Porvair H1 2025 Earnings Report

Porvair EPS Results

• Actual EPS: GBX 20
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Porvair Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: N/A
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Porvair Announcement Details

• Quarter: H1 2025
• Date: 6/30/2025
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Monday, June 30, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 4:30AM ET

Porvair (LON:PRV) engages in the filtration, laboratory, and environmental technology business. It operates through three segments: Aerospace & Industrial, Laboratory, and Metal Melt Quality. The Aerospace & Industrial segment designs and manufactures a range of specialist filtration equipment for aerospace, energy, and industrial applications. The Laboratory segment is involved in the design and manufacture of instruments and consumables for use in environmental and bioscience laboratories with a focus on water analysis instruments, diagnostics, and sample preparation equipment. This segment also produces a range of laboratory microplates, filters, tubing, pipette tips, and associated consumables for use in diagnostics, sample preparation and chromatography applications. The Metal Melt Quality segment designs and manufactures porous ceramic filters for the filtration of molten metals. This segment also provides patent protected filters for the aluminum cast house industry; and the filtration of gray and ductile iron, as well as filtration of superalloys used in the manufacture of turbine blades. The company is also involved in trading activities. It operates in the United Kingdom, Continental Europe, South America, the United States, Asia, and Africa, as well as other NAFTA countries. The company was incorporated in 1982 and is based in King's Lynn, the United Kingdom.

Porvair H1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: The group delivered 3% revenue and 3% adjusted EPS growth in H1 with strong cash generation, ending with £17 million net cash and a 5% interim dividend increase to 2.2 pence.
• Neutral Sentiment: Aerospace & Industrial revenue rose 10% driven by petrochem (+23%) and EFC (+21%), while aerospace sales fell 8% but with reassuring order visibility for H2.
• Positive Sentiment: Laboratory division revenue edged up 1% with margins close to target and a pipeline of new product developments expected to support future growth.
• Negative Sentiment: Metal melt quality revenue declined 6% due to foundry market weakness, although robust aluminum demand and a £5.5 million cast-house upgrade—on track for completion H1 2026—offer long-term support.
• Neutral Sentiment: Management warned of ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty and FX headwinds but highlighted the local manufacturing footprint and strong balance sheet as buffers.

Presentation

[Hooman, CEO at Porvair]

Good morning, all, and welcome to Porvair's interim results presentation. It's good to be here for my first set of results after taking over as CEO in April this year. I will start by summarizing the highlights for the first six months of the year, and then hand over to James to talk you through the financials. After that, I will share a bit about my initial impressions since joining the group and the outlook for the year before opening up for Q&A. Let's turn to the first summary slide. The company has had a consistent strategy over many years, and you can see at the bottom of this slide what this group is capable of delivering through the cycle. In the first six months of the year, the group achieved 3% revenue and 3% adjusted EPS growth.

[Hooman, CEO at Porvair]

Cash generation was strong, with a net cash position of GBP 17.1 million. We have seen the usual variable trading patterns across the segments in our end markets, and we will come back to that a bit later. The next slide shows our business fundamentals. We make products that are regularly replaced, they are fully engineered, and they contain emissions, clean-up processes, reduced waste, etc. They are driven by these global growth trends shown on the top right corner, and Porvair remains well positioned to benefit from end markets with long-term growth potential. Now, the advantages of making specialist filters are that you have these attractive business characteristics shown at the bottom of the slide. Niche positions: these are largely bespoke products or applications with recurring revenue and high customer retention.

[Hooman, CEO at Porvair]

Fundamental demand drivers: with the long-term growth trends mentioned, these products are regularly replaced either by regulations or maintenance schedules, so there is a stickiness to the business. There are generally quite good barriers to entry. Some patterns, but more so quality accreditations and the fact that the customers will need to requalify a supplier if they want to change. If we move to the next slide, in terms of the markets that we approach, you can on this slide see the share of revenue split between our three divisions. This slide is also trying to show what we mean with regulated markets and what the growth drivers are and what our competitive advantages are. Of course, in our case, the installed base is important. We are one of those businesses with high recurring sales, as we have engineered design and are usually engineered into the customer's system.

[Hooman, CEO at Porvair]

An example is an aircraft model. If you're on it, then you will be there for a long time, provided that you deliver and perform. This describes what we do, why we do it, and why we have enjoyed the growth rate that the group has delivered. Historically, half of the growth has been coming from the growth of the market and half from new product development and inorganic growth. This slide summarizes our business model, with the strategic purpose being to develop these businesses for the benefit of all stakeholders. We principally measure success through consistent earnings growth, which is what we are trying to achieve, and management is also incentivized by certain ESG metrics. It is all about focusing on the right markets, and I did highlight the ones that we are focusing on earlier.

