Spectris Q2 2025 Earnings Report

Spectris EPS Results

• Actual EPS: GBX 38.40
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Spectris Revenue Results

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

Spectris Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q2 2025
• Date: 8/7/2025
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, August 7, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 3:00AM ET

The experts in providing insight through precision measurement. Our purpose is to deliver value beyond measure – going beyond just the measurement. Precision is at the heart of what we do. Spectris (LON:SXS) provides global customers with specialist insight through our high-tech instruments and test equipment, augmented by the power of our software. Through a combination of our hardware, analytical and simulation software, we provide our customers with superior data and invaluable insights that enable them to work faster, smarter and more efficiently. This equips them with the ability to reduce time to market, improve processes, quality and yield. In this way, our know-how creates value for wider society, as our customers manufacture and develop new products to make the world cleaner, healthier and more productive. Delivering value beyond measure.

Spectris Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Reported revenue rose 8% in H1 (20% in Q2) and order intake grew 5% in H1 (15% in Q2) with a book-to-bill over one, driving adjusted operating profit up 3% to £65.6 m, cash conversion of 126%, and an interim dividend increase of 5% to £0.28 per share.
• Positive Sentiment: The profit improvement programme is on track to exceed its £30 m savings target this year, delivering over £10 m in H1 and expecting more than £20 m in H2, with early ERP and acquisition synergies already realized.
• Neutral Sentiment: Momentum in key end markets is building—Q2 like-for-like sales grew 9%, led by materials, academia and life sciences, and pharma returned to growth—although automotive, cleantech and aerospace remain soft amid tariff and macro uncertainty.
• Positive Sentiment: Net debt stood at £546 m (2.3× leverage) with strong working capital management, and management expects further cash generation to reduce leverage toward the 1–2× target by year-end.

Presentation

[Andrew Heath, CEO & Executive Director at Spectris]

Reported revenue was 8% higher in the first half, including 20% growth in the second quarter, recovering the dip that we saw in Q1. While we did have a softer year on year comparator in Q2, nonetheless, after prolonged and largely unprecedented downturn, we are now seeing building momentum in our end market driven demand. Reported order intake was 5% higher in the first half, including 15% growth in the second quarter with a book to bill ratio of just over one. That led to adjusted operating profit of £65,600,000 which was up 3% on a reported basis. Cash generation and returning We delivered a very strong cash performance in the first half with cash conversion of 126%.

[Andrew Heath, CEO & Executive Director at Spectris]

And we have declared an interim dividend of 28p per share, which represents 5% growth on the 2024 interim dividend. Our profit improvement program remains firmly on track to deliver at least £30,000,000 of savings this year. Over £10,000,000 were delivered in the first half, with more than £20,000,000 expected to be realized in the second half. Cost synergies have already started to come through. We are seeing the benefits of the new ERP system in Malvern Panascal and HPK, and headcount has been rightsized for current demand levels.

[Andrew Heath, CEO & Executive Director at Spectris]

Turning to last year's acquisitions. I'm delighted with the integration progress that has been made in the first half. In Malvern Panalytical, we have made great progress in successfully integrating Micromeritic and Syapse, including implementing a new organizational structure and reworked sales model. SIAPS is our new center of excellence for handheld instruments, which incorporates Mobile Panalytical's existing handheld business, and we are already seeing the benefits of collaboration between these two businesses, both in terms of accelerated sales and new products. In Dynamics, the have given us confidence in respect to greater potential revenue synergies as well. And finally, I just wanted to provide a summary of where we are regarding prospective takeover of the group. For a total value of £37.63 per Spectris share, comprising 37 point pounds 3 in cash and an interim dividend of 28p per Spectris share, and that's to be implemented by way of the court sanction scheme arrangement under the Part 26 of the Companies Act. Subsequently, we recommended 28p per share.

[Andrew Heath, CEO & Executive Director at Spectris]

This represents a 104.9% of premiums to the undisclosed share price on June 6 and equates to a 20.3 times twenty twenty four adjusted EBITDA for the Devectis Group.

[Andrew Heath, CEO & Executive Director at Spectris]

So in terms of the timeline from here, pending the acceptance of the offer from shareholders, completion is currently estimated in or by the 2026, once is the momentum in our quarterly growth rate compared to that in our annual growth rate. When quarterly growth crosses above the annual growth line, this is often a good predictor of recovery. As you can see in the chart on the left hand side, both orders and sales, the indicators suggest we have the direct impact of tariffs, but at the same time also mindful of significant uncertainty still remaining.

