IMI plc (IMI) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

November 4, 2021

London Stock Exchange GB Industrials Machinery interim_update 40 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Roy Twite

executive
#1

Good morning, everybody, and thanks for taking the time to join us today. I'm joined on the call as usual with Dan, our Finance Director. And I do hope that you've had a chance to have a look at our IMS first thing this morning. I'm going to summarize a few key points, and then we'll take your questions. To begin with, I think, I would like to thank all of our employees around the world for their continuing dedication as we make accelerated progress with our strategy to deliver sustainable, profitable growth, while always, of course, looking to keep our people safe and our communities safe as well. The key messages today for us are the third quarter trading has been a bit better than we expected with underlying demand also remaining good. And in fact, positive enough for us to increase EPS guidance to 88p to 92p subject, of course, to no significant change in the market environment. The main drivers of our Q3 results have been better trading in Hydronics and an acceleration of the structural savings in IMI Critical. Secondly, we're very pleased to announce today that we decided to retain and further develop the Critical businesses that we have had under review. I've got to say that Jackie and the Critical team have made real progress. I think you've all seen that in the Critical numbers and they've improved both their current performance, but also more importantly, the future prospects including in the very strategically important aftermarket. The team now has a very clear path to deliver the growth and the margin levels needed to positively contribute to the group's performance. The businesses that were under review have also secured encouraging early orders in the developing hydrogen market leveraging applications expertise previously deployed in space propulsion systems, giving IMI an important and early foothold in this potentially significant growth area of hydrogen. The third point is that our procurement teams have managed the supply chain pressures really well, and I want to thank them particularly. They prevented any material disruption to our customers' businesses and are certainly maintaining our reputation with those customers for close and effective support, whatever the market conditions. We have seen input costs increase. I think we've effectively used hedges to buy us the time. And then through efficiencies and appropriate price increases, we've managed to maintain margins. And we're still firmly on track for our published margin targets over time. The share buyback has also progressed well and it will deliver a more efficient balance sheet. But importantly, without compromising our strategic options. Finally, in the week of COP26, delivering our purpose of Breakthrough Engineering for a better world has never seem to be more relevant. And our resolve, our determination to play our part and help our customers do the same has only strengthened. So we continue to identify areas some of which we demonstrated in our Capital Markets Day this year, where our market-led innovation can solve important industry problems and create value for all of our stakeholders. So with that, I'll hand the call back to Emily, who's going to manage the Q&A for us, please, Emily.

Operator

operator
#2

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Will Turner from Goldman Sachs.

William Turner

analyst
#3

Just a few questions for me. You've obviously increased the EPS guidance. So I guess profitability has developed pretty well. But can you just provide a little bit more color by division on how that developed during the quarter? And then kind of related, you mentioned how you've used hedges to buy time to offset input costs. Does that mean that we're still yet to see the main or the most significant impact from cost inflation? And have you got any expectations at this point for where profitability could go into 2022?

