Essentra H1 2026 Earnings Report

Essentra EPS Results

• Actual EPS: GBX 1.30
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Essentra Revenue Results

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

Essentra Announcement Details

• Quarter: H1 2026
• Date: 7/28/2026
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Tuesday, July 28, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 3:30AM ET

Essentra (LON:ESNT) is a leading global provider of essential components and solutions, focusing on the manufacture and distribution of plastic injection moulded, vinyl dip moulded and metal items. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, Essentra’s global network extends to 27 countries worldwide and includes c.3,000 employees, 14 manufacturing facilities, 25 distribution centres and 35 sales & service centres serving c.76,000 customers with a rapid supply of low cost but essential products for a variety of applications in industries such as equipment manufacturing, automotive, fabrication, electronics, medical and renewable energy. For further information, please visit www.essentraplc.com

Essentra H1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Strong first-half performance: Reported revenue increased 9% and like-for-like revenue rose 7.8%, while adjusted operating profit grew 9.7% to £18.1 million. Full-year 2026 revenue growth guidance was raised slightly to 6%–7%, with overall expectations unchanged.
• Positive Sentiment: Essentra’s targeted growth markets, which represent 47% of sales, grew 8.5%, led by digital infrastructure and other structurally expanding sectors, while legacy markets declined 1.1%. Management said this mix shift should reduce cyclicality and support more sustainable growth.
• Positive Sentiment: The new “Growth and Simplification” program is intended to improve pricing, reduce complexity and lower SG&A costs, including IT rationalization and finance shared services. Management expects these initiatives to provide 150 basis points of margin expansion, supporting a new 14% adjusted operating margin target by 2028 and £6 million–£8 million of annual cash-flow benefits.
• Neutral Sentiment: Adjusted operating cash conversion was 79%, below the 85% target, although management expects it to exceed 85% for the full year. Net debt increased to £70.7 million, or 1.6 times adjusted EBITDA, reflecting the Boteco acquisition, but leverage is expected to return toward 1.5 times by year-end.
• Negative Sentiment: Americas gross margin was temporarily pressured by the Costa Rica-to-Mexico manufacturing transfer and service costs, while ERP implementation expenses remain material at approximately £12 million in 2026. Management expects these pressures to ease, but full-year adjusted operating margins are expected to remain broadly flat because of variable compensation reinstatement and strategic investment.

Presentation

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

Okay, let's make a start. Thank you all for joining our Essentra 2026 half-year results. I'm Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive, and joined by Rowan Baker, our CFO, and we'll take you through the presentation today. I'll start with a quick summary. Rowan will lead us through the financial performance. I'll give a little bit of color to the three regions. We'll talk about strategic update, which we'll do together. We'll summarize with an outlook and move into Q&A. To get going, a strong start to the year. Very pleasing start to the year. Half on revenue in line with our expectations. Growth of 9% on a reported basis, 7.8% on a like-for-like basis as well, leading to adjusted operating profit growth of 9.7% to GBP 18.1 million. A good start to the year overall.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

Robust cash conversion 79%. Rowan will talk more about full-year cash expectations in her presentation as well. Good focus on our strategic priorities. Broad-based growth in all three regions, which is great. Volumes also recovering, which is good to see. As always, supported by disciplined pricing, which has been even more important than ever given some of the inflationary pressures that we've seen during the first half of the year due to the Middle East crisis. Delighted with another small acquisition completed in June, Boteco, a machine components manufacturing business very complementary to our existing manufacturing capabilities. I'll talk more later about some of the insourcing opportunities we have there. Great to see our target markets outperforming the average and actually significantly outperforming our legacy markets, if you like. Rowan will give some more color there. 8.5% growth in those target markets.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

We've launched a strategic execution program called Growth and Simplification, aiming to help us drive our sales and marketing resources into those areas that will generate greatest returns, simplify how we run the business and reduce the cost to serve as well to help us drive improved margin expansion. Rowan will give more details later. We are talking to a new 14% operating margin target for 2028. Still very much believe in that midterm target of 18%.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

Thought it was beneficial to bring something closer to home, closer to the current period. A 14% 2028 target has been announced. Again, we'll talk through that in terms of how we get there later in the presentation. Most importantly, expectations for this year remain unchanged, a good solid start to the year. Very much the business is on track. With that, let me hand you over to Rowan to take you through the financial highlights.