[Andrew Heath, CEO & Executive Director at Spectris]

It's too early to call a sustained recovery, but this does provide us with a degree of confidence as we head into the second half of the year. Orders at the end of the first half were up on the prior year, with the exception of automotive, clean tech and aerospace and defense, which had a very tough comparator. Automotive was down double digits as larger CapEx and R and D projects are being delayed by customers due to the ongoing tariff and macro uncertainty. The table on the right hand side shows the like for like sales performance by end market for both the first half and the second quarter. The first thing to note is the significant improvement in sales growth in the second quarter at the group level.

[Andrew Heath, CEO & Executive Director at Spectris]

Now having been down 8% in the first quarter, on a like for like basis, we grew by 9% in the second quarter. Part of this is clearly due to the softer year on year comparison that we had in Spectra Scientific, but we are seeing improving momentum in a number of our end markets, where we saw a notable increase in sales growth in Q2. Materials, Academia and Life Sciences delivered the strongest growth I was also pleased to see pharma getting back to growth by the end of the period. Now one quarter doesn't make a trend and we're not getting carried away, but it's pleasing to see the improving momentum is broad based across most of our end markets. With that, I'll hand over to Angela to take you through the financials.

[Angela Noon, CFO & Executive Director at Spectris]

Thank you Andrew and good morning everyone. I'm delighted to be here this morning to run through our H1 financial results. Let's jump straight into the numbers. I'll start with some of the key highlights for the 2025. Orders were 2% lower on a like for like basis.

[Angela Noon, CFO & Executive Director at Spectris]

As you heard from Andrew, we saw improved momentum throughout the period, such that our like for like order intake in the second quarter was up by 4%. Our book to bill ratio was just over one times in the period. We had a quarter where sales grew 9% like for like, albeit helped by an easier competitor in Vectrus Scientific. And of course our reported numbers were even stronger due to the acquisitions made in 2024. Profit largely followed the sales performance, with flat growth on like for like basis equating to an adjusted operating margin of 10.3%. Moving on to cash, I'm very pleased with the first half cash performance of the Group. Adjusted cash flow was a very strong £82,400,000 resulting in cash conversion of 126%, which is the highest in many years outside of Covid.

[Angela Noon, CFO & Executive Director at Spectris]

This was driven by a strong working capital performance in the period, mainly from the reduction in customer debt and improved management of creditors. There is scope for further working capital improvement certainly in the second half. Our return on gross capital employed fell to 12.2% as a result of the increase in debt associated with the acquisitions. Net debt overall stands at £546,000,000 with leverage of 2.3 times on a covenant basis, both broadly unchanged from the 2024. Given the typical seasonality of our cash flow, this is a very strong cash performance and I would expect material reductions in net debt and leverage in the second half.

[Angela Noon, CFO & Executive Director at Spectris]

The next table provides a bridge between adjusted and statutory operating profit, as well as profit before tax. Costs associated with our profit improvement programme totalled £12,000,000 I am pleased to confirm that the programme is moving at pace and is in line with plan. My expectation is that we should exceed our original savings target of £30,000,000 by the end of the financial year. A credit of £16,800,000 includes an £18,100,000 fair value adjustment, which relates to the release of deferred consideration partially offset by related fees. Public offer related costs, which refers to takeover costs incurred by Spectris thus far, was £7,900,000 in the first half.

[Angela Noon, CFO & Executive Director at Spectris]

Software implementation costs were £13,000,000 down from £22,000,000 last year, we have now reached steady state in Malvern Panalytical and for the first phase of Dynamics, so our ERP project costs have reduced substantially. We expect to see improved cost effectiveness from here. Our recent acquisitions have led to an increase in amortization to £24,700,000 As a result, statutory operating profit was £24,800,000 broadly the same as last year. Further down the table, I want to remind everyone of the £210,000,000 gain that we had on the disposal of Red Lion last year. We also incurred £22,900,000 of net interest costs in the period, which reflects the current net debt position of the group after the acquisition of Micromeretix, Syapse and Piezocryst.

