are companies that we're all competing for that growth award and bits and pieces, but it's not the competition, it's the curiosity, the one we're having those conversations. And I think the curiosity over that competition is what comes out every time you're at these events. It's so powerful and people genuinely want to learn. They want to ask good questions. They want to take that back to their businesses.

I think there's maybe a few ways that I've tried to give back to the Halma network. certainly i know a lot of the companies have been through rebranding exercises with different bolt-ons and and and the merging of different helm organizations and that's something we did in the early days at avaya and uh we didn't do perfectly but uh certainly sharing some of those lessons i hope has been helpful to other people some

Great comments there from our leaders. Kate talking about the network, sharing ideas and templates to see what we can do together. Faye talking about applying her experience from another Halmer company. Marcus talking about experts sharing their own market analysis work. And Joe talking about the strength of connections and all of us as leaders learning something new. Just a few great examples of the importance of collaboration and talent at every level of our business. Always such a fantastic and energizing event. We've also further invested in our M&A capabilities through the addition of a small number of individuals to our sector M&A teams, our central function supporting acquisitions and disposals, and through the appointment of two new divisional chief executive roles. These investments increase our capacity and resources to engage and build relationships with potential acquisitions and support the execution of a large number of transactions. With this increased capacity, we continue to take a disciplined long term approach to managing our portfolio. As Carol highlighted, an excellent year for M&A with record investment in acquisitions. Great to see a well-balanced mix of both acquisition sizes and types, including standalone and bolt-on transactions across all three sectors. Also positive to see the momentum continue since the year end, with two further bolt-ons completed for £75 million. Alongside this, we continue to actively manage our portfolio. Our intent is to buy a business to own for decades. And when reviewing our portfolio, our approach starts with a simple question. Would I buy this business today? As a result, we completed three disposals in the last 12 months. AAI in safety, LabSphere in E&A, and Cardios in healthcare. Having found great new homes for these companies, it allows us to redeploy capital into the opportunities where we see the strongest long-term potential. Our approach to acquisition starts by mapping markets that we have an interest in, identifying niches supported by long-term growth drivers, including taking a view on emerging and accelerating megatrends. We typically acquire companies that are adjacent to or in markets that we already know well. And we remain disciplined throughout, never feeling under pressure to do a deal, including walking away where appropriate. Let me highlight a few. E2S, Brownline, and MSTs, Boltons, AltaMed, and Sergistar, all great examples of the quality of businesses our approach delivers. E2S, broadening our fire safety portfolio and strengthening our position in industrial end markets, driven by the need for critical infrastructure resilience and increasing regulation. Brown light. Underpinned by long term growth drivers, urbanization, the requirement for resilient infrastructure, including water, electrification and the rollout of fiber networks, in addition to the increasing use and benefits of trenchless technology. Ultimed and Surgistar, two bolt-ons for MST. Together, they broaden our surgical ophthalmology portfolio, strengthen our geographical reach and add manufacturing capability, all in a market underpinned by ageing populations and growing demand for cataract and eye surgery. Great to be able to welcome them to the group. The quality and pace of our M&A activity reflect the investments we've made in strengthening our teams. Our divisional chief executives lead acquisitions end-to-end, supported by our M&A teams. In addition, our company management teams are actively sourcing and delivering bolt-on opportunities in their markets, this reflecting the increased scale and capability within the portfolio And it's an important way of compounding growth while retaining that local accountability. Looking forward, we have a healthy pipeline across all three sectors, including both bolt on and standalone targets, giving us confidence in our ability to continue to find and acquire high quality businesses that meet our criteria. To wrap up, I wanted to bring our model to life through the voices of company founders who've joined Halma at different points in time across different sectors 10 years ago, five years ago, and during the last 12 months.

It was the right decision to sell to Halma. Looking at the other options we had with various acquirers, Halma was the only one that really allowed us to be independent, to grow as Centrac with our brand, with our the whole organization, being able to leverage all sorts of resources, whether it was legal, financial, sales, international, all these types of things that a smaller company kind of struggles with. But being able to focus on our technology, on our value proposition, while being able to reach out and say, hey, can you help me I am proud that it is still the number one company in the industry for healthcare RTLS. That's not easy.

