Gooch & Housego PLC (GHH) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning to everyone here with us in the room and to those joining on the live webcast. Welcome to the G&H full year results presentation for the year ended the 30th of September 2023. For those of you that we've not met before, my name is Charles Peppiatt, and I joined G&H as Chief Executive 15 months ago. Chris, who's here with me today, is the Chief Financial Officer for the group. Chris and I will be following the agenda shown on the screen. Firstly, we will cover the group's 2023 full year results, including a segmental and ESG update. And then I will provide a progress report on the group's new strategy that was launched in the summer. We will open the floor to any Q&A at the end. Turning to Slide 3 and the highlights. Further positive steps were taken in the second half of the year, and I'm pleased to report on significant progress in the performance that was made by the group in FY 2023. I would particularly like to take this opportunity to extend my thanks to all our employees for their hard work and the positive way in which they've embraced the changes underway across the company. During the year, we saw increased operational output successfully coming online, which supported by favorable exchange rate movements and the effects of price increases, delivered a 19% increase in revenues up to GBP 148.5 million compared to GBP 124.8 million in the prior year. There was encouraging growth across all 3 of the end markets that we serve. The Industrial and A&D parts of the business grew strongly by 19.5% and 26.2%, respectively. And despite some customer phasing delays, our Life Sciences business saw revenues increase by 10.4%. Chris will take you through the performance by market sector in more detail later in the presentation. It was also pleasing to see further reductions in factory past due backlog, down by 50% to GBP 5.5 million from the previous year-end high of more than GBP 11 million. We continue to see positive progress here and expect further significant reductions as we proceed through FY 2024. Adjusted operating profit for the period increased by 28%, up to GBP 11.3 million compared to GBP 8.9 million in the prior year. And as communicated in our October trading update, the group's order book remains at a healthy level across all our end markets, albeit at a more normalized level. The full year order book was GBP 124.1 million compared to the record GBP 147.7 million in the prior year, and we saw a positive book-to-bill ratio in the second half of the year, which has continued into this year. We were pleased to complete 2 strategic acquisitions in the second half. I'm really excited about what the addition of GS Optics and Artemis Optical brings to the group. Both businesses have technology and capability that's hugely complementary to our existing global offering and closely aligned to G&H's new strategy. We've already started to invest in both businesses to accelerate the commercial synergies and value creation from these deals, and I will provide more details on this later in the presentation. G&H generated adjusted cash from operations of GBP 18.2 million compared to GBP 6.6 million in 2022, with a GBP 3.7 million unwind of inventory in the second half as supply chains start to return to more normalized levels of availability and lead times. The group's net debt increased to GBP 31.7 million, reflecting GBP 11.7 million of acquisition investment compared to GBP 19.1 million at the prior year-end, with a leverage ratio of 1.1x. The Board are proposing a final dividend of 8.2p, giving a total dividend of 13p continuing to support the group's progressive dividend policy and reflecting the positive medium-term outlook for the business. Before I hand over to Chris to take you through the financial results for 2023 in more detail and provide an update on our progress with ESG activities across the company, I would like to show you a short video that was prepared to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the company in 1948 by Archie Gooch and Leslie Housego as well as recognizing the British origins and international heritage of G&H over the last 7.5 decades, it also captures some of the products and solutions we are providing today and tomorrow as a leader in many of the new frontiers of technology that are being enabled by photonics. [Presentation]

I'll pass to Chris.