[Angela Noon, CFO & Executive Director at Spectris]

This next slide shows the main drivers of our sales and operating profit performance in the first half. That were reported in the 2024 did not reoccur in the 2025. We saw good operating leverage in the period, driven by strong contribution from price and pass through of tariff to end customer. The increase in overheads is a net number, with savings from our profit improvement program of approximately 10,000,000 being offset by other items, including higher variable compensation year on year. Foreign exchange was a headwind in the period due to the strength of sterling against the dollar, the euro and the Chinese renminbi.

[Angela Noon, CFO & Executive Director at Spectris]

As you can see, our recent acquisitions have had the biggest impact on our P and L performance in the first half, while slightly softer than we anticipated. We expect an improved profit contribution in the second half of the year, which I'll come back to later. If we can now turn to cash and net debt. As said, I was very pleased with our first half cash performance, with our net debt unchanged despite the payment of the final dividend. Our focus on working capital helped to deliver £15,000,000 inflow in the first half, driven by receivables and payables.

[Angela Noon, CFO & Executive Director at Spectris]

Our focus is now on further improvement in inventories, with detailed group reduction plans fully underway. We tend to build inventory in the second quarter, ahead of our stronger second half, hence we expect larger working capital gains in the second half of the year. Capital expenditure, restructuring, ERP costs and interest costs were all in line with expectations and our full year guidance. We received a £1,900,000 tax credit in the period as a result of rebates in The UK and Germany in particular. This was fully expected and we have left our full year cash tax guidance unchanged.

[Angela Noon, CFO & Executive Director at Spectris]

The largest outflow was the 2024 final dividend that was paid out in June, whilst a foreign exchange translation inflow of £26,200,000 reflects sterling strength against the US dollar and to a lesser extent the Euro. Taking these movements altogether, we finished the period with net debt of £546,000,000 as said again, unchanged compared to the financial year past. Coming on now to our divisional performance, starting with Spectris Scientific, orders in the first half were 2% higher on a like for like basis, with 14% growth in the second quarter. On a reported basis, orders grew by 17% in the first half and 32% in the second quarter. The book to bill ratio was 1.04.

[Angela Noon, CFO & Executive Director at Spectris]

As the chart in the bottom right shows, like for like order growth has been positive in three of our last four quarters and this building momentum is encouraging as we look ahead to the second half of this year and on to 2026. Sales in Spectra Scientific were 3% higher on a like for like basis, again driven by a strong second quarter where like for like sales grew by 19%. This was due in part to an easier comparator. On a reported basis, sales were 21% higher in the first half with 38% growth in the second quarter. Adjusted operating margin increased by 70 bps to 11.1%, driven by operating leverage and cost savings.

[Angela Noon, CFO & Executive Director at Spectris]

Turning now to Spectris Dynamics, order intake in the first half was 7% lower on a like for like basis, driven by continued weakness in automotive. This was compounded by a tough comparator as we booked a number of large simulator orders in virtual tests last year. On a reported basis, orders were 3% lower in the first half. Book to bill was slightly below one. You can see the impact of the automotive downturn in the order chart in the bottom right.

[Angela Noon, CFO & Executive Director at Spectris]

Encouragingly, after a prolonged downturn, we continued to see good momentum in machine manufacturing, with aerospace and defence remaining robust. Sales in Spectris Dynamics were 3% lower on a like for like basis, again impacted by automotive weakness. On a reported basis, sales were flat to the first half. Adjusted operating margin was resilient, increasing by 10 bps to 12.4% despite lower sales volumes due to a very strong execution on cost savings. This next slide shows the three key profit drivers in the second half that give us confidence in meeting our full year expectations.

[Angela Noon, CFO & Executive Director at Spectris]

Firstly, our profit improvement programme. In our April trading update, we communicated that we saw potential upside to our original cost savings target of £30,000,000 for 2025. We can now confidently say that we expect to realise savings of over £30,000,000 this year. With over £10,000,000 of savings in the first half, we will also expect to deliver at least £20,000,000 of savings in the second half. The programme was always expected to be second half weighted and potentially even more so given the upgraded cost saving target.

[Angela Noon, CFO & Executive Director at Spectris]

Another driver of profit growth in the second half will be the contribution from the three acquisitions we made last year. Their profit contribution in the first half was slightly lower than we had expected, largely due to timing and delays due to export control as a result of tariff regimes. These orders will be delivered in the second half. In addition, the order intake in the three acquisitions has been strong in the first half, particularly SIAPs, which has seen order growth of over 30%. Their combined order backlog gives us confidence in their second half profit contribution, which we now expect to total approximately £20,000,000 This is a greater second half weighting than we originally anticipated.