[Rowan Baker, CFO at Essentra]

Thanks very much, Scott. Good morning, everyone. I'm going to take you through our financial highlights. As Scott said, we've had a strong start to the year. Revenue grew by 9%, up to GBP 166 million. Our adjusted operating profit stood at GBP 18.1 million, a 9.7% increase there. We did see a small increase as well in our adjusted operating margin levels. That rose to 10.9%. We have a large increase, actually, to our adjusted earnings per share, which stood at GBP 0.043. That large increase mainly was created by a lower effective tax rate, which I'll talk about in a moment. Our net debt to adjusted EBITDA was 1.6x, which is exactly as guided, slightly above our 1.5x usual guidance. That was because of the acquisition that we made just before the half year.

[Rowan Baker, CFO at Essentra]

Our adjusted operating cash conversion was at 79%, slightly below our 85% guidance. We are confident that that will return to well above that 85% by the full year. Our dividend per share, just ticking up slightly to GBP 0.009. Let's take a look at the P&L. Our gross margin, importantly, has remained resilient. We saw growth in both the Europe and APAC regions in terms of their gross margins. That was more than offset by temporary dilution in the Americas, mainly due to the transfer of our Costa Rica operations to Mexico. We are expecting that to unwind in the second half. Our adjusted operating profit, as I've already mentioned, showed a strong increase of 9.7% to GBP 18.1 million. That was really supported by the volume growth, the pricing, and some strongly disciplined cost control.

[Rowan Baker, CFO at Essentra]

We had a lower effective tax rate at 12.9%. That was mainly due to an adjustment to our deferred tax. That went through the P&L there, increasing our adjusted basic EPS. Also wanted to draw your attention to the strong reported EPS growth, which does also reflect a GBP 1.7 million credit for discontinued operations, which relates to the legacy sale of the filters business. Essentially, that is actually a GBP 4 million inflow that is due to come into the business in the second half, offset by a tax adjustment. Moving on to revenue. We were at 9.8%, some strong growth in terms of volume and pricing. Pleasingly, that was made up of just about half and half between volume and pricing. Let me talk you through a few of the moving parts in terms of the regional performance.

[Rowan Baker, CFO at Essentra]

Europe was up 8.9%. That was made up of about half and half in terms of pricing and volume. Americas, 5.7%, that was about 1/3 of volume in the Americas. APAC, 8.2%. That was about 1/3 of that was volume. That 4.2% pricing growth year-on-year did also include a specific Middle East related surcharge. We dealt with our pricing response to the Middle East situation in different ways in different regions, actually. Some that we put through an overall pricing adjustment. Some we went with a surcharge approach. In Europe, we went specifically with a surcharge. That was 0.4%, a strong response to the Middle East situation there in terms of pricing. On that bridge, you can also see the 2% growth that came from our Device Technologies acquisition that we made just before year-end.

[Rowan Baker, CFO at Essentra]

Let me give you a little bit more color now in terms of what has been driving some of that growth. You'll have heard us talk at various presentations about targeting specific growth end markets. You can see in the chart on the right-hand side that we've made some really good progress there. We saw 8.5% growth in those target sectors. That does represent 47% of sales. You can see that there in contrast to the -1.1 from those traditional sectors like automotive. Some strong growth, particularly places like digital infrastructure, which is really pleasing to see and is part of the strategy paying off there. Over time, we do also expect this to improve the overall quality of growth, reduce the dependency on cyclical end markets, and lead to a more sustainable level of revenue growth with associated margin progression.