There's no doubt being part of Halma has allowed Rantech to sort of spread its wings a little bit more as we were looking at expanding globally. Having the confidence to know you could do that with the financial backing of a bigger group was going to be an important part of Rantech's development. The customer is at the heart of everything. We're looking at ways in which we can support customers in territory, you know, with whether we're opening an office in the US because that's where we need to be to support customers properly in the US. I would personally do the same deal that I did. Walking around the business today is, you know, I've been very proud of the legacy that is still here.

It's only been a short while since we've joined the Helmer Group, but we've already noticed the benefit of working in a network where, for example, regulatory information has been passed, which would have been very difficult as a standalone company to achieve. So the long-term hope is that E2S will continue to grow faster than it would have done if it had remained an independent company and will gain access to markets that we couldn't possibly have never have done. We will experience the bolt-on acquisitions that hopefully will come as being part of the Helmer Group, and that will take us into new products and new markets and continue to grow the company for many years to come.

Some Really powerful reflections, tying together those themes of investment, the benefits of the network and why great companies choose to join Houma. You heard from Ari at Centrac on the ability to remain independent while drawing on the wider strength of the group. From Andy at Ramtech and Brett at E2S, sharing how that support gives them the confidence and capability to grow faster expand internationally and develop over the long term. While these companies have all joined Halma at different points in time over the last decade, what's consistent in each story is that they've kept their autonomy and culture with clear accountability for growth and they've gained the support capabilities and a long term home that helps them go further faster. So bringing it all together, you've heard today how we think about continuous sustainable investment across three areas. Firstly, how our companies invest to grow to ensure they remain differentiated and well positioned in attractive long term markets. Secondly, how we invest in our talent, network and capabilities to help our companies grow faster and to ensure we can scale while maintaining our culture and agility. And finally, how we acquire purpose aligned companies for the long term and actively manage our portfolio. These all key areas of investment to ensure we continue to deliver long term compounding growth. Carol's described the strength of our performance in 2026, another record year delivered in varied market conditions. This performance reflects the strength of our sustainable growth model and our continued investment in the areas that matter most. At its core, our model is brought to life by the exceptional talent across Halma. accountable for long term performance and empowered to act with agility to capture near term opportunities. A model that enables a virtuous cycle of growth where strong performance funds continuous sustainable investment in innovation, talent and capabilities and purpose aligned acquisitions. And while we remain mindful of the broader macroeconomic and geopolitical environment, the strength of our model underpins my confidence in our ability to continue delivering compounding and growth and returns for decades to come. Okay, that's the end of the presentation, and now we have time for some questions. As ever, there's two ways that you can ask questions. You can either raise your hand using the tool at the bottom of the screen, and I'll invite you to ask your question verbally, or you can type the question, which Karen and I will read out and then answer. So Max, let's come to you for our first question.

Thank you. Good morning. So look, the first question I decided to ask is just around the margin performance. So obviously, you know, excellent step up this year in safety and healthcare margins. Maybe could you walk us through kind of what you think the kind of key successes have been, you know, around pushing those margins higher, you know, safeties continue to rise and rise. And I guess, you know, when we think about the margins going forward in those two divisions, do you really see them kind of at this point firing on all cylinders? Or when you look at the sort of sub businesses within them, you know, which of the divisions and maybe where would you see sort of room for further margin improvement within those two divisions? Thank you.

Sure. Morning, Max. Carol here. Thanks for your question. Yeah, I mean, really pleased with the margins overall. You know, the teams, once again, you know, all of the companies, all the sectors have done a brilliant job. So, you know, shout out to all the hard work. I mean, on the specifics, safety, as you know, this is now the third year of double-digit profit growth. very impressive, and as you've cited, margins at record highs. I mean, I think the best way to think about it is that what the team have done in a very methodical and targeted way over the last few years is look for opportunities right through the P&L, so whether it's targeted efforts around pricing, new product development that you've heard Mark talk about in the presentation, and some nice acquisitions, including bolt-ons. And then working through the P&L and identifying opportunities. So I think the best way to think of safety margins now is that we've got them to a good place, a lot of hard work. So don't assume that they'll push on from here. As you know, obviously, the intent is to drive long-term sustainable growth. That requires investment, which you've clearly heard about this morning. So I would encourage you to use margins around the levels that they're at with the usual caveat of a plus or minus allowing for you know, allowing for mix. Healthcare, as you know, has been on a recovery given where the healthcare end markets were at with the overstocking. So, you know, Steve and the team have done a great job, you know, over the last year in particular. And there's probably a little bit more in those margins from where we landed in FY26. But again, obviously, you know, focused on the reinvestment angle too. And then E&A, you know, in a good place, slightly down year on year, which is mixed. So I'd encourage you to use a similar level year on year. So in the round, you know, hence the guidance of similar margins for FY27 to FY26, you know, think we're in a good place with lots of hard work having gone into delivering it.