[Angela Noon, CFO & Executive Director at Spectris]

And then finally, as Andrew highlighted earlier, we are building momentum in the business, particularly in Spectra Scientific. Our Q2 performance, even allowing for the easier comparator, was encouraging, and whilst we are mindful that macroeconomic uncertainty stemming from tariffs remains elevated, the underlying organic improvement that we are seeing gives an element of confidence for the second half, but to be clear, we are not relying on a strong recovery in the second half to meet our expectations. Our profit improvement program and the contribution from the acquisitions will be the most significant drivers of profit growth in the second half. And with that, I'd like to hand back to Andrew.

[Andrew Heath, CEO & Executive Director at Spectris]

Thank you, Angela. Over the past seven years we have repositioned Spectris as a leader in precision measurement and have made great strides in advancing our purpose led strategy, enabling our customers to make the world cleaner, healthier and more productive. We have simplified and refocused the group through eight divestments at attractive valuations, redeploying the cash into 16 complementary acquisitions. We've also delivered strong capital returns to shareholders with over £1,000,000,000 returned through dividends and share buybacks alone. Through careful portfolio management, disciplined execution of strategy and exceptional people, Spectris has become a more focused, high quality and high performing company.

[Andrew Heath, CEO & Executive Director at Spectris]

Our commitment to innovation, sustainability and customer centric solutions, compounded by our acquisitions, has positioned us as a leader in our markets. We have built a business geared for long term growth in exciting, structurally growing end markets. The company's commitment to operational excellence and sustainability is not only improving margins, it is also enhancing our brand and position with customers, as well as creating a positive and lasting impact to the planet and society. During the global pandemic, we took the decision to establish the Spectris Foundation to support and empower the next generation of innovators, particularly in underrepresented groups. To date, we've improved access to a high quality STEM education for over 50,000 students and I'm pleased to say the foundation's impact continues to grow year on year.

[Andrew Heath, CEO & Executive Director at Spectris]

I am very proud of the transformation of the group since 2018. From the beginning, we have sought to create an environment where great talent can thrive in a healthy high performance culture, aligned behind a clear strategy and encouraged to aim high in our delivery. Thanks to the continued hard work of all my colleagues, Spectris today is a high quality business, well positioned for sustained success. So in summary, it is pleasing to see the clear momentum coming through in our first half results. We have delivered a robust first half performance in a tough economic environment.

[Andrew Heath, CEO & Executive Director at Spectris]

Encouragingly, momentum improved through the period with a very strong second quarter, particularly in Spectra Scientific. And we delivered strong cash conversion in the first half, underlining the Group's highly cash generative nature and our focus on deleveraging. Looking ahead to the rest of 2025, we now expect over £30,000,000 of savings from our profit improvement program for the full year, with most of that still to come in the second half. We anticipate a strong second half performance from last year's acquisitions with high levels of synergies than our business case. We do see signs of recovery in many of our end markets and while tariff related uncertainty still remains, our second quarter performance was encouraging.

[Andrew Heath, CEO & Executive Director at Spectris]

And as ever, positive operating leverage will always help support our second half profit performance. With continued focus on working capital improvement, we expect to deliver another strong cash performance in the second half, providing confidence in bringing leverage back down within our one to two times target range by year end. And finally, turning to our guidance, we continue to expect adjusted operating profit to be in line with management expectations. With that, thank you for listening. Andrew and I will be very happy to take your questions, whilst recognizing that we are still in an offer period and as such, when it comes to prospective takeover of Spectris, we can only comment on what is already in the public domain.

[Operator]

We will now begin the question and answer session. Session. The first question is from the line of Mark Davies Jones from Stifel. You may proceed.

[Mark Davies Jones, MD - Industrials at Stifel Financial]

Thank you very much. In the circumstances, Andrew, I think probably we can just ask you about some of the end markets trends you're seeing, particularly the life science, pharmaceuticals, which is obviously very important for you. The commentary is still relatively muted, but the Q2 was very big. I know it's partly the comps, but are you seeing any willingness to invest back into instrumentation? Or is this other parts of that broader segment that is picking up?