[Rowan Baker, CFO at Essentra]

Let's move to the operating profit bridge. I've already talked a little bit about the volume and revenue side. Important to note on this chart, how clearly we are offsetting the inflationary impact that we have seen with our pricing. That's a good position that we're in there. What becomes a little bit more challenging is to be able to maintain absolute margin when we see inflation at this level. We have been able to cover it with pricing. Indeed, some of the pricing actions are relatively recent, so they should see us through to more positives in the second half. We saw the benefit of our, what I guess I'd say is our usual manufacturing efficiencies that come through. We are always targeting efficiencies in our factories, automation, et cetera. We saw some benefit of those efficiencies coming through.

[Rowan Baker, CFO at Essentra]

That was somewhat offset by some of the service investment that was needed to be made in Mexico and will, as I say, unwind as those efficiencies improve. We also had planned reinvestment in strategic initiatives, part of this Growth and Simplification strategic program that Scott will talk more about in a moment. We also had, as has been well flagged actually, the bringing above the line of some of the D365 run costs. We've moved from implementation to BAU. In addition to that, we also have the contribution of the inorganic growth from Device Technologies, and all of that brings us to the GBP 18.1 million for the half year. Just a word on adjusting items. You can see here that we were at GBP 6.1 million for the first half in terms of adjusting items.

[Rowan Baker, CFO at Essentra]

Important to note that reduction that you can see in the breakdown of the numbers in terms of the Software as a Service number, which is mainly our D365 implementation, which has improved half year-on-half year by GBP 1.7 million. Just a reminder as well that this will be the last full year of those ERP implementation costs. They will continue into the first half of next year, and that will cause an associated reduction in the adjusting items for 2027. This year, we're maintaining guidance at the GBP 12 million for adjusting items for FY 2026. Moving on to cash. We have the net debt bridge here, which takes us from the GBP 60.7 million at the opening of the year to GBP 70.7 million and a net debt to EBITDA ratio of 1.6x.

[Rowan Baker, CFO at Essentra]

As I've already said, that 1.6x was a little higher than the 1.5x that we generally guide to, but that was because of the acquisition that we made, and you can see that in the chart. The main elements in the chart really, in terms of the cash outflows, have been the adjusting items. That represents an opportunity clearly for when those do come down once the implementation is complete. That cash position will improve. The M&A of GBP 5.7 million, that was the Boteco acquisition that took place just before the end of the half. We purchased that business for EUR 7.4 million at a 6.5x multiple of EBITDA. That's what's mainly driving the cash outflows. Our adjusted operating cash conversion stood at 79%.

[Rowan Baker, CFO at Essentra]

Some of that being slightly below the 85% is a matter of timing, we would expect that cash conversion to improve in the second half to be well above the 85%. We do really focus on this as a business. Both our cash conversion and our net working capital to sales ratio, which you can see there, stood at 24.5%. For the full year 2025, that was above 26%, you can see that we've made some good progress there to that 24.5%. Picking up the focus on these things, we are now guiding to a 21% target for that net working capital to sales ratio as a percentage of revenue, rather, and that is a target that is in place for 2028.

[Rowan Baker, CFO at Essentra]

Some of the spend that we've been incurring on our new systems in the business will help us there, we're able to see now, particularly through our connected planning software, what improvements we can make in terms of working capital, and there has also been a more recent challenge around working capital through the D365 implementation itself, where clearly in some areas where we're going live, we have held more stock to ensure that we are able to get over any initial go live challenges. Once that comes to an end, that will enable us to focus on getting that working capital to 21% and build on the progress that we're already making. Finally then for this section, our 2026 guidance. We're seeing total group revenue growth as 6%-7%. That is a small increase on our previous guidance there.

[Rowan Baker, CFO at Essentra]

You can see that evidenced through the strong growth that we've had through the first half of the year. That's total revenue growth. Our adjusted operating profit margin, now we have a number of activities that are driving margin accretion. Scott will pick some more of this up later on. We are being successful with those initiatives. We are seeing improvements. There is a deliberate build back here of some variable compensation, which I think has been well flagged in terms of the need to add that back in. As a result, we would expect the margins overall to remain broadly flat year-on-year. This will be our final year of ERP related adjusting items, we're expecting the GBP 12 million for 2026, reducing to around GBP 6 million in 2027.