Okay. And maybe if I could have a quick follow-up on the photonics business. So you've guided to 30% growth for this year. It's a bit below kind of what you generated last year at 50%. And I appreciate, you know, it's difficult to comment in too much detail. But I guess, look, some of the questions we've got this morning have centered around know is is this being driven by any design changes at the customer like it does but it does feel like you talk a lot about kind of co-designing with customers you know is is this really your own factory constraints you know is is there you know supply chain issues or can you just not produce anymore and therefore you're running up against limitations or you know is is there an element of of conservatism here we obviously sort of started the year last year with 20 growth and we finished at 50. so you know just just really trying to get a feel of you know i think how is there an element of conservatism in in this guidance and then you know to what extent are your own constraints whether factory or supply chain driving that deceleration yes thanks max and just as you say it's worth just a reminder to everyone um before we sort of get into q a on on photonics that

that business does remain subject to a customer confidentiality agreement so great to have been able to share more detail today which hopefully is is helpful and covers some of the areas that we've been raised before um but there does remain limits to what we can disclose um i do recognize that this may be a little bit frustrating and slightly at odds with our usual openness but it's clearly commercially important and in the interest of all parties that we respect those boundaries. So just worth reminding everyone on that point. To your specific question, I guess our approach, rightly so, is that we're guiding based on what we can see in near-term visibility over the next six to 12 months, rather than drawing any direct read across from hyperscaler capex or other companies in the ecosystem. So very much based on what we can see. Our outlook reflects customer demand. It reflects the wider market's ability to deploy around those big areas that you can all read about around land, power, water, in addition to our own ability to scale, but make that point that isn't capacity per se, probably more on the resource front in terms of as we continue to scale. And then in addition to that, including our supply chains, you're asking for an entire ecosystem here to continue to scale in a fast growing market. And it is worth putting that into context. We've doubled in the last two years. The guidance we're giving today is for a further 30% growth on that. So a further 160 million of revenue over the next 12 months to over 500 million. So that equates to a three year compound average growth rate of around 40%. In my mind, that is absolutely the definition of scaling at pace. This is a highly complex and sophisticated precision manufacturing with the need of a high level of quality. So as I say, very much based on what we've got in front of us, it would be remiss of us to be coming out with guidance that didn't reflect our best view at this moment in time.

Okay, appreciate that. Thank you, Mark.

Thanks, Max. Just looking at the hands up. So, Andre, I'll come to you.

Great. Thank you, Mark. And good morning, everyone. I just wanted to ask on growth a bit more broadly. Clearly, you're delivering across the whole portfolio. And I just wondered, what is your assessment right now when you run through the divisions and the companies within that in terms of where are we still kind of lagging, where the cycle is still maybe a headwind or retardant to growth and where are we firing and all the cylinders and hands should not be expecting any improvement. And where do you see the balance kind of off that for next couple of years?