[Mark Davies Jones, MD - Industrials at Stifel Financial]

And likewise, academia was I guess surprisingly strong given what's going on in The US, so could you comment on that too?

[Andrew Heath, CEO & Executive Director at Spectris]

Of course, Mark, thanks for your question. So yes, I mean it's great to see pharma getting back into growth in the first half of this year, you know, after what's been a really prolonged sort of depressed market. We've seen, you know, really pharma improve across Europe and Asia in particular, with sort of North America remaining relatively flat. But we are seeing, you know, an increased demand for instruments starting to come through, which is really pleasing. And I think, you know, if you compare that to some of our peers, there's been similar commentary in the latest quarterly reporting, particularly for the American peers.

[Andrew Heath, CEO & Executive Director at Spectris]

But on the academia side, again, we had a very strong quarter on academia, after a bit of a weaker Q1. But if you remember, we also saw a big order of uplift in Q4. So it's proving to be somewhat lumpy. I think that's really driven by, you know, some of the uncertainty that's been caused by government supports in various countries around the world. And sort of customers having sort of navigate that deciding when they're going to place their orders.

[Andrew Heath, CEO & Executive Director at Spectris]

But again, you know, we saw Macademia up strongly in Europe in the first half. In Asia, it was pretty flattish, sort of down in China. But even in North America, you know, we were up double digits in academia. So despite some of the withdraw of support in North America, we are still seeing demand coming through. And I think a lot of that's from the fact that, you know, a lot of the academic research institutes in The US have really over the last, you know, decade or so, you know, recognise that they can't rely so much on US government support.

[Andrew Heath, CEO & Executive Director at Spectris]

I mean, that has been slowly diminishing over the years. Clearly, there's been a bit of a disruption more recently, but, you know, I think a lot of it is now funded through sources other than the US government.

[Mark Davies Jones, MD - Industrials at Stifel Financial]

Great, thank you. And if I can just check on one of the weaker markets, obviously automotive is very tricky, but are you still seeing decent demand for the virtual testing side of things? Because there's been some suggestion people are focusing more on that as a lower cost way of doing R and D.

[Andrew Heath, CEO & Executive Director at Spectris]

Yeah, so it's bit of a mixed picture. I mean, I give you sort of a just sort a flavor, mean, really, we saw North America down in auto last year, but there's quite a correction in North America with the move away from sort of EV platforms, particularly in The US. And that's, so our sales and orders into North America are actually flat year over year. We are seeing a slightly improving trend. And that's really as a consequence if the OEMs decided to cancel or change any of their platform programs, it then takes some time the new innovations, new platforms to start to come through for us to then benefit from the orders associated with those.

[Andrew Heath, CEO & Executive Director at Spectris]

So North America, against an easier comp was flat in the first half. But we did see China down because of I think a lot of that sort of more of the electric battery investment that was made through to sort of the 2023. There's been less repeat orders on that side of things in China. But the big downturn is in Europe, particularly in Germany, where we are seeing quite a disruption amongst our OEM customers. And as a consequence of that, you know, that's not only leading to sort of overall lower demands for our products and services, but it's also impacting some of the, again, particularly the largest of the CapEx projects associated with virtual test, some of our large simulators, know, €34,000,000 in terms of the cost to customers.

[Andrew Heath, CEO & Executive Director at Spectris]

So we are seeing, you know, those some of those projects being delayed and customers just taking longer to take decisions. I think the positive side to it though, is that we are still seeing a good pipeline of prospective orders, it's just taking us longer to convert those orders as customers are managing their CapEx budgets and keeping an eye on what's happening in the wider market.

[Mark Davies Jones, MD - Industrials at Stifel Financial]

Excellent, thank you very much.

[Operator]

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. There are no further questions at the moment. You may proceed.

[Andrew Heath, CEO & Executive Director at Spectris]

All right. I appreciate that

[Operator]

Sorry. Given the But

[Andrew Heath, CEO & Executive Director at Spectris]

Carry on.

[Operator]

We do have another question in queue. We have a question from the line of Bruno Gianni with UBS. You may proceed.

[Bruno Gjani, Analyst at UBS]

Thank you for taking my questions. The first one is just on the medium to long term outlook for the group. I appreciate there's uncertainty in the market today, but if we take a step back, how do you think about the three to five year outlook for Spectris? Have the drivers changed or that much compared to the CMP three years ago? Has something changed in terms of how you structurally view the market in light of recent policy uncertainty?