[Rowan Baker, CFO at Essentra]

Our effective tax rate for the current year we expect to be around the 20% mark, that's really reverting in the second half to that usual level or more of the 26%-29%. Operating cash flow, we do expect that to be above 85% for the year, including our usual level of CapEx spend at around 4%. We expect to maintain a strong balance sheet and be in the region of our 1.5x net debt to adjusted EBITDA with an unchanged capital allocation policy. With that then, I'll hand back to Scott for the regional update.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

Thank you very much. To take a canter through the first of the three regions. Europe, a good strong first half, 8.9% like-for-like growth, as Rowan's talked about, very much split between volume and pricing. High single digit growth in the fast-growing markets, again, outperforming the base. Some modest recovery in Western Europe, that's been very pleasing to see. Turkey continues to perform strongly. That product range in Turkey very much linked to those fast-growing markets. Definitely a positive trend there. 49.2% gross margin, strong pricing and good efficiencies being delivered. Some of that being offset by regional mix with Turkey continuing to perform well, but good underlying pricing and efficiencies coming through the region. OTIF continues to improve as a result of us having that disruption last year with Nettetal.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

We've seen OTIF improvement, that's Nettetal being the German warehouse, sorry, through the end of last year and through the first half as well. A much more positive sense around customer service in Europe. Even though we've gone live with the U.K. manufacturing site at the start of the year, as I said at the full year results, little disruption from that go live. It's been, again, another good implementation. Dynamics, the platform itself, is enabling us to start delivering efficiencies, so the finance shared service center has been launched and will be fully up to speed in H2. Second half focused, continues to work on the growth markets, think about how we're executing into those growth markets. We've had a strong new product introduction this year, which will also be helpful.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

The acquisition of Boteco coming at the end of the half, obviously a big focus for the second half. As I said, there's a lot of excitement in the business about Boteco. Preparation for the final Dynamics go live. From a European point of view, that is the BMP, the Italian business in October, then a Q1 go live in Turkey. Continue to drive operational efficiencies, and items such as the shared service benefits as we trade through the rest of the year. Good, strong start to the year for the European region. America is, pleasing to look at positive revenue, 5.7%. A good combination of pricing and volume. Device Technologies are performing in line with expectations. At this point, it's really their core business performing well. Obviously, we've done all of the right things from an integration point of view.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

We actually launched the products into the rest of Essentra in H2, so that will have a further impact on their performance. Again, good progress in those fast-growing markets led by digital infrastructure. However, as Rowan's mentioned, we have had this temporary hit to gross margin as a result of the migration of manufacturing from Costa Rica to Mexico, which we did through the second half of last year. Again, we're expecting that to improve as we trade through the rest of the year. We also have a little bit of a pricing lag impact in the Americas with quite a lot of pricing actions happening during June. Again, they will certainly support margin improvement in the second half of the year as well. Some good self-help actions. We are implementing something called an 80/20 customer segmentation model.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

I'll talk more about this later to bring that a little bit to life. Again, that's giving us a renewed focus on some commercial effectiveness, and continued strong cost control is helping us to offset some of that gross margin dilution. We do expect those margins to come back in H2 as described. Focused very much on the settling in of Mexico and management of that cost base, driving commercial execution of the 80/20 initiatives, the Device Technologies synergies, which is the product launch in many ways into the rest of the business, and pricing. Actually, the pricing actions have already happened, so they will start to come through even more strongly in the second half of the year. Finally for Asia, again, a good strong start to the year in Asia.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

