Halma PLC is a global group of life-saving technology companies, focused on growing a safer, cleaner, healthier future for everyone, every day. The company is listed on the LSE main market, is a constituent of the FTSE100 and has a market cap of £10.2bn. Half year results to 30 September 2024 were released on 21 November 2024.
We were delighted to welcome Charles King, Head of Investor Relations, and Melanie Horton, Deputy Head of Investor Relations to a webinar for private investors to talk about these results and how the company is performing in the current environment. A recording of the webinar is available here.
The presentation started with a reminder that Halma reported record revenues, profit and dividends in the six months to 30 September 2024. Revenues grew to more than £1bn, adjusted EBIT grew to more than £200m for the first time and this came from strong double digit organic growth and contributions from M&A. Confidence in the future was evident in the 7% increase in the dividend. The company remains a higher margin, high return business which is strongly cash generative. Going forward growth will come from both organic and acquired sources and Halma has made 7 acquisitions in the year to date.
Delving deeper into the financials, revenues grew 13% to £1.074m, EBIT was up 17% and the margin improved 70bps to 20.7%. Combined this generated a RoTIC, the company’s main returns metric, of 14.3% up from 13.2%. This RoTIC is slightly ahead of the 10 year H1 RoTIC. Halma has consistently invested in future growth opportunities and in the first half invested £130m on R&D and M&A. This was made up of £54m (+8%) invested in R&D, equivalent to 5% of sales and additionally £84m was spent on 4 acquisitions. One of these was a new standalone company and 3 were bolt on investments for existing companies in the group. Since the half year end 2 further bolt on acquisitions have been made and 1 further standalone acquisition. M&A spend to date is now £158m and there is a strong pipeline of future acquisition targets. In total M&A added 4.3% to EBIT. Cash conversion came in at 108% which helped to reduce net debt/EBITDA to 1.27x and enabled a 7% increase in the dividend to 9p. Halma is on track for its 46th consecutive year of 5% or…