Good morning, everyone. Turning then to Slide 5. As you've heard from Charlie, 2023 was a good year for G&H. Revenue grew strongly, up 19% to GBP 148.5 million or 13.6% when measured on an organic constant currency basis. And as you'll see in the coming slides, we achieved good revenue growth across all 3 of our segments. We entered the year with a record order book, including higher-than-normal levels of past June. But thanks to focused efforts in the year of recruitment and supply chain management, we were successful in delivering on that order book and reducing our levels of late backlog. Inflation continued to be a factor for the business to contend with. In the first half, inflation was a net headwind of around GBP 1 million. But in the second half, inflation in our cost base was offset by our pricing actions with the result of that, GBP 1 million didn't increase further. Nevertheless, as you will know, the effects of pricing actions to offset inflation is dilutive to the group's reported margins. Investments in R&D increased marginally to GBP 9.3 million. But in line with our strategy, it was focused on a smaller number of prioritized projects. Our work in this area continues to bear fruit with new products contributing GBP 26.1 million to the group's revenue for the year. Adjusted operating profit was up 28% to GBP 11.3 million. Finance charges increased to GBP 1.7 million, reflecting higher interest rates and drawings made to fund the GBP 11.7 million of cash investment in our 2 newly acquired businesses, GS Optics and Artemis. Our non-underlying items totaled GBP 4.6 million, of which the cash cost was GBP 2 million. The GBP 4.6 million charge included $1.2 million in respective M&A costs, GBP 900,000 for the closure of our satellite facility in Shanghai and the transfer of our ITL U.S. operations into GS Optics site in Rochester and GBP 800,000 for group restructuring activities. Finally, there was a noncash charge of GBP 1.7 million in respect to the amortization of acquired intangibles. After these non-underlying charges, the reported profit before tax for the year was GBP 5 million. Our effective tax rate was 18%. We continue to benefit from enhanced capital allowances in both the U.K. and U.S. Adjusted earnings per share increased by 15.1% to 31.3p. Moving then to Slide 6. The group's cash flow performance in the year was also good, [indiscernible] to free cash flow generation. Net additions to tangible and intangible fixed assets totaled GBP 6.9 million, a little bit lower than 2022, given the significant investments made in prior years in both our business systems and our facilities as part of our recent site consolidation projects. Working capital levels increased by GBP 2 million in the year, but this investment was made in the first half with a total of GBP 3.5 million added. In the second half, we were able to reduce working cap by GBP 1.5 million. That reduction was achieved in our inventory holdings where our growing confidence in the ability of our supply chain to deliver on time and in full, meant that we were able to reduce levels of safety stocks. We expect some further improvements in inventory turns in the coming financial year. The group generated GBP 5.7 million of free cash flow. Then in order to fund the 2 acquisitions, a total of $20 million was converted from our accordion into our base credit facility. The cash investment for the 2 businesses was GBP 11.7 million, and there was a further GBP 4.4 million issued to the sellers in the form of G&H shares. Up to GBP 3.5 million is payable in the form of deferred contingent consideration in the coming 2 financial years. Net debt, excluding lease liabilities, stood at GBP 20.9 million. Leverage as measured for our banking covenant stood at 1.1x, which is comfortably within our facility cap of 2.5x. Our debt facility extends out to 2027. And at the end of the year, there was a total $35.4 million available in the form of committed and uncommitted facility available to fund the future growth of the business. Interest on our drawings is charged at between 160 and 210 basis points above the U.S. dollar overnight rate dependent upon our leverage. Lease liabilities then added a further GBP 10.8 million, bringing reported net debt at the end of the year to GBP 31.7 million. Moving on then to Slide 7. Overall, sales into our industrial markets grew by 13.7% on an organic constant currency basis. That was thanks to additional productive capacity added. Revenues into the semiconductor infrastructure market was strong, supported by first production deliveries of our fiber optic splitter units that are integrated into the world's most advanced photolithography equipment. Our contract manufacturing partner in Thailand is now fully qualified for the build of high-reliability fiber couplers in addition to the acousto-optic products that they've been building for us for the last couple of years. First, fiber optic, a couple of deliveries from their facility were made in the second half of the year. And as their capacity grows, we'll be able to achieve both increased volumes and some margin accretion on this product line. The additional volume in this segment helped to deliver a 24.9% increase in adjusted operating profit to GBP 10.5 million. In common with the reported return on sales figures in the group's other 2 markets, the effect on revenue of both favorable FX and the pass-through of inflationary cost increases suppressed the reported return on sales percentage, which nevertheless moved forward to 13.6%. We can see that some of our customers are now looking to normalize their inventory holdings given greater confidence in their supply chain. We expect this to lead to some slowdown in this segment in the first half of 2024. Beyond that near-term inventory adjustment, our customers continue to indicate healthy end market demand, but we do remain vigilant in this market space. Moving on to our A&D segment. Revenues grew by 20.4% on an organic constant currency basis. We are able to improve our on-time delivery and reduce our overdue backlog. Our Boston facility moved a number of its fiber optic module programs into volume production. And at our Ilminster facility, we are starting to receive a greater allocation of some of our customers' overall needs as they now have greater confidence in our ability to deliver on time and in full. The Ukraine conflict is driving additional demand for our sighting systems used on armored vehicles. And we are seeing increased inquiries for our advanced infrared camera systems that can be used for the detection and targeting of drones. The acquisition of the Artemis business in July added new advanced coating capabilities to the group. Charlie is going to talk a little bit more about this business later on, but one of the lessons from the Ukraine conflict is the increasing need for laser protection for both vehicle and weapon sighting systems on the modern battlefield. Artemis' coatings provide that protection. Despite the growth in revenues for this segment and the encouraging market trends, we still have much work to do to deliver acceptable returns from this part of the business. We've invested further resources to drive the turnaround. They will focus on improving production yields and increasing throughput. Our assessment of our product portfolio in this segment is underway, and the conclusion of that exercise is also expected to support the recovery of margins in this segment. Moving on to Slide 9. Our Life Sciences revenues were up 6.2% on an organic constant currency basis. Demand for our components used in laser surgery, especially cosmetic surgery was very strong in the first half of the year, but it started to soften a little in the second half as customers corrected their inventory holdings. Revenues from sales of our medical diagnostic equipment were broadly flat compared with the prior year, but 2 significant customer programs are now migrating to volume production, and we therefore expect growing revenues in this area in 2024. The acquisition of GS Optics in the year added to our presence in the North American life sciences market. And we have moved quickly to build on that by establishing the GS Optics site in Rochester, New York as our new center of excellence for our North American life sciences business. We are recruiting there to add both engineering and production staff at the site and building out what was previously unused space of the facility. Moving on to Slide 10, which gives you an update on some of the group's environmental, social and governance activities. We made very good progress in reducing our carbon intensity measure in the year by 33%. That was thanks to transitioning some of our U.S. sites, in particular, our Cleveland facility to using electricity generated from renewable sources. The group is well on track to achieve its objective of being net neutral on Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2035. Turning to our governance agenda. We've now established a separate sustainability committee of the Board. The committee is chaired by a Non-Exec Director, Susan Searle. The committee will oversee our activities to minimize the impact of the group's operations on the environment as well as ensuring the group's strategy and operations are aligned with our social and ethical responsibilities to our employees and the communities in which we operate. Thank you. I'll now hand you back to Charlie.