Over 8% growth from a good level of new business wins and pricing actions. Pricing's always been more challenging for us in Asia than the other two regions, but this has been our best half, I think, in memory for pricing. Again, great to see some progress there and well done to the teams for that. Continued momentum in those faster-growing markets, machine building and automation, digital infrastructure. You may recall two-thirds of our Asia region really is in China. China continues to have a buoyant export-orientated market, and we continue to see good volumes in that space as well. Gross margins improved, a mix of customer profitability, so that improving pricing and some ongoing cost control, driving a good level of margin expansion. The simplification of the Japan trading model.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

We talked at the end of last year, we've actually closed our direct operations in Japan, moved to a third-party model using a distributor. That actually weakens gross margin but improves operating margin for the region. Again, that's delivering us some benefits at the op margin level. Continued to investment in those growth initiatives and customer mix. Access Hardware in China continue to a big focus for us. The business we bought four or five years ago, really selling that into the export markets is going quite well. We are going live with the Dynamics ERP into Southeast Asia in the next few weeks.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

I think I said historically, the Asia business actually largely runs on the European legacy ERP infrastructure, we will be migrating that over the next two years, and we have an opportunity in the summer to effectively have a small go live. We have driven the Southeast Asia go live into the summer window. We continue to look at investment opportunities in India. I was actually there with Richard two weeks ago. Business is performing very well, winning good aspects of new business at good gross margin. Continue to add some commercial resources, engineering resources, and thinking about our operational footprint as we trade through the rest of the year. Clearly excited by the opportunities that we're starting to see in India as well. Moving on to strategic updates. Let's remind you of the foundations of the business.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

This is a manufacturing business. We make these small cost components that are used by other manufacturers when they're building a piece of equipment. Because our items are typically very low on a customer's bill of materials, our service proposition actually is the most important part of what we do. It enables us to price effectively, it enables us to retain and win more new business. We look to take that into our target growth markets. Rowan's talked about how they're performing, focusing our sales and marketing resources in those markets which have got structural growth opportunities.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

Winning customers initially by having strong product expertise, demonstrating that we're the right partner for their initial inquiry, and then growing them because we have this very broad product offer, broader than any of our competition from a manufacturing point of view, taking them through our cross-sell into different product categories, and very much keeping them through this hassle-free service. That enables us to drive high margins, combination of this high mix of transactions, large number of customers, large number of products, relatively low order value, driving high mix of transactions, and constant focus on how we manage the business, the costs in the business, the operational efficiency of the business to enable us to drive those high margins and strong cash generation, seeking to invest that cash into further growth opportunities, be those organic or inorganically to drive further shareholder value.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

A reminder of some of the items we talked about historically. Our five product areas, these are five areas where we have good levels of manufacturing expertise that we can bring to the market. Actually from a machine components, the acquisition of Boteco has substantially improved our depth of expertise from that product category point of view. Worth noting, we've been investing in product category now for the last 18 months or so. We had over 50 new product series go live in the first half in Europe and the U.S. The biggest launch of new products probably for the last five or six years. Really stepping up that product focus, relaying that expertise to our customers.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

We've talked about the growth sectors, structurally growing markets where we think we have the greatest opportunity, focusing much more of our sales and marketing efforts on these structured end markets to drive growth, reduce that impact of the cyclical markets. The work we've been doing the first half of the year has focused on what we talk to as the Growth and Simplification program of work. At the heart of this, there is this idea of having a dual proposition. Actually treating customers with high growth potential differently to how we treat customers with lower growth potential based upon the Pareto principle, effectively. How do we really focus our sales and marketing efforts onto those customers which offer the greatest returns?