Roy Twite

executive
#4

Yes, brilliant. Thanks, Will. So on EPS guidance, yes, I think the best flavor I can give you in terms of the quarter -- well, I think you can see from the sort of sales numbers that we've given you, Hydronic, very strong still, right? And Will, as I've said before, I, obviously, [ install a ] catch-up in there. There's a bit of wholesaler stocking in there. But the underlying profitability coming through from that was one of the big reasons why we're upgrading. So Hydronic, very strong. The second big reason was that Critical has accelerated the benefits yet again. I've got to say their execution has been absolutely first class from Jackie and team. And they will deliver more rationalization benefits in this year than we originally thought. So they are the 2 big reasons why we're upgrading guidance along with, as I said, underlying demand still remain strong. And we can see that, I would say, across the board, but particularly in Precision, underlying demand is strong. The only area I would say, in Q3, that has definitely suffered because of supply chain issues has been with our truck customers. So it's not us, but it's with our truck customers where they -- it's all public knowledge. You will have seen that they've had to shut down for some periods just because they couldn't get other components, principally electronic components, and that has slowed us down a little bit. But despite that, because of the underlying strength everywhere else, industrial, automation across the other segments, it's remained really good. So hopefully, that gives you a flavor for what happened in the quarter. In terms of the hedges, they protected us long enough. Clearly, they pretty well unwound there, Will. So in the last month or 2, we are trading at pretty much current raw material prices. But what I was saying was that they gave us the time to enable to make sure that the price increases work their way through the P&L and hit the bottom line. So we're not expecting the cost inflation in the next few months is going to get dramatically worse. It could do, of course. We remain on our toes. And a big part of what we've done, Will, is -- I've been through this indeed, so I won't go through it again, but we've heavily consolidated suppliers in a lot of areas now. We put a lot of suppliers under supply contracts. And we've done things that mean that we are actually getting better terms as well. So by no means are we passing all of this through to customers. But we're unable to fight those inflationary price increases in sensible areas like the aftermarket, we clearly are passing it through to customers. So hopefully, that gives you a good indication. 2022, it's a bit early yet, Will. I must say, we're still working our way through the budget, and we'll give you a better idea of the full year. I'd say that where the Critical order book is going, that's our longer cycle business. It looks pretty good for next year. So that's probably the one indicator. The rest of the businesses, as I said, we'll give you a better update in February.

Operator

operator
#5

Our next question comes from Andrew Douglas from Jefferies.

Andrew Douglas

analyst
#6

Roy, you've kind of given the answer, I think, on the 20% to 30% of Critical, but I just want to double check that there's nothing else in that. So basically, the businesses are doing better than we thought. [indiscernible] managing orders. Is that the principal -- the 2 principal reasons that you've decided to keep it? Or is there been any kind of structural change in the aftermarket opportunity, which I think was kind of the key bit that you were slightly worried about when we discussed this kind of 18, 24 months ago. So can you just give us a bit of an update on that? And also given your last point about the balance sheet. Can you give us a feel for the M&A outlook for IMI because clearly the scope for either balance sheet, M&A or cash being given back to shareholders again next year. So just interested in your thoughts on that, please.

Roy Twite

executive
#7

Yes, brilliant, Andy. So Dan, I'm going to let you talk about the sort of balance sheet and M&A in a minute. But -- if I just turn to the Critical business, the thing that actually is most important to me, Andy, is really 2 things about the Critical businesses that we're going to retain. The first is that they have proven that they can develop their upgrade valve aftermarket business, which is going to give them a nice stream of business for the future. And it's absolutely bang in line with our better world ambitions because what we found are some competitive valves, old valves that have got a bit of a fugitive emissions problem in the installed base. And so what that means for us is that we can use our technology, which dramatically cut those fugitive emissions, the methane going into the atmosphere and upgrade that installed base. So -- and we're doing that now. So that's key for the future growth of that business. And as you know, Andy, upgrade valve margins are typically about twice what new construction margins are. So that's good. The second thing is, and I sort of quickly went through this in the introduction. But more than 8 years ago now, we developed hydrogen valves for actually a space application. And it's quite complex hydrogen because when you're compressing it, it's down to over minus 250 degrees. So this is way colder than LNG, which is sort of minus 160. This is sort of super cryogenic. Plus hydrogen is a lot more leaky. The second lightest gas after helium. So creating an engineering product that can do that is tricky and we got it. And the good news was that in the last, I suppose, 6 months now, something like that, Andy, we won a first order in China. And then we quickly won a second order, and I think we'll get the third order as part of this package. And that's one of the first -- it's only small, but it's one of the first projects in China to actually store compressed hydrogen. And the plans are that they'll put in much bigger storage facilities. And for us, that's really good news because it's not only proportionate to the size of the facility but, obviously, we'll be making much bigger valves. Bigger valves are obviously much more difficult to do, much more technically complex and, therefore, with our severe service skills, that puts us in a really good position to do well in that marketplace. So there are really the 2 most important things. I think at the same time, they haven't -- they become far less of a drag on, as you can see in the numbers, right, on the overall returns of Critical because they've done lots of other things, including restructuring, taking -- improving efficiencies and so on, Andy. But really for the future, the 2 key things to me are the ability to grow in the aftermarket and the hydrogen opportunity, which won't come quickly. But I think what we now think could happen is you get another LNG way, which obviously supports those businesses. And then beyond that, hydrogen becomes more and more important along with the aftermarket, Andy. So that's why we looked at it and thought, well, okay, this would be crazy to sell this now with -- when it's not so much of a drag and when it's got some pretty good potential. So Dan, anything you want to add on the balance sheet and M&A?