Thank you, Chris. In June, I shared an overview of G&H's new strategy, focused on delivering sustainable margin growth and establishing a clear executable path to mid-teen returns for the group over the medium term. As a recap, this will be achieved through G&H becoming an innovative, customer-focused technology company delivered responsibly by making a better world with photonics. We will seek to ensure that G&H becomes and remains the first choice for all our stakeholders, including our employees, customers, shareholders, our ecosystem partners and the communities in which we operate. We will offer differentiated performance through focusing on the 4 key strategic priorities outlined on Slide 11. Firstly, our people by creating a purpose-led culture that ensures G&H is a safe, engaging, diverse and inclusive place to work and thrive. Secondly, through self-help to improve customer experience and operational execution. Thirdly, technology; through deploying our advanced photonics design engineering talent and know-how more effectively to deliver a better return by creating enhanced value from carefully selected R&D projects for the right applications, deploying platform solutions to accelerate our time to market for new photonics technologies and existing technology into new applications. And fourthly, by applying greater discipline and rigor to the allocation of resources to deliver value and accelerate accretive growth, both organically and inorganically. In the summer, I outlined how we would refocus the business to invest in higher-margin products and sectors at the same time as addressing nonperformers in combination with pursuing speed-to-value acquisitions. All of the above will be underpinned by bringing to life G&H corporate values that guide the way we endeavor to do business, consisting of customer focus, integrity, action, unity and precision to deliver fundamental and lasting improvement for our employees for the profitability of the company and for the sustainability of our planet. Despite the deployment of our new strategy being relatively recent, on Slide 12, I would like to provide a high-level progress update. We believe the successful execution of the 4 strategic priorities; people, self-help technology and investment can deliver return on sales accretion potential of 700 to 800 basis points over the medium term, net of the investments required, excluding portfolio changes. This includes benefits from the activities outlined in the boxes along the bottom of the slide, better utilization of our well-invested factories from increased volumes, productivity gains through waste elimination, proactive expansion of outsourcing activities at an earlier stage in the product lifecycle, higher-margin new products and the increased mix of subsystem solutions with greater G&H technology content. Finally, the enhancement of G&H's portfolio through noncore product rationalization and bolt-on accretive M&A. I'm pleased to report that we are already making positive progress with all 4 key strategic priorities. On the left, the turnaround of our company's performance starts with its people. We have already made significant progress to close the recruitment and training gap that hurt the business so badly in FY 2022. We've aligned efforts company-wide around our sustainability agenda that targets net 0 Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2035, and we remain on track to achieve this supported in 2023 by 2 manufacturing sites being certified to ISO 14001 environmental management system as well as a roadmap to roll this out across all our manufacturing facilities worldwide over the next 4 years. We are seeing early success in talent acquisition and retention with positive results in both areas. We've made a number of critical new appointments in sales, business development, finance, engineering and site leadership during the year as well as appointing a new and experienced Chief People Officer, who will join the group in January. On self-help, we're starting to see the performance metrics turn in the right direction for operational outputs, on-time delivery, past due backlog reduction. Plans have also been deployed around productivity to deliver benefits from cost of poor quality reduction and other efficiency improvements. A good start, but there is still much to do in this area. We've already made notable progress with our outsourcing strategy and investment is underway to expand our ITL medical devices offering into the U.S. life sciences market. Around the key priority of technology, we've completed a thorough review and refocus of the group's technology roadmaps for acousto, precision and fiber optics as well as systems coating and our medical device and IVD solutions business. We now have greater clarity on the role and outcomes required from each of the group's innovation hubs, and we are investing in our new Rochester New York site as an R&D center for our biophotonics and integrated precision optics systems. For investment in portfolio, during the last 6 months, we've completed 2 strategic acquisitions, streamlined our operating footprint with the closure of 2 satellite manufacturing facilities in Shanghai and Virginia. We've also now completed the initial assessment to address underperformance and rationalize noncore product lines that aren't sufficiently differentiated to secure acceptable returns. Let me provide some 2023 highlights around several of these activities that are key to the success of the strategy over the coming years. Firstly, on outsourcing. We are proactively implementing our plan to use lower-cost region manufacturing partners for certain stable product lines at an earlier stage in their product life cycle where technological sovereignty is not a differentiator. Over the cycle of the new plan, we expect the proportion of the group's revenues built by contract manufacturing partners to increase from less than 10% today up to circa 25%. During the last year, we've added dedicated leadership and resources to the global supply chain and contract manufacturing team, expanded the outsourced supply