[Hooman, CEO at Porvair]

Key to the group is a lot of customer-led product development and then allocating capital reflecting that, firstly to organic growth opportunities and then M&A when we can find decent businesses for a reasonable price. Now, if we turn to the trading in the first six months of this year, we have seen the usual variable trading patterns across our segments and end markets. Key themes have been a strong demand from the petrochem market and clean water, driving good orders for laboratory instruments and consumables for environmental laboratories. A slower start for aerospace, but with reassuring order visibility for the second half of the year, which we hope will pick up. Of course, we have not been immune to the current macroeconomic uncertainty and tariff environment, noting, however, that the group's manufacturing footprint mainly serves local customers.

[Hooman, CEO at Porvair]

We have been focusing on cash generation and continue to invest in the business, which James will talk to shortly. On the variability, the ebbs and flows, as we call it here. Firstly, it is not unusual across our group, as we serve a range of markets in different parts of the world. While some markets can be down, we seem to experience others being up and over time resulting in a relatively consistent progress across the group. I've already talked to the strength in the petrochem and laboratory instruments for analytical and environmental laboratories and the aerodynamics. The general U.S. industrial demand has been down. We particularly saw that in the auto, truck, and agricultural markets. On margin, cash and continued investments, James will cover this, but there are some FX headwinds as expected, and the product mix contributes to the margin as usual.

[Hooman, CEO at Porvair]

The cash performance has been good, and we are making progress in the CapEx for the aluminum cast-house capabilities that we mentioned during the year-end. I will now let James talk you through the financial performance.

[James, CFO at Porvair]

Very good. Thanks, Raywan, and good morning, everyone. Here we go into the numbers with the usual summary of financial performance. Top left-hand side, I'm working left to right. Total group revenue is up 3% on prior period, with revenue growth of 10% in aerospace and industrial and 1% in laboratory, whilst we had a 6% reduction in metal melt quality. As usual, I'll provide a bit of color on the divisional performance in just a moment. Bottom left then, adjusted PBT up 4% to GBP 12 million, whilst adjusted EPS is up 3% to GBP 20 pence. It's worth noting at this point that in maintaining the group's progressive dividend policy, the board has approved a 5% increase in the interim dividend to GBP 2.2 pence. Bottom right, as Hooman has mentioned, we finished the period with just over GBP 17 million of net cash on the balance sheet.

[James, CFO at Porvair]

Moving over then to the income statement. As usual, these are the adjusted results only. Before I run through the numbers, just as a reminder, we acquired EFC at the very start of last year, and so these numbers are like for like in that they both include a full six months trading of EFC. Back into the numbers, the 3% top line growth that I mentioned has delivered GBP 97.7 million of revenue. We continue to experience Forex headwinds in the period, primarily on the U.S. dollar, and our constant currency revenue growth was 5% rather than the 3% that we are reporting this morning. Operating profit of GBP 12.6 million is up 1% on prior period, with the margin performance down 30 basis points to 12.9%, which, as ever, has a number of moving parts within a short six-month period.

[James, CFO at Porvair]

As with revenue, operating profit also had a Forex headwind this time of around GBP 0.3 million. The interest charge of GBP 0.6 million is down from the GBP1 million last year as we repaid our borrowings in the second half of last year, which, as a reminder, we drew down on to help fund the acquisition of EFC in December 2023. The effective rate of tax is broadly consistent at 22%, all of which delivered the 3% increase in EPS to the 20 pence that you see at the bottom of the slide here. Moving over to the cash flow and pulling out the headlines, starting near the top and moving down. Cash generated from operations was up 44% to the GBP 10.2 million that you can see here.

[James, CFO at Porvair]

As a reminder, the group typically sees a working capital outflow in the first half and the GBP 3.3 million that you can see here and the line above is better than we usually see at this time of the year and is simply due to the ebb and flow of trading within the group, underpinned, as ever, by strong working capital disciplines around the group. Moving down the cash flow and about halfway, we invested a further GBP 2.3 million in CapEx, a typical number for the group again at this stage of the year.