Yeah, thanks, Andre. As you say, I mean, absolutely. Fantastic to have seen that broad-based growth across the wider portfolio over the last 12 months. And we're executing against the strategy that we laid out two years ago in terms of that delivery of the premium photonics growth, but at the same time not being distracted and delivering the broad-based growth. So really pleased to see that. Of course, we're reinvesting back in the opportunities that we see, and there are plenty across the entire portfolio. In terms of outlook, clearly we are operating in a volatile environment, a phrase that we've used many times before is that we're not immune, we're just more resilient. There's always going to be challenges in a portfolio. Whilst it's a small exposure at the group level on the Middle East, some of our companies will be more exposed than others. We'll have pockets of automotive, we'll have pockets of maybe secondary impacts coming through from the wider issues in the Middle East. And of course, then there's always project based businesses around infrastructure, all of those things, none of them being material. I think fundamentally you have to come back to our choice of markets and the markets that we operate in. We're deliberately choosing those markets where we're focused on long term drivers, where we're often small but critical components sold on value, where the cost of not doing is so high, whether that be regulation or human life. So being in those markets is a good start point. Then we overlay that with the agility in our companies where they're close to their customers, close to their markets. and therefore have that autonomy to make decisions and react quickly for what's required for that moment in time in their market, in addition to access to wider group resources. So you put all of that together, And fundamentally, I'd never sit here and say we haven't got pockets of challenge or pockets of opportunity. But across the portfolio, we've got a high degree of confidence in terms of being able to deliver in line with our KPIs over the medium term.

Great. Thank you. And if I can, invariably a question on photonics. Thank you for extra details and also for the comment on how you guide for this business. I just wanted to kind of scroll back to a year ago when you started the year with indicating an expectation of, I think about 20% growth for this business. And then Q1 was, I think immediately a bit better. And then obviously you printed 60% in first half and that's been the kind of the run rate. Um, I just wondered how much visibility do you have on this, on, on this business? Uh, uh, and, uh, Is this year looking different to how you had it last year in terms of that kind of visibility, customer indications, et cetera? Is it kind of a fuller guidance for this year than what proved to be a year ago? If that's possible, obviously appreciate you're subject to NDAs, et cetera.

Yeah, I don't think past experience can ever be a perfect example of what's going to happen in the future. Fundamentally, come back to the point we made earlier. Here's a business that continues to scale. The team are doing a phenomenal job in terms of scaling up this business at the pace that they are at the level of sophistication and quality that's required for our customers. So really good to see that. what was different 12 months ago to now, I guess we had a little less visibility in terms of our own ability to scale. We've proven that over the last 12 months. So that gives us a level of confidence to be a little further ahead than maybe 12 months ago. But at the same time, I come back to all of those wider things that are happening across a market that is scaling at all levels if one of your supply chain cannot keep up with the pace and that's going to impact your ability to do so so as i say i'll come back to the point i'm giving you an outlook that reflects our best estimate at this moment in time based on what we have in front of us it's very helpful thank you very much thank you andre appreciated um let's go to jonathan

Good morning. Yes, I just had three questions, actually, just following on the photonics theme, if I may. The first one was just in terms of your, obviously, disclosure of the product. Obviously, you talk about optical switches. I just wonder if you could just sort of delve a little bit deeper, if possible, on that in terms of what type of optical switch is it. Is it an optical circuit switch or is it a packet switch or so forth? Just some more colour on the product there would be super helpful. In terms of the second question, I'll just go through all three questions at the same time. The second question was just on the margin of AVO, but obviously you talk about mix. Can you just talk about where we're seeing the margin of AVO right now? I think previously you've guided it to be pretty much in line with the ENA average. Is that still the case or have we seen a little bit of a fall away or pull back in terms of profitability of that business? And then the third question, again, sorry, on photonics, was just in terms of that customer relationship. I mean, is there any risk out there that the customer may dual source? Is there any sort of information, anything you can say on possibly that playing out through 27, please?

Yeah, thanks, Jonathan. Let me sort of pick up numbers one and three, and then maybe Carol will just pick up on the margin point. Unfortunately, your first question is going to be one of those where I'm going to frustrate in that I cannot expand any further than what we've disclosed. Clearly, we've disclosed more than we have done previously in terms of multiple generations of an optical switch, but that is as far as I can go in terms of that level of disclosure. On the third point in terms of customer relationship, and go back to the point that we've been working with this customer now for over 10 years, we've co-developed and manufactured the optical switches using their IP over that time, over multiple generations. So within that, you can read, and as we've Shared before there's many different things that we're doing with the customer around stock management Also around the manufacturing and also around that co-development and R&D. So there's a very close relationship there And I would point towards the fact that we have been able to disclose more again is a little bit of a reflection of just how strong that relationship is with with the customer and Maybe Cara, if you can just pick one.