of acousto-optic products. We've also qualified and started production of our high reliability couplers with our partner in Thailand. This is expected to ramp up significantly in FY 2024. And at the same time, additional products are under selection and preparation -- preparations are underway for their transfer in 2024 and 2025. On the next Slide 14, our new strategy identified that we would pursue strategic speed-to-value acquisitions that enhance value creation through delivering commercial synergies and fill any gaps in our existing portfolio. The addition of GS Optics and Artemis Optical during the second half of 2023 meet the criteria, and both businesses and their talented teams are a great fit within G&H. We've also approached the integration with more discipline and a collective team effort to ensure that identified synergies are harnessed as quickly and as effectively as possible. So far, this has worked well. GS Optics was acquired at the end of June for a total consideration of up to USD 15.7 million. This acquisition expands G&H's presence in the life sciences sector and extends the group's capabilities into polymer precision optics whilst providing the right location to build out a scalable U.S. medical device solutions and biophotonics Center of Excellence in Rochester, New York. Artemis Optical joined G&H later in the summer for a total consideration of up to GBP 8.9 million. Artemis, located in Plymouth, is a thin film coating specialist recognized for its expertise in a variety of cutting-edge applications, including the design of advanced optical filters for tailored electrooptical systems and laser protection as well as bespoke head-up display combiners. This deal further enhances G&H Precision Optics systems portfolio and creates new opportunities for vertical integration and to cross-sell our combined capabilities, especially in the A&D market. As shared earlier, we are updating our technology roadmaps to deploy platform design solutions to accelerate time to market, where G&H has technical differentiators and strong medium-term growth opportunities underpinned by the world's megatrends where photonics is at the heart of global innovation and a critical enabler for these new frontiers of technology. Let me provide an update on progress over the last half year and share a few specific examples of early successes and technology design wins for G&H from this more focused approach. A group-wide technology roadmap review has been completed with disciplined focus on where G&H can differentiate and drive value from our technology. A clear plan has been deployed prioritizing our R&D effort behind 7 vital few areas that are listed on the slide, combined with focused investment into our innovation hubs. At the same time, a carefully implemented reorganization and realignment of the global R&D and product management functions across the group is already 2/3 complete. Over the medium term, we expect this activity to deliver more than GBP 50 million of accretive, higher-margin new business from next-generation products from these 7 work streams. On the next slides, I would like to share 2 examples of initial successes from this approach. Firstly, related to the third item on the vital fuel list, grow fiber technology for submarine networks. G&H has had a significant presence in the growing submarine cable market with our high reliability couplers for some time. However, as networks are being challenged to meet the demands of our data-driven age with the requirements to offer fluid capacity and bandwidth on-demand, the need for greater functionality, lower power consumption and miniaturization becomes increasingly more challenging. G&H has secured several significant multiyear design wins for next-generation high-reliability couplers and subsystems to enable higher capacity submarine links meeting these new requirements through our unique photonics design engineering and material science capabilities. Secondly, on Slide 17, related to the fifth element of the vital fuel list, maximize precision optics with added value. Lasers are in widespread use on the battlefield with applications including target designation and illumination, range finding, ordinance guidance and countermeasures. Following the acquisition of Artemis, G&H have developed an innovative, bespoke solution that enhances battlefield safety by providing advanced laser protection to a range of vehicle and soldier designated imaging systems and other optics. G&H Artemis has been awarded a contract to supply the U.K. Special Forces, Raw Marine Commandos and Army Special Operations for grades with the scope laser protection for the new KS-1 assault rifle. There is the opportunity to expand this unique offering significantly to additional rifle models and other allied countries. As mentioned in the introduction, the group's order book has normalized, but remains strong, especially when supply chain availability and lead time improvements are factored in. The FY 2023 closing order book of GBP 124 million when compared to the pre-pandemic levels, shown on the chart, supports this and currently provides more than 70% cover to deliver expected revenues for FY 2024. The positive book-to-bill that we saw in the second half of FY '23 has continued into this year, and the group's current order book is now above GBP 130 million, providing further good visibility for FY 2024. Finally, to summarize. While mindful of the current uncertain macroeconomic and geopolitical landscape, G&H is positioned for growth with a strong demand pipeline and a refreshed strategy. Positive progress continues with operational output from our factories, and our Asian partner is producing at volume to meet our accelerated qualification and transfer plans for additional products. The company-wide deployment of our new strategy is complete and the journey to deliver sustainable margin growth has started. Value creation synergies from the new acquisitions have been identified, and we expect to deliver further financial performance growth in 2024. Thank you. Now I would like to hand over for any questions.