Daniel Shook

executive
#8

Yes. Andy, yes. So I think when we launched the share buyback, we said it should get us around 1x debt-to-EBITDA by the end of this year. We're still on track for that. I mean in terms of M&A, there does definitely seem to be more activity out there. And I think we're -- we have built a really good opportunity pipeline. You recall when Roy came in, he restructured and put business development right into the division. So they're much closer in to the action. They've combined in with the growth hub. So I think ideas and opportunities are coming out of the growth activity we're doing. So we do have a very active pipeline. I think the markets are a bit more active as well. Now there's also a lot of cash out there as well. So we have to make sure we focus on the right deals, the ones that clearly 1 plus 1 equals 3. So yes, so I think the balance sheet is still in good shape, but still gives us the ability to do a number of bolt-ons and still have a good capital structure. And certainly, the activity out there and the opportunities that we've uncovered makes me comfortable that there's an opportunity to use that balance sheet. Now we're always going to stay disciplined and we'll watch and see how we go over the next year or so. So watch this space.

Operator

operator
#9

Our next question comes from Jonathan Hurn from Barclays.

Jonathan Hurn

analyst
#10

Just a few questions for me. Just starting on Critical, obviously, 14% growth in the order book in Q3, can you just give us a little bit more color on that? Was -- are you starting to see a bit of a recovery in OE or is it all driven by aftermarket? And if it is predominantly aftermarket, what part of aftermarket is really strong? Is it the upgrade side that's really driving that? That was the first one. The second one was just on Hydronic, just in terms of that 14% growth. Can you just give us a breakdown of that, if you can? How much of that is coming from restocking? How much is new products and essentially how much is underlying demand? And then the third one, obviously, Critical has done well in terms of cost savings this year. Obviously, looking to next year, the big cost savings in the country in Precision. I think there's still $32 million roughly to come there. How much of that can we expect to see in Precision in '22, please?