Sure. Hi, Jonathan. Yeah, I mean, the margin, what we'd say is that it's in line with the group margin. We have previously spoken about E&A, but then it becomes a bit circular given the percentages of E&A. So easier just to reference it to groups. So similar to neither accretive or dilutive. And then nothing to call out other than, I think, something that we've probably referenced before, that the way that we earn revenues, there's different buckets of revenue that we earn. So there's the R&D piece clearly that Mark's referenced, and we also manage the inventory as well for the broader supply chain, and then clearly the manufacturing too. So at any given year, depending on that mix, you might have a slightly different margin, but nothing Nothing to note.

Okay. Very clear. Thank you very much, both. Much appreciated.

Thanks, Jonathan. I'll just pick up, Stefan, I see that you've written a couple of questions in. I think the first question we've covered, which was how conservative is your photonics guidance, I think covered that earlier. In terms then, just Bill, going on the ARVO, last one, I promise, please talk us through the capacities that you have at ARVO Photonics. particularly since it seems you've moved into a new larger facility. Again, I think I covered that with the comment that capacity isn't one of our challenges at this moment in time in the near future. And then your third question is, please explain the rationale for divesting LabSphere and Cardios. You cleaned up your portfolio quite a bit in the past two years, AI divestment and FY26. are there more divestments that we should expect or have you finalized your portfolio pruning and I guess just picking up on on that one we're we're always reviewing the portfolio as I said in the presentation every business that we buy is is with the intent to keep for decades but at the same time it's absolutely appropriate to continue to review the portfolio and we start with that Simple question of would I buy this business today? And I guess picking up specifically on LabSphere and Cardios, both of those have been a valued part of Halma over the years and been positive contributors to the group. But as part of that review, it's highlighted that the future growth opportunities for them both are in markets that are not a focus for Houma, whether that be geographically, whether that be the type of spend or the type of market. So it was all about finding a better home for them where they can deliver against their own growth strategy. So nothing more than that. I guess in terms of how many are we doing, how many would you expect? think the reality is over the years there used to be an opportunity cost to looking at divestments in that we had less resource we had less divisional chief execs and therefore if you were putting the effort into to a divestment of often growing businesses just so happens not aligned necessarily to our growth strategy then you were distracting yourself from from doing M&A I think as we've scaled over the last five years, we've now got the luxury of a single resource in the center that allows us just to either resource harder on integrations or in fact, if there's divestments to have that additional support. So I don't think there's gonna be an uptick in divestments. We'll continue reviewing as we have done, but where we see that it's appropriate to do so, then as we've shown over the last couple of years, we'll find great homes for those businesses and look to redeploy the capital in in how my light business is moving forward hopefully Stefan that that answers your your written questions do do kind of write another question if I haven't answered and going back then to the hands up so chip if we come to to you next yeah hi good morning Mark and Carol thank you for taking my questions

I have two, please, but I'll take them one by one. My first question is simply a clarification on the organic revenue guide for next year. When you say low double digit, what sort of range are you expecting? And then perhaps the key drivers of the lower and the higher end of these range.

Yeah, so we've obviously been explicit about the photonics premium chip within that. And I think the best way to think about the rest is, as you know, that we have our organic constant currency target of 5% and an ambition to be growing at 7.5%. and so an expectation somewhere in that range would be a sensible place to get to. And just worth adding that we would consider that to apply across the three sectors.

Very clear, thank you. And then just on the margin guidance as well on next year, guidance is obviously of a strong performance for this year, but I just want to understand why you're not expecting some expansion given the low double-digit organic growth guide. Thank you.