Letty here from Investec. Just on the M&A side of things, would you mind providing more color on the pipeline and how you're viewing valuations at the moment? And if they've come down, what's going on in that sort of side of things. And you mentioned that you're focused on sort of gaps in your portfolio. Could you provide more color on that, please?

Yes. I mean in terms of valuations, I mean I think often, the businesses we're targeting tend to be kind of family-owned or manager-run businesses. So in many cases, actually by offering -- so we're able to effectively persuade them to come to us potentially as an acquirer, given that we've got a strategic plan for the business, they're concerned to make sure their business goes to a good new owner. So in many cases, it doesn't feel like we're just competing with the market and the pricing that is out there. I mean, we paid under 10x EBITDA multiples for the 2 businesses we acquired during the summer, which feels to me like in a good [indiscernible] to be playing. So I think it still remains patchy in terms of where we're targeting in terms of the pricing. But I think we've got good prices for 2 businesses.

I think maybe I can address the second part. So you asked a question about filling any gaps in the portfolio. I mean, I think the acquisitions that we completed in the second half are a great example of that. So as part of the strategic review, we identified a number of areas, one being coating. G&H historically, and prior to the acquisition of Artemis, has an extensive coating capability of optics. But when that was being assessed and looked at, there were some very clear gaps in that offering. And again, it came down to the view of the speed to value of us deploying our resources to bring that to market or to acquire a partner that is an expert in that. And Artemis Optical was a very, very good fit for that area. So coating and becoming a world leader in the coating of optics remains one of the key areas of the strategy. So that's something we will continue to explore. On the GS Optics, there are 2 areas here. I think G&H did not do polymer precision optics before. If anything, plastics was a dirty word. But when you look at being a full solution provider, particularly in life sciences and in a number of applications where weight is critical, polymer precision optics have a role to play and being able to be a full solution provider there was absolutely part of the strategic review. We were also looking for a different type of platform to expand our life sciences business into North America. And the great thing about the GS Optics acquisition is they address that very well for us. More than 50% of that business was into life sciences and the facilities in the business that we acquired has additional space that we are currently building out to create a life sciences and an IVD medical device manufacturing center of excellence in North America, mirroring what we do in Ashford down in Kent.