Roy Twite

executive
#11

It's a really good set of questions. Thanks, Jonathan. Good to hear from you. Critical, Jonathan, is basically aftermarket was strong, as you can see. You've done all the math, and it was upgrades and parts as well. I don't think it will continue at this pace, Jonathan, just because the comparator in Q4 is much harder. We've got some really nice nuclear upgrades in Q4 last year, which were big. So that will slow things a bit in terms of comparators, but the aftermarket is still positive and, yes, it's going very well. The other two areas are pretty much the areas that we talked about through the year. We've always said, aftermarket we thought was a good area for growth this year. Downstream and petrochem as well on the new construction side are good, particularly in China. That's been developing nicely. And then the third area is the marine area and nuclear subs. And that, again, has gone well through this year. So 3 areas that we thought are pretty well panning out to be strong, and that bodes well. I think as we go into next year, Jonathan, as I said, probably second half of next year, we think that LNG could obviously come through a bit stronger. And then obviously, the rest of oil and gas and aftermarket continuing to be a good growth opportunity. So yes, and then beyond that, obviously, hydrogen, right? So yes, we're starting to -- the order book and the outlook for Critical is pretty good. As you said, they've done really well on the savings. Your second point was all about Hydronic. So Jonathan, this carries a massive warning, right? Every time I say this, I have to put the big warning, right? Because it's very hard, very hard to get this stage, Jonathan, right? You can imagine, we've got thousands and thousands of customers. It's complex. Yes, we talk to the wholesaler centrally. But in fact, there are lots and lots of stocking units, right? So yes, big warning. But the way we see it is that new product growth is still about 3% year-to-date. So that's pretty much where it was. And then roughly, roughly, the rest of the growth, half and half is stocking up by wholesalers, catching up by installers on one hand. And then the other half -- the remaining half is underlying demand. So I would expect Hydronics to slow in Q4 relative. One, because Q4 last year was a lot better; two, because there's bound to be a bit of unwinding, Jonathan, right? So the wholesalers traditionally look at their stocks as they come into the year-end. And installers, to be honest with you, they couldn't carry on working 7 days a week, and it's just -- it's not going to happen like that. So I would say roughly, that's how we see it. And then in terms of the savings, you're absolutely right. Critical will have done a lot of work next year and for the next few years, if you look at the big chunks of savings, it's from Precision. We've got a really good plan. We actually announced now the potential consolidation. It's all under negotiation at the moment, but the potential consolidation of a big European plan. And so that will be going on throughout next year. Of the -- if you think about it, we're probably going to overdeliver a bit this year. So our future savings will -- there'll be less to deliver in the future than we've said by a few million. But next year, I would think, Dan, we're going to be delivering $10 million or $11 million, something like that of additional restructuring savings, mainly because of the timing, Jonathan, because the time we get some of these bigger ones done, the benefits will obviously drop into the year after. So yes, that's where I'm thinking, Dan, directionally.

Daniel Shook

executive
#12

Yes. Yes, yes. Maybe about 1/3, a little bit less, Jonathan, of that future. And yes, you see it most of it's in Precision. And yes, there's still work to be done there. There's a multiyear program there. So -- but yes, well on track.

Roy Twite

executive
#13

Absolutely on track. Is that right, Jonathan? Does that cover your points?

Jonathan Hurn

analyst
#14

That's brilliant. Great. That was super helpful.

Operator

operator
#15

Our next question comes from Mark Davies Jones from Stifel.

Mark Jones

analyst
#16

Could I just ask about the Industrial Automation business within Precision. I guess that's another area where we might have seen some of the folks having knock-on effects from component shortages, and equally seen some power outages in China and some disturbance from that. So have you seen any reduction of momentum within that business? Or does that continue to come through strongly for IMI?

Roy Twite

executive
#17

Yes. It's interesting, Jones. It's coming through very strongly. So if we strip out sort of the ventilator surge from last year, then the underlying Q3 for Precision is 28% up. The Industrial Automation segment was 22% up. So not as strong as sort of the rebound in trucks. And sorry, what I should say, that's on our new segmental basis, the way we're managing the business. Actual Asia Pacific. So at the moment, you probably know, we now report Industrial Automation and Asia Pacific separately. But Asia Pacific was actually up 42%. So pretty strong actually in Q3. When you take out the sort of surge from last year of ventilators, China actually is still strong as well. And our plant is in Shanghai, and it clearly hasn't been affected by those sort of energy shortages in the South. So no, not to say that something couldn't happen, but it seems to me that if you read the press, that, that's sort of moving in the right direction in China -- in terms of those -- the energy shortage being sort of dealt with reasonably quickly, actually. So yes, so far, so good I would say actually, Mark.

Mark Jones

analyst
#18

Excellent. And going into the back end of the year, are there any areas where you see potential threat from supply availability for you directly rather than customer issues? I mean, you've obviously done very good job so far. But...

Roy Twite

executive
#19

The biggest issue -- yes, I think the teams are working very hard and we had another catch-up yesterday, Mark. And they -- it's one of those things where there seems to be something new every week, that's an issue. And you know there's all sorts of reasons out there. But I think probably the single biggest thing for us is just the freight and actually getting into the ports and where we need it to get to. I think that's probably the -- because electronics doesn't hit us directly very hard, as you know. So it's -- and we 80-20 all the time, right? We're making sure that all the core product supply to the core customers, we're all over that stuff. But I think it's probably that is -- that could cause us a problem. This week, the sort of new item on the agenda was potentially aluminum. And that's not resulting in shortages, but it is resulting in higher pricing. And again, we've just got to be aware of that, Mark. So yes, I would say it's more that general freight thing that worries me most that suddenly, you can't get a batch of O-rings to the right place, Mark, and then that causes you supply disruption on one of your core products...