Yeah, sure. I'll take that too. I mean, it comes back to one of the questions earlier, and also the theme of the whole presentation around reinvestment. And so that balance of making sure that we're investing for the long-term growth that we aim to deliver. And the margins, as you've already said, are already very strong. So we're not wanting to push them further, but rather to continue that reinvestment so that we can sustain it uh consisting at that level and and at any point in time in any given year there will be a bit of mis mix effect uh as as well so that that's the basis of the guidance okay thank you thank you uh let's now go to christian

Morning, Mark. Morning, Carol. Appreciate the commercial sensitivities obviously limit what can be discussed on the technology-specific symphotonics. I'm not going to press on that, but you're forecasting 30% growth. I understand your earlier comments to Max's question that your guidance is based on order visibility and maybe factoring in some potential supply chain challenges. But you pointed out, Mark, yourself, that 30% growth might seem low compared to the hyperscaler CapEx plans over the next 12 months, which on our math range from 49% to 77%. So I've got really just two questions here. Is there a phasing dynamic to consider here in terms of the lag between CapEx spent on Greenfield data center deployments and when you might see sales into the rack? And then maybe secondly, and again, no need to comment on tech specifics, Would you agree photonics applications represent a potential penetration growth opportunity in the data center more broadly?

Yeah, thanks, Christian. I guess in terms of kind of the phasing, I think you We're a small but critical component here. I think it's pretty dangerous to start trying to take headline capex figures and trying to correlate them back. Far better for us to be looking and speaking with our individual company that's close to the customer and having those conversations, hence that being the baseline of our guidance. As I say, the customer demand remains strong. And as I say, the right way to think about it is that the outlook reflects the demand, our ability to scale, and then the pace at which that broader system can deploy and absorb new technology and wider technology. I don't think it's appropriate for me to try and comment on the dynamic between our spend and what's being communicated is wider capex spend. On photonics as a technology, absolutely. I think, you know, When you think about optics when you think about the demands and needs that need for speed latency and efficiency There's no doubt that Optics can can play a role in that and that's pretty well documented out there And I guess guarding against that the other way is this is a pretty dynamic market. There's a lot of changes in technology There's a lot of investment. There's a lot of customer choices to be made. So I On the one hand, I absolutely see it as an opportunity from an optical perspective. But on the other hand, you've got to be appreciative of how dynamic the market is at this moment in time.

Thanks, Mark. Maybe I can fit in a follow-on and it's not on photonics. But if we look at E&A, ex-photonics and also ex the nuvonic contribution, you grew 34 percent organically. That's 260 million of incremental revenue. You said photonics growth was a bit over 50%, so 175 million of that 267. That gives 92 million of incremental sales. And so I get to 21% organic for the rest of E&A, again, ex-photonics and nivonic. I know you've got good demand in gas detection and water analysis, but could you add some color on what's really driving that demand? Because clearly it's well above the high single digit that you'd be usually looking for.

Yeah, sure. Thanks, Christian. Carol here. And David, I think this addresses your question that we can see on the screen too. So thank you for asking. So, yeah, I mean, the double digit, absolutely, your conclusion, Christian, that it's double digit organic growth is right. and well done to Constance and the team for doing such a great job. I think as we said at the half year point when it was strong too, there's a little bit more project focus or emphasis within the E&A sector just by the nature of what the companies do. That said, it was very well spread across all of the companies. A little bit of recovery for some of the companies in there that had weaker comps, so I suppose bear that in mind. But yeah, well spread across the patch, including actually for some of our more recent acquisitions as well in the last few years. Going forward, coming back to one of the earlier questions, we wouldn't be guiding at those levels on a forward-looking basis. We would be more in the 5% to 7.5% range that I referenced earlier, but not to take anything away from the phenomenal job that those companies have done within the sector last year.

Thank you both. Great stuff. Thank you, Christian. Rory, we'll come to you next.

Hi, good morning. Can you hear me?

Yeah, all good, Rory. Good morning.

Excellent. Thank you very much. Hi, it's Rory from Oxgap. Thank you for taking my question. I think there is still one on photonics here. You know, you talked about the different pieces of Evo Photonics revenue generation being sort of contract R&D, inventory management services, and then the actual manufacturing of the optical switches themselves. If I just look at the revenue recognition notes, In E&A, that's now more than 50% of that revenue is recognized over time versus a point in time that's up from 41% last year. And if I think back a few years, it was maybe more in line with the group average, maybe slightly higher than other sectors, but not quite. to that level right to that to that point that there's a lot of project based revenues going on here and certainly a lot of the growth has been in that bucket right in terms of revenue recognized over time and then just trying to square that with your comments mark that capacity is not your issue in the near future um I guess, you know, how should we maybe think? Is there anything you can tell us this morning about how those three pieces within Avophotonics may move over time? Because if we look at the kind of the long term or the medium term demand outlet for these products or what, you know, what we think these products are doing and where they're going in the data center, then It's maybe a question of your medium term capacity as sort of the R&D and the inventory management piece sort of go down relatively. But the manufacturing of components piece comes through in the next kind of one, two, maybe three years. Can you just am I talking sort of nonsense here or is there anything that you can help us with on that point? Thank you.