Grant Thompson from [indiscernible]. You mentioned on the Aerospace & Defense division that you're looking to take further actions. I just wonder if you could give a bit more color in terms of what that means. I mean, the revenue up 26% and the drop in margins. Can you just sort of describe as to what the effect of that, what were the primary causes behind that? And can you -- are you able to give any forecasting in terms of how this division is going to perform in the current year?

Okay. Shall I start, Chris, and then we maybe -- so I think from the A&D part of the business, there's a wide mix of the portfolio that we're offering there. And I think what we've done as part of our review is to make some clear assessment of that. So again, we've taken a view when we've looked at this about are there products within that portfolio that if we apply improved operational productivity, we look at other improvements that can be done within our factories or we look at how we add value to that with a more system solution provision. Can we take those products back to the type of accretive margin that we're looking for? And then there's also other products within that group that we're saying, as we do that assessment, we don't believe that that's necessarily possible. And is there something that needs to be done here about rationalizing it. So we are running that process, and that is still ongoing. I mean an example of where we're already deploying resources, as Chris referred to, to make the improvements would be in one of our sites that is very focused on the West Coast of the U.S. to advanced aerospace and defense and precision optics, where we've invested in a new site leadership there. We've brought in additional engineering related to manufacturing improvements and process engineering. And that's several months ago that, that appointment was made, and we're already starting to see the path about how that might be delivering some turnaround. So I think that's been outlined in Chris' reference. I think there are other parts of that portfolio that we are assessing about whether that is core and whether that fits and whether that's something that should be end of life or discussions need to be had about how and what we might want to be doing with that. When it comes to the forecasting and the thoughts looking forward, Chris, do you want to comment on that?

Yes. I mean, the order book position for our A&D business is good cover for the current year. So I'm expecting us to deliver further revenue growth in FY '24 and that will help to get us back towards more of a breakeven situation in the segment we think in FY '24.

I mean, another example from a productivity perspective, and I referenced it because some people in the room had the opportunity to join and in several investor days we ran over 6 months ago in the Ilminster, where, again, by the changes that have been made there for the leadership of the operations group, the refocusing of that against the 4Ms of manufacture; manpower, machines, materials and methods. We're seeing significant operational improvement in that site, improvement in lead times, how we're organizing the facility to drive improvement. So that would be an example where if you like, as a group, we've demonstrated in one site what's possible. It's now a case of how we roll that out and drive those benefits more widely, particularly focused around the A&D part of the group. And consequently, that's why we've taken the view to sort of almost duplicate that approach in what we're doing in a specific site in California.

Tom Elgar from Numis. Probably 2 questions, if I may. Firstly, on that GBP 50 million of incremental sort of margin accretive revenues from the 7 new vital areas. Any further color you can give on that in terms of are those at those mid-teen margins above that? Just trying to work out sort of the mechanics of that accretion? And then, I guess, sort of the scale of the ramp within that is a sort of back heavy that might be within the medium term? And I guess, the second question would be within that Life Sciences division, sort of the mentions of the customer pushouts in terms of the orders. Just I guess, trying to get a bit more color on the extent of the divisional exposure maybe to that and the risk there and the dynamics behind that really.

So I'll start with your second question, Tom. So life science is very much sort of 2 submarkets for us. So yes, we're seeing a bit of slowdown push out on the medical lasers side of that segment for us at the moment. Again, it's that similar dynamic of post-pandemic quite a lot of the customers, distributors included, pulled in additional inventory, found themselves overstocked and are now trying to push out a bit. The other side, there is the medical diagnostic business, the ITL company down in Ashford in Kent, predominantly, and also increasingly, we hope in the U.S. That business, the ITL medical diagnostics, is looking good. I mentioned there's a couple of significant customer programs that are coming in now into volume production. So if you add that lot together, I'm still expecting the Life Sciences segment to grow from [ '23 to '24 ] and to obviously drive additional profitability from that growth.