Mark Jones

analyst
#20

Say, for the next few weeks. Yes, there's a lot of that going on.

Roy Twite

executive
#21

Yes. Now we have got a lot of dual sourcing. And I've been -- I won't go through all the numbers, I won't bore everybody with this. But just Critical, for instance, has 60 sole sources, 60 suppliers that were sole sources 3 or 4 years ago, it's now got 6. And so we've done a lot of work, and we've invested time and money in our supply chain. It's not to say that something can't catch us out. I don't want to, I'm complacent, we're definitely not complacent. But yes, I think so far, so good. And probably supply availability in some areas is just helping us take a little bit of share. And the trip will be to make sure that we work hard enough to hang on to that share when things sort of come back to normal.

Daniel Shook

executive
#22

Yes. Roy, I think, yes, the last -- just the last thing that I suspect a lot of people are doing this. We're prioritizing availability over cash. Not to say we're going to have a really inefficient balance sheet. We still watch it, but we're certainly making sure we have the WIP and the raw materials and that's obviously helped us over this -- over the course of the last months as well.

Roy Twite

executive
#23

Yes. Good point, Dan. Absolutely. Yes, we've made that clear from the start it's customer service, it's market share over stocking. Now obviously, that needs to be on an 80-20 basis. It needs to be stopped, that is going to be used. You don't want an obsolete -- anything like that. But as Dan says, that is our priority because we think it's an opportunity, Mark.

Operator

operator
#24

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Michael Tyndall from HSBC.

Michael Tyndall

analyst
#25

Just one from me. I wonder if you can give us any update on the Growth Hub activity. I think the last numbers we saw were you had about 700 people working in those teams. And in critical, I think from memory, it was about $21 million of incremental orders. I just wonder if you've got any other sort of metrics you can share with us to give us just an idea of how momentum is building in those activities?

Roy Twite

executive
#26

That's brilliant, Michael. You know it's my favorite subject. I thought we might have overdone it a bit this year because we did 2 capital markets and we spent a lot of time on it. But Michael, no, I'm so pleased with what's happening in the company. You're actually right, it's about 700 people that have been involved. There's about 30 teams running at the moment. There's 5 teams that are now in the scaling phase. And for instance, well, a couple of the teams will probably get to, Dan, close to $5 million of orders this year each. So...

Daniel Shook

executive
#27

Yes.

Roy Twite

executive
#28

Yes, it's definitely building, Michael. And the whole approach of sort of building the teams, making it diverse in terms of their function, diverse in terms of their -- where they come from and then going after and solving customer problems and then failing fast, if that doesn't work. So minimizing the risk of the investment and then once you got something really going for it in terms of scaling. So yes, really, Michael, it's really a joy to watch actually. The number we put out there was $20 million for Critical this year. And that last year, I think, we did $6 million incremental in Critical. So we're trying to more than treble it. And I think we'll be there or thereabouts, Michael. It was pretty ambitious when we put it out there. But I think we will be there or thereabouts. And a lot of those projects that we demonstrated the capital markets events are the ones that are shining through really giving us that sort of leverage. So yes, it's -- thanks for asking, it's on track. Dan, anything I've missed with that?

Daniel Shook

executive
#29

No. Only to reinforce, the cultural change and the energy that's being created in the organizations, just excellent. And look, it's starting to help us recruit new talent as well. We're bringing in folks with differing skills, getting us more into the digital space, and that's all playing really, really well. I think, yes, it's absolutely running as we would have hoped.