[Bruno Gjani, Analyst at UBS]

Or perhaps are you just as confident or perhaps even more confident given recent acquisitions in terms of the group's growth and margin potential in the medium term? Just some thoughts there would be interesting.

[Andrew Heath, CEO & Executive Director at Spectris]

Yeah, Bruno, to hear from you again and thanks for your question. Look, think you know, the strategy that we laid out in October '22, at our last Capital Market Day absolutely remains in place. I think if you, you know, sort of reflection since then, we've been through quite a almost unprecedented period of not just sort of prolonged weakness in end markets but also you know we really think you know we saw you know weakness really across nearly all our end markets at the same time which is very unusual for us. I would say that you know given what I said in the presentation earlier, and just looking at our sort of growth rates over the last twelve months, you can see that, you know, we've been in accelerating growth since the middle of last year, and then crossed into positive growth in Q4. And that's the same story, whether you look at it on a reported basis or on a like for like basis.

[Andrew Heath, CEO & Executive Director at Spectris]

The graphs look very similar. So I'm very confident in the strategy that we laid out that we are in attractive, long term sustainable growth markets. And, you know, I'm still very bullish about the future for the group, you know, based on the fact that we've been executing a consistent strategy, you know, we've been investing in very much sort of customer back innovation. We have elevated our R and D levels at a record year for product launches in 2024, continues to into 2025, our vitality index is improving. And innovation is really key for driving future demand for the group.

[Andrew Heath, CEO & Executive Director at Spectris]

I remain both confident in our end markets that they are got very good structural drivers. And given our strategy has been to very much target those structural drivers in our end markets where we have leading positions with our technology and where we're innovating to create leading positions, and we have a pretty strong moat around those, you know, the prospects for the group remain very positive.

[Bruno Gjani, Analyst at UBS]

That's very clear. I'm just interested in the Q2 book to bill. It appears that orders grew well year over year and quarter over quarter. However, to bill was modestly below one. I suspect that this was perhaps due to some customers pulling forward orders in light of tariff uncertainty, which explains the strong Q2 sales performance.

[Bruno Gjani, Analyst at UBS]

So I guess I'm just wondering if you did see any pull forward in Q2 from Q3 or later quarters? And could you perhaps just discuss customer behavior and attitude in recent months and how they're navigating tariffs?

[Andrew Heath, CEO & Executive Director at Spectris]

Yeah, so look, I think, on the tariff situation, we continue to broadly pass on, pass through the tariff related costs. I think customers are accepting of that. And our peers are doing things, know, acting in a very similar manner. It has clearly caused some sort of disruption to sort of, you know, recognize the revenue against some of those orders. We had some of that at the end of Q1, where customers were effectively waiting to see what was going to happen with the tariffs.

[Andrew Heath, CEO & Executive Director at Spectris]

And then over the last few months, as tariffs are swung in various jurisdictions or against various countries, we have had customers asking us to delay shipping product, which has sort of created some lumpiness, we're still seeing some of that. So and, certainly for some of the acquisitions like Meretix has had some of that in Q2, we were customers asked us not to ship orders because of the tariffs. That but those orders will get delivered in the second half now. You know, we're, know, it's being disruptive. But I think the world, certainly as we're seeing it, you know, is sort of, I wouldn't say taking it in its stride necessarily, but is accepting of it.

[Andrew Heath, CEO & Executive Director at Spectris]

And, you know, it's good to see that we are seeing the order momentum coming through in Q2. And as I said earlier, you know, the fact that we've been through this sort of quite unprecedented prolonged and broad weakness in end markets, we are seeing quite a lot of, I would say, pent up demand from our customer base, where they our sales or order pipeline look really, you know, very positive, we have lots of opportunities to go after. It's just the time it takes to convert those orders, you know, continues to take longer than it has, you know, if you look at it on a historic basis. So, you know, I think there's, you know, there's certainly reasons for optimism there.