I think on the margin accretion, I mean -- and I'll just pull back to the slide that we referred to. The criteria to be on this list and to be -- resources to be deployed means that it needs to be accretive to the journey and delivering, as we said, I mean, we've outlined here, this 150 basis points is what's outlined from that. And we were able to give a couple of examples today of where that's making traction, and that's obviously needed to happen with the agreement of those customers. There are other cases where they're not the only 2 cases of traction being made in this area against these.

[indiscernible] from Investec. Just a follow on from Grant's question. I see that in terms of your R&D spend from this year, you've had about 58 new products and about 36 of them were in aero and defense and the precision optics side of things. Is that a particular drive to expand your offering towards customers? And what can we expect in like subsequent years? Will there be more products coming in the fiber optics side or will it be a [ measure ] of the type of technology that you have that helps you drive towards your $50 million accretive target?

Yes. I mean, so maybe as a start, perhaps isn't as clear. On aero, we tried to adapt some icons to show what was Industrial, Life Sciences and then Aerospace & Defense. So again, I think you can see where the focus of these different areas. This is predominantly -- this is all about what's going on into this next-generation ecosystem of semiconductor and EUV. And obviously, we have a really exciting opportunity to play a significant part in that. There are others to put your point out where it comes into the A&D and I suppose the A&D part is really hit by these 3 here, which referenced in some of the specifics that you've identified, optical systems, precision optics with value add and then the value chain into fiber optics. And of course, remembering that when we say A&D for G&H, we also include space within that because particularly in this area, there are some very exciting -- and some of our precision optics application to what's going on into that sector as a subset of A&D on that side. But again, we are applying a rigid discipline to our global R&D community at the [indiscernible] reviews if it's not aligned to one of these, and it's not accretive to our margin in the plan, then it has to be a pretty impressive case for it to go any further and to be discussed. And part of this discipline is about what we say no to as well as what we focus on.

It's Harry Philips from Peel Hunt. A couple of questions, please. Just going back to the strategy slide and the sort of basis points improvement. Just looking at the productivity and outsourcing sort of, I think, it's 350 basis points between the two. Are they interlinked in terms of the more you outsource, and therefore, your productivity goes up in your existing asset base of separate items or is there an element of sort of interlinking there? You could argue that there's -- you could potentially get some forms of simplification and economies of scale that obviously people who run factories love. But when we've looked at these, we have looked at them in the 2 separate sides is the way that that's been done. And then, secondly, on the strategy side, so those 7 elements to produce GBP 50 million of revenue or more, I suppose, two things really spring to mind. One is 7 seems like quite a significant number of projects and programs to run at one time as the business sort of goes through change anyway. Second is just in terms of the net new is that $50 million sort of net new or is it some replacement content in there? And then, thirdly, is that sort of outsourced straightaway or is these new projects sort of in-house and you outsource sort of more mature products as you go forward?

So I think from this technology, just to start from the back maybe and work that way. Whether we do or don't decide to outsource the manufacture of these is totally separate from driving this activity through our R&D channel. I think there's a lot of work -- I mean, to talk about how this funnel has gone from this to this and is 7 too many? What a wonderful conversation that we're starting to have. And I think as a viewer we've identified after some robust analysis inside the organization of why did we choose 7. We're not wed to 7. If that becomes 5 or 6 or 9 to ensure that we continue to drive forward, then that's the way that we'll approach it. And obviously, when we look at this from our initial analysis, some of these are greater contributors than others to that GBP 50 million. But a lot of this -- that would probably be the best answer to that question at this stage, 6 months after effectively launching this strategy on that side.

Fantastic. And then just one final one, hopefully more simple for Chris. Just in terms of, again, of the ongoing change in terms of thoughts around potential exceptionals in the coming year, is there a sort of number in mind or again, is that partially –

We've got the normal sort of amortization acquired intangibles which is probably going to move up to about GBP 2.5 million now with the 2 new acquisitions coming in. I'd say in addition to that, there may be another sort of GBP 0.5 million of final integration restructuring type activity to work out, but that's the extent of it.

Andy Edmond, Equity Development. A couple of points. Firstly, on clients, and I'm sure you've both been spending a lot of time with them. And you're now starting to report some of the particular productivity gains. How is that message being taken on? And leading on from that, how much in your growth plan do you expect the winning of clients expanding your market share to be part of it as opposed to you already now talking about cross-selling and synergies within the group, just the balance between that.