Roy Twite

executive
#30

Thanks, Michael. Brilliant. That was a great question. And thanks, I mean, Dan is on the Board of one of these scale-up sort of opportunities. And it's just fascinating to watch really. And as I said, the previous update, we're investing meaningfully in this. I mean our margins at the half year could have been 50 basis points better if we weren't investing in the future growth principally, not only in growth but principally in growth up to really drive the growth into the future. So a really important point. Thanks, Michael.

Operator

operator
#31

Our next question comes from Max Yates from Credit Suisse.

Max Yates

analyst
#32

My first question was on the commercial vehicles business. And obviously, I'm sure you track sort of production rates out there relatively closely. I guess what I'm trying to understand was, did you see a similar dynamic in your business to what happened in the trucking market and production? Or do you think there's any kind of delayed effect as effective as they may be sort of maintain their purchasing or working off inventories and then that sort of your business may need to catch down with actual production and that's still to happen in Q4. So just wondering kind of how your business performed versus kind of truck production numbers that you track?

Roy Twite

executive
#33

Yes. Thanks, Max. I mean, it's pretty close, I think, Max. The overall number for was 32% growth. And that is down from, as you know, 65% growth in the first half, and we are pretty closely linked with our customers' production, there's not a lot of stock between us and their production line, right, which is the sort of key determinant in terms of air production. Obviously, the whole mechanism in trucks is just in timely. So I'd say it's pretty close to what's actually happening out there. And as I said, the difference between the sort of 65%, okay, it's a different comparator as well because Q2 last year was hit very hard. But the difference in the rates is really because several OEMs have literally had stopped because they can't get some of the other components, principally electronic components, Max.

Max Yates

analyst
#34

Sure. Understood. And just a quick follow-up, and it was more a clarification. When you were giving some numbers out earlier around the industrial automation business. Did you say that excluding the ventilator search, Industrial Automation was plus 28%? Or sorry, I lost you on which number was plus 28%.

Roy Twite

executive
#35

Sorry. The whole of Precision was plus 28% Q3. The industrial automation -- so the size issue with this number now, Max, in the way we report, this is Industrial Automation outside of Asia was 22% up. And then our Asia Pacific numbers were actually 42% up. But in the Asia Pacific numbers, you've got some other things, not just Industrial Automation, sorry about that, but that's the way we are running that division, but that hopefully gives you the information you need.

Max Yates

analyst
#36

Yes. Maybe I can. I mean, I just struggle with that because I thought ventilators was a $30 million tailwind...

Roy Twite

executive
#37

No. It's in fact -- go ahead, Dan.

Daniel Shook

executive
#38

The ventilators, Max, is not in the Industrial Automation space, but it's part of Precision. It's more in that life science and fluid vertical. And that's probably -- if you do the math, it's probably around $40 million. So last year was the big year, was the big quarter of delivery of the ventilators. We had quite a bit of the order activity in the first half of the year. And then -- as you recall, we ramped up the production over the course of kind of May, June, and we were running at 10x our baseline production. So most of that surge came through. We have a little tail of surge in 2021. So we're still getting a little bit of ventilator action in Q3. That should pretty much be past us now. And that's why we're around a little bit above $40 million of headwind actually in this year versus last year, obviously. But, obviously, it doesn't impact the motion [ and ] the Industrial Automation side.

Max Yates

analyst
#39

Okay. Just because I tend to look at it kind of just stripping the whole of Precision ex the ventilators. So you're probably looking at an 18% headwind for the whole division from ventilators, which means the underlying was probably growing at sort of low 20s, plus 21% or something like that. The whole Precision. I'll take this offline.

Daniel Shook

executive
#40

Yes, let's take it offline, Max, we can align.

Roy Twite

executive
#41

Yes. Let me just give everybody the ventilator numbers so that you've all got them. So if we go back, Dan, to 2019, I'll just do this one more time. So it was $23 million of sales in 2019. The surge as we call it, right, was $94 million, which took us to about $116 million, nearly $117 million in 2020, right? So that was the surge. Now if you break down that $94 million surge, as we call it, $37 million was in the first half of last year and $57 million within the second half, of which about $40 million was in the third quarter, right? So that hopefully just gives everybody those numbers, and then you can work through the detail with Max, right? Any other questions, Max, or was that it?