[Bruno Gjani, Analyst at UBS]

Understood, that's very clear. Could we just touch on the underlying profitability of the group in the first half and particularly scientific? Because last year you had a comparative that included a nasty impact from ERP, so circa around £15,000,000 So if we adjust for that, there's an underlying deterioration of around, I guess, 200 basis points on the group level and around 300 basis points in Scientific despite some modest organic sales growth and a strong contribution from cost savings. Could you perhaps maybe just elaborate a little bit in terms of whether there was something unusual that might have impacted underlying margin in H1, If it's just seasonality around acquisitions or contributions from acquisitions that would be helpful.

[Angela Noon, CFO & Executive Director at Spectris]

Thanks for the question. There's nothing there's no unusual impacts in each one that have affected the margin quality at all, so probably just more of the volume that Andrew's just alluded to. We've had some delays in revenue as we exited Q2. I think looking forward, however, trying to get confidence around the profit margin in H2, there's a number of building blocks that I think we've touched on, which is, you know, don't forget, we've not just got the acquisitions themselves, we've also got sales synergies from the acquisitions that are on top within the scientific business, and those are progressing at pace. We've already got identified sales synergies of between 10 and 15,000,000.

[Angela Noon, CFO & Executive Director at Spectris]

So we're actually exceeding the business plan and most of them are actually second half weighted. We've touched on the profit improvement programme itself has always been second half weighted and that is a full impact on profit margins. So the margin quality lifts up substantially. And then I'd say lastly, we've just got the general trend of the business where it's historically also always been 65 to 70% in the second half. We did have softness in some of our acquisitions in each one and we expected revenue to be slightly higher.

[Angela Noon, CFO & Executive Director at Spectris]

As Andrew said, some of that is export control topics related to tariffs. Those orders are sitting in the backlog and we're expecting those to execute in the second half as well. So again, contributing to the volume and ultimately the drop through on our operational gearing. So, no, we're very confident in the path to the operating margin quality. Hope that answers the question.

[Bruno Gjani, Analyst at UBS]

A follow on, sorry, Angela, in terms of you mentioned in the presentation circa £20,000,000 of incremental profit from those acquisitions in the second half. I guess that might imply a margin north of 30%, but I'm not sure what we penciled in, in terms of incremental sales. So, you perhaps either speak to the margin on those on that incremental profit contribution or, I guess, the absolute contribution from acquired sales or the incremental contribution from acquired sales in the second half?

[Angela Noon, CFO & Executive Director at Spectris]

I mean, it's a bit of a mixed bag in all honesty. We've got a business like Syapse, who you know have got very, very high margins, there's a lot of software in the business, so they've got double digit margin drop through, but microburetics slightly less. So we haven't given color on the breakdown of those three acquisitions. We always talk about them as a group I'd prefer not to get into the detail of it today. And I think the only thing you should take away is that we are exceeding the business plan and the margins themselves are performing as we expect.

[Bruno Gjani, Analyst at UBS]

Understood. Well, thank you very much both. Greatly appreciate the insights as always. Thank you.

[Andrew Heath, CEO & Executive Director at Spectris]

Alright. Thank you, Bruno.

[Angela Noon, CFO & Executive Director at Spectris]

Thank you.

[Operator]

There are no additional questions waiting Would like to pass the conference over back to the management team.

[Andrew Heath, CEO & Executive Director at Spectris]

All right. Well, thank you, everyone, for joining. Appreciate, given our circumstance, relatively limited questions today. I understand that. But thank you for joining.

[Andrew Heath, CEO & Executive Director at Spectris]

Just by way of closing, I just want to sort of just emphasise some of the points I made earlier. I mean, really, since 2018, we've transformed the group into a portfolio of really high quality businesses with attractive growth and margin profiles that really positions the group for sustained success. Our expectations for this year are very much supported by our order momentum and an improving sales outlook along with the expected benefits from the recent acquisitions and efficiency programs that we've talked about. In the long term, our confidence in the Group's continued success stems from our strategic investments, but also the strong execution track record that the Group has demonstrated as underpinned by exceptional people and a really healthy high performance culture. Spectris is now extremely well placed to harness the power of precision measurement in solving its customers toughest challenges.

[Andrew Heath, CEO & Executive Director at Spectris]

Thank you very much for joining. I'm sure we'll speak soon.

[Angela Noon, CFO & Executive Director at Spectris]

Thank you.

Participants

Executives

• Andrew Heath, CEO & Executive Director
• Angela Noon, CFO & Executive Director

Analysts

• Mark Davies Jones, MD - Industrials at Stifel Financial
• Bruno Gjani, Analyst at UBS