I'll take the first bit in terms of the technicalities, Rory. Hello, hi, and thanks for your question. Unfortunately, without sounding like too much of a technical geek, it's the vagaries of IFRS 15 that we're grappling with here. I mean, you're right to reference the increase and obviously as ABO has grown over the years, those revenues earned over time have too. It is very much the way that the contract is constructed, Rory, and so actually applies to each of the aspects of the revenue buckets that we earn. So whilst I've referenced a bit of mix effect, I don't think of that as materially different over years. And then the other piece actually just to note is there are most recent E&A acquisition brown line by its nature of providing a service rather than selling products. Again, the accounting standards mean that those revenues fall into that bucket. So I suppose as far as how much R&D, how much inventory management and how much manufacturing in any given year, the inventory would tend to move in fair lockstep with the manufacturing with maybe a little bit of plus or minus depending on inventory being bought ahead and then the R&D again might move a bit but it's not a material difference in the mix year on year so I don't know if there's anything sort of broader than the sort of technicalities on that that you want to dig into Rory but that hopefully gives you a bit more colour

That's really helpful. Thank you. I guess also for the market today, looking at this, thinking, well, if you've been involved in previous generations, there's a high chance you'll be involved in future generations. And part of that brings R&D spending, well, the R&D investment with it, and then the manufacturing at some point as well. Obviously, the new Evo site might come in handy at some point in the near future. But that's great. Thanks very much.

Yeah, I guess really the only thing just to add, because you mentioned immediate future and timelines, is you and I might have different definitions. Remember at Houma, we tend to think in decades, and then my immediate short term is probably the next 12, 18, 24, 36 months. Whereas I think in your world, that might be the next quarter. And long term is 12 to 24 months. So we just need to be a little bit careful of us thinking in decades and maybe you guys thinking in quarterly in in terms of how you define timelines moving forward absolutely thank you very much okay fantastic thank you Rory um so it looks like we don't have any written questions uh oh yeah we've got one hand gone up um is that bar when is that yeah

Hi, good morning, thank you for taking my question. Just one on data centers, but just trying to focus on the other areas, ex photonics, just to kind of ask whether you have been able to get any products into the data center market outside of the photonics, especially when we look at your safety business, I think you have a good commercial exposure over there. So can you please give clarity on that part?

of course yes um great question as you say it comes back to the fundamentals of the model in our businesses you know they've got deep application knowledge of their technology and their core markets and as i was um talking in the presentation they're always looking for opportunities in other markets to go and apply their expertise in terms of solving customer problems so That would be exactly the same for data centers, whether that was in gas analysis, whether that was in safety in terms of access, whether that was all a multitude of areas, fire suppression, all of those types of areas. It's the way that our companies think. So they're thinking, OK, I'm in a core market that's going to give me three, four, maybe five percent growth. How do I consistently find another one or two percent growth over the medium term? And the way I'm going to do that is to expand my addressable market. And if there's trends that are growing, if there's markets that are growing, then they're always looking for those opportunities. And that R&D spend that we've seen, I'm sure parts of that will be many of our businesses looking to get the benefits of growth and spend in those areas. So it's certainly not a material part of the group but rightly so it's an area that every one of our businesses will be looking commercially and thinking is there something we can do with our deep expertise that applies to to this level of spend and build out over the next x years thank you so much Excellent. So I don't see any further hands up. I think we've covered off David's written question. So I guess a thank you from me. From our perspective, fantastic to have announced record results, that broad-based growth across all three sectors, record levels of investment, including R&D and M&A. And having a model that's proven its agility and resilience over decades gives us all great confidence in what we can deliver going forward. So thank you very much for your time. And no doubt we'll all speak soon.