Daniel Shook

executive
#42

I think, that was it.

Operator

operator
#43

Our next question is from Mark Fielding from RBC.

Mark Fielding

analyst
#44

A couple of questions from me. First one, in terms of -- sorry, [indiscernible] (00:35:11) still thinking about next year. Just in terms of 2022 outlook. Obviously, I've heard what you said about Critical. I mean wider comment. You've obviously given medium-term growth targets for the divisions 5% plus Precision, Hydronic; 3% to 5% Critical. Any big factors you would flag that means that isn't the starting point for thinking about numbers for next year?

Roy Twite

executive
#45

I think what we said was that we're going to work towards those targets, right? We can't switch them on straight away into next year. There's a lot of work to be done, as you know, through Growth Hub, through what we're doing in Precision with customer first, everything that we presented at the Capital Markets Day, right? So I think with next year, we'll carry on building the momentum that we've been building, but we won't suddenly jump to become a 5% growth company. So I think what you'll do your normal work, look at all the trends around Industrial Automation and trucks and so on, and have a look at that. But the one we can give a bit more light on is Critical. And as I said, so far, we feel pretty good about that for next year. And we'll update on the rest in February.

Mark Fielding

analyst
#46

Perfect. And then just on Critical specifically, obviously, good news that, that 20% to 30% sales can basically stay in part of the group and is progressing well or has improved outlook. Does that affect your sort of thinking and how we should think about the time line for Critical getting to that 20% margin target? Just extend it a year or 2 because there still is a bit more work to do in those areas. Just how do we think about that?

Roy Twite

executive
#47

I still think that's just shown incredible progress, Jackie and the team, Mark. As you've seen -- I mean, well, you know exactly what the trajectory is and half-on-half, they to showed improvement. And when they presented, obviously, we have the team in, they presented the plan to Dan and I. And literally within the next few years, that part of Critical will be at the 20% margin. So pretty much aligned because they've been on just a much steeper trajectory. Absolutely determined to stay part of IMI, absolutely determined to prove they can execute an aftermarket strategy. Put 2 of the businesses together, which is always difficult to do in that part of Europe. And I've just done all of that quickly and professionally. And yes, I think they've got great momentum, Mark. And no, I think when we first talked about this, it was going to be more than 150 bps. If you remember, if we had a [ solid ] improvement to the division, each sort of update, it was less than -- it was under 100 bps. And now obviously, by the end of this year, it will be certainly less than that. So I think you literally, you won't notice it in the time scales because they're on a great momentum rise. So I think next few years, we'll be at the target.

Operator

operator
#48

[Operator Instructions] At this time, we have no further questions. I'll now hand back to Roy.

Roy Twite

executive
#49

Great. Well, thanks, Emily. Thanks, everyone. We appreciate your time today. I think this trading update is another proof point of the accelerated progress that we're making here at IMI. You know the plan. We've been through this. The strategy basically boils down to increasing our customer focus right across the company, reducing the complexity out of the company to really enable growth and, obviously, to accelerate our market-led innovation through the growth to generate that sustainable long-term growth that we all want. And all of that to generate a better world. And more and more of our projects are doing that. And really, what's going on at COP26 definitely resonates within our companies. And as Dan said, it's really enabling us to recruit some really good talent and get that inertia within the business. So I'll stop there. I hope you have a great day, and I hope you all have a very successful fourth quarter as well. Bye for now. Thank you.

Daniel Shook

executive
#50

Thanks, everybody.

Operator

operator
#51

Thank you.

This call discussed

For developers and AI pipelines

Programmatic access to IMI plc earnings transcripts and 32,000+ others is available through the EarningsCalls.dev REST API. Plans from $24.99/month — full transcripts, speaker segments, full-text search, and the recently-added /api/v1/transcripts/recent polling endpoint for ETL pipelines.