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

How do we simplify how we manage and offer products to those customers who have lower potential, but actually are still profitable to us because of the relatively high level of gross margin that we have as a business? Bringing that to life a little bit, this is some work we've had some support on in the first half, looking at how we think about that customer and product mix. This is looking at revenue and taking the top 80% of revenue, and to get to 80% of revenue, we actually have 17,000 products that account for that top 80% of revenue. Conversely, we have 90,000 products almost that account for the long tail of revenue. From a customer angle, we have 6,000 customers who account for 80% of revenue.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

Again, this relatively long tail of 59,000 customers who account for the final 20% of revenue. Clearly where we have high-value customers buying high-value products, this is the heart of the business, if you like, 68% of our revenue there. That's relatively straightforward to manage as an element of business. There is some good complexity and bad complexity in this model. We have a long tail of products, some of which are purchased by our high-spending customers. Clearly, that's a necessity for us to run the business, for us to attract those customers, to keep those customers in the main. How we manage that is important. We also have a long tail of customers who are buying actually fast-selling products. That's good business if we can manage it effectively, if we can serve it effectively. That's very interesting business for us to manage.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

The biggest question mark for us clearly is when we have smaller customers buying the long tail of products, that probably is unnecessary complexity. Let's think about how we manage this area. Let's think about pricing in that space, minimum order values, product range rationalization, and the type of work that we're putting in place as a result of thinking through this segmentation model. Thinking very differently around pricing and service. For our smaller potential customers, looking at much more of a fixed price position, no discounting, no negotiation. Obviously, guided pricing, utilizing some of our new pricing tools to drive for larger customers. As with all organizations, because we manage all of this together today, we have got evidence of some small customers actually getting better pricing than large customers, which clearly doesn't make sense.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

A clear pricing opportunity by thinking about these two customer pools quite differently. Managing the cost to serve, rationalizing the product offer to those smaller customers, reducing the working capital, and the way we manage those products. Focusing our sales and marketing resources onto those growth potentials, particularly in those fast-growing markets, really helping us to drive volumes and leverage. A simple model on the face of it, but bringing a whole host of actions in terms of how we think we're going to manage the business into the future. Quickly touching on M&A and the inorganic story. A quick update on Wixroyd and BMP. Both continue to make progress. Actually, in both cases, synergies slightly outperforming the business case.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

We have had a more challenging external market than expected at the time, and therefore, we haven't achieved our 15% hurdle in year three in Wixroyd, and we're unlikely to achieve it in BMP. In both cases, we are getting above WACC with further opportunities as we continue to drive synergies coming through. As a result of that more complicated external environment, we've clearly had a little reset of our valuations. You can see the last two acquisitions have come through at a lower multiple compared to where we were two or three years ago. Again, greater certainty of achieving that 15% hurdle rate.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

We talked about a good start for DTI, and there is a huge level of interest and excitement around the business on the back of the Boteco acquisition, given it really does bring a whole range of new manufacturing capabilities into the organization that we haven't had, in particular in the European region. Remain very positive and excited about the last two acquisitions. Pipeline remains strong. A number of opportunities, as always, in discussion. Whether we close anything towards the end of this year, uncertain, but we're certainly working on options for the next six, nine months to continue to look for those right acquisition opportunities to take the business forward. As we come towards the end of what's felt like a very long technology investment period, I just wanted to talk to how this technology is now helping us deliver the strategy.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

We have new generation digital platforms being launched around the group at the moment, which we'll complete towards the end of this year, early into next year, really helping us to think about that dual proposition. How do we manage smaller customers with much more of a digital-led offer? How do we engage with larger customers with much more of a product expertise positioning? That will come to life through the new digital platforms. We talk a lot about the ERP, part of that Microsoft Dynamics investment has been in the CRM platform that is launched globally, being used globally, enabling us to hone our sales and marketing resources globally into those growth sectors, will enable us to hone those resources into those larger profit opportunity customers as well.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

The ability to have our global hands all over sales and marketing execution, really helpful, and the Microsoft CE platform is enabling us to do that. ERP, as we know, coming towards the end of the rollout with Turkey in Q1 being the last of the sites, but already we're seeing much better supply chain visibility, so the ability to direct goods around the European region is dramatically better, and it's enabling us to look at shared service opportunities on the back of common process. Behind both of these is also the ability to reduce IT costs, and we'll talk about the cost simplification opportunities, but there is an opportunity to reduce IT costs by removing a number of legacy platforms now we have the new technology in place. Then finally, connected planning.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