Okay. So I mean, the starting thing, is it being noticed. I've spent a lot of my time face-to-face with our customers, both in the early stages I fed back from sort of initial meeting them and then the follow-up that's gone on there, traveling around in different regions of the globe. If I look at the sort of the escalations that I was receiving as the new CEO 12, 15 months ago, it's really pleasing to now get some of those same customers are reaching out to me directly and saying, wow, we can really notice the difference. But we are -- that's by no means, meaning that we're in any way complacent. We've made some significant progress in 12 months, but there's still much to be done, as I mentioned, related to the self-help element of the strategy. These are all starting to move in the right direction, but we're not being complacent. When it looks, I think we've also, as I mentioned, from a recruitment perspective, we've also appointed during the last 6 months a new Head of Global Sales and Business Development, who comes in with some really strong experience around the type of technology in the sector that we operate in with an experience of running a global sales organization. And I think he and his -- and our global sales team are focused on 2 things. Firstly, how can we go deeper and wider into many of the very, very top-tier blue-chip global businesses that we address in each of the three end markets. And at the same time, there is a strategy to look at what we describe as new logo wins where is it appropriate that we're really focusing on finding and addressing and bringing in new customers. So both, I think, Andy.

And just in terms of your commendable focus on sustainability, how important is that as a commercial tool in winning clients at the moment?

It's absolutely relevant. I mean I think, first of all, the group that I joined was taking this area seriously before myself joining. The Board absolutely have it front and center. And I think the statement about since Susan Searle has joined us on our Board and becoming the Chair of that committee is a statement to that effect. But yes, I think the ISO 14001 accreditation, the view in addressing sustainability is something that many of our customers require and whether we're doing that from a perspective through CDP, EcoVadis or any of these other mats, some of that is customer-led. And I'm pleased to say we score very well in that area. That's an area where G&H has the opportunity to commercially differentiate.

And Chris, maybe just for you on significant increase in outsourcing manufacturing capability. We do live in a time of geopolitical risk. Is it still going to be concentrated in Asia or the opportunity to flex productions into other areas?

I mean it is not only the Asian subcontracting partner that we use. We've got another significant partner in Europe in the Czech Republic. But the partner we have in Thailand has a -- is a big company with lots of facilities. So something we look at very closely with them is their ability to sustain any sort of potential risk in the facilities by moving production around within the organization. So we've got a -- we're very close on their business continuity plans, for example. So we think they're a good partner. We're focused on them. But we are looking at other elements of the supply chain as well to see if we can move other stuff around.

Got a couple of questions online. The first one from Vishal Patil from [ AMRO ]. It's pleasing to note the 2 acquisitions that have been completed have integrated well. On the other side, are the markets healthy enough for you to sell on some areas you find noncore to your central strategy? Any color on the capital that would potentially release will be helpful.

We sort of identified, I think, at the half year that when we spoke about reviewing parts of the portfolio to see if they have sufficient differentiated capability within them to retain them. We were talking about maybe 10% of the group's revenues. That number is still good. In terms of whether the markets out are good enough, if we wanted to do any portfolio actions. And I think at the end of the day, if you got quality assets, people buy them. We're not a huge organization. So the kind of scale of revenue we may be talking about, I think, will be manageable if we choose to go down that road.

And next question from James Tetley at Equity Development. Does the A&D division have the potential to meet group return targets or is the group target a blend with some divisions above and others below group average?

Disciplined. So I think, again, we've always said that probably A&D is the one division where it will probably lag the other two. But our expectation is still to get it to high single-digit returns. Life Sciences and Industrial, we think just the opportunity from the products we're supplying into those markets meaning that we should be able to get certainly mid- to high-teen returns.

Perfect. And just a second question from James. What is the group gross margin assumption/improvement required to achieve the mid-teens operating margin aspiration for the medium term?

So our expectation is to be on up to the high 30s. So we're currently just under 30%, but there should be good opportunities with those margin progression steps that Charlie set out in the strategy to get to high 30% margins.

Thank you. That concludes the Q&A from online. So I'll pass back to Charlie for closing remarks.

Well, just to say thank you very much for those here and those on the webcast for joining our results presentation. Thank you.