[James, CFO at Porvair]

The GBP 5.5 million investment in the group's aluminum cast-house, production line in Hendersonville that we talked about last year and Hooman has mentioned, has had a modest impact on these cash numbers and on this CapEx number and the cash flows on that project, so expected to pick up in the second half of the year. Moving to the very bottom then of the slide, we finished the period with GBP 17 million of cash on the balance sheet, as we've mentioned a couple of times now, no debt, and that cash number is up GBP 13 million from this time last year and up GBP 3.4 million since the start of the year. As ever, the net cash numbers at the bottom exclude the RFS 16 lease liabilities, which have to form part of our reported position.

[James, CFO at Porvair]

Moving across then to the divisional review and to provide a bit of color on each. Starting then with aerospace and industrial, revenue was up 10% to GBP 44.6 million, with operating profit at GBP 6.5 million and the margin at 14.6%, consistent with the prior period but below the midpoint in the 14%-16% target range that we have for the division. Within the top line, the performance has once again been mixed. Petrochem revenue, which as a reminder can be lumpy, was up again this time by 23%, and EFC, now in its second year with the group, continues to demonstrate progress and has delivered 21% revenue growth on prior period. The performance of petrochem and EFC has been helpful in the half in managing weakness in U.S.

[James, CFO at Porvair]

industrials and an 8% reduction in aerospace sales, for which we have reassuring order visibility going into the second half. Moving across to laboratory, revenue was up 1% to GBP 32.3 million, with operating profit of GBP 4.6 million and the margin at 14.2%, a little ahead of the prior period but below the target range of 15% plus for the division. Instrument sales across both Seal and KE BioSystems were ahead of the prior period, whilst we had steady demand for laboratory consumables, for which the order books remained steady as we move into the second half. The division has been busy working on a range of new product developments and product introductions in the period, particularly within Seal Analytical, Porvair Sciences, and KE BioSystems, all of which bode well for the future.

[James, CFO at Porvair]

Finally, moving across to metal melt quality, revenue was 6% lower at GBP 20.8 million, with operating profit at GBP 3.3 million. Again, the margin just shy of 16%, but still above the target range for the division of 10%-12%. In terms of product lines, product line performance, Foundry has continued to weigh on the top line, these products being those which support the auto, truck, and agricultural markets, particularly in the U.S. Though important to note that Foundry is a relatively small part of our melt quality offering. Aluminum demand, however, has remained robust, both within the U.S.

[James, CFO at Porvair]

and China, and we see this demand continuing over the long term, backed by the global growth trends, which we're all familiar with and Hooman's covered some of, which include the replacement of plastic by aluminum, the lightweighting of transport, and all supported, of course, by aluminum's infinite recyclability. With this in mind, worth noting that the GBP 5.5 million car shop investment in Hendersonville, which we kicked off last year, is progressing to plan as a once in a 20-25 year CapEx to replace and upgrade the production line, ovens, controls, and electronics, which we expect to complete in the first half of 2026. Final point from me on this slide, important to note that the super alloys product range has also had a strong first half performance. All from me for the moment. Hooman.

[Hooman, CEO at Porvair]

Thank you, James. I included this slide to share my initial impressions, and I've been talking to some of these already. Since joining the group, I've been visiting our locations and met with our highly talented team across the business. These visits have all reconfirmed the potential of the company as it faces end markets with long-term growth potential. I've been encouraged by our technical capabilities, providing highly engineered solutions to meet the demand of our customers. The decentralized model is key to how we operate and creates an entrepreneurial spirit across the business, with key commercial decisions being made close to the customers and suppliers. The group has had a consistent track record of growth.

[Hooman, CEO at Porvair]

In terms of priorities, it is about creating a plan to evolve and to build on the many strengths across the group and building on this great foundation for continued success. In order to do so and to enhance our execution, we have formed an executive committee responsible for the management of the group, consisting of the executive directors and key members from the senior leadership team. I will always be focusing on us having the right focus and resources to enhance our execution. As we have mentioned, customer-led innovation is key to our group and has to continue. It is about driving the M&A agenda, and we have added a central resource to supporting these activities. Now, turning to the final slide and the outlook, the macro uncertainty is expected to continue, as is the FX headwinds.

[Hooman, CEO at Porvair]

We will continue to monitor this and manage it through our manufacturing footprint and operational flexibility. We continue to see quite some near-term opportunities, both in new product developments and some interesting projects in the market, and we will continue to use our balance sheet strength to invest in the business. Longer term, we see no change to the fundamental demand drivers for the group, which have served the group well in the past and will continue to do so.

Participants

Executives

• Hooman, CEO
• James, CFO