Rowan's talked to this, but looking at our global inventory, managing global inventory, enabling us to select the right SKUs for that small customer cohort, and effectively rationalize the stocked offer is all being enabled by this connected planning tool, which has been in place for a year or so. So again, coming towards the end of what's been a significant technology investment, but now both starting to deliver benefits and also enabling us to deliver the Growth and Simplification strategy. Final slide from me, thinking about the footprint. We've talked a lot about the footprint through the course of the last few years with all of the supply chain disruptions we've seen. We're predominantly a local for local manufacturing and distribution footprint, so able to respond to supply chain shocks, able to respond to global trade uncertainties.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

We continue to look at this footprint and think about how we simplify and how we manage cost to serve. We have closed or consolidated five sites over the last three years. Continue to look at that as we buy new businesses. How do they fit into the overall manufacturing footprint as well? Then when we look at the 80/20 methodologies, again, there are options for us to reduce the cost to serve in terms of both larger customers and smaller customers by thinking about those things differently. A more efficient flow of goods through our supply chain will lead to further cost efficiencies over the next 12 months or so. That is it for me. I'll hand you back to Rowan just to conclude what all that means in numbers.

[Rowan Baker, CFO at Essentra]

Thank you, Scott. Just to bring some of this together in terms of what it means for financial targets for the business and what it really delivers tangibly. The whole Growth and Simplification program enables us to align our resources, our service levels, and our inventory investment to that generation of customer value. And importantly, these activities are principally self-help initiatives that help us with the delivery of our targets. They include sharper commercial execution, the pricing discipline that Scott has already talked about, particularly when you look at that 80/20 layout. Actually, we can think really hard and really carefully about how we price those different quadrants, and indeed, couple with our procurement savings as well, and we are able to deliver some margin accretion.

[Rowan Baker, CFO at Essentra]

The simplification of our operating model allows us to focus on reducing our cost base, particularly looking at that lower cost to serve with that long tail of customers. We are looking to initially focus on our IT cost rationalization and the finance shared service center, which the investment in D365 has enabled us to launch, which is now up and running in Poland. That's the detail of the benefits. In terms of what that actually helps us to deliver, it's really the substance behind us being able to have confidence in a 14% adjusted operating margin target for full year 2028. Those cost savings that I've talked about unlock 150 basis points of margin expansion, which will initially come through the IT rationalization. That in turn unlocks for us a GBP 6 million-GBP 8 million cash flow benefit.

[Rowan Baker, CFO at Essentra]

That cash flow benefit is a little bit more than the 150 basis points because some of that has been going below the line today, also gives us confidence in the 21% average net working capital to sales target, which will unlock a further GBP 10 million of cash. That net working capital, as Scott has mentioned, relates to the connected planning software, but then also the 80/20 methodology that enables us to focus on where and how we are building the inventory to support which products for which customers. Pulling that together into a reshaped 18% margin bridge. Our 18% margin bridge, we have definitely used in the past. A lot of you will know it. What we've done here is we've separated it out to show the staging point at 14%.

[Rowan Baker, CFO at Essentra]

Also what we've done is we've put in some significant effort to reduce the dependency on market growth in this chart. Let me just illustrate that by walking you through the first section of the chart. The first bar is the standard efficiencies bar that we've always had in the chart. That is our operational efficiencies through automation, and procurement savings that we tend to deliver as a matter of course in our factories. The second bar is the new one. This is our 150 basis points of cost savings that are going to help us to drive towards the 14% target.

[Rowan Baker, CFO at Essentra]

We have a reinvestment bar, that is both our D365 run and technology run costs that are in business as usual now, but it is also an element of investment in the strategic work that Scott has been talking about, the Growth and Simplification program. We have our price delivery above inflation, this is the net benefit of pricing, which has also been de-risked slightly in this chart as a result of the 150 basis points. The next green bar is our market share bar, that is driven by a lot of the principles that we've already talked about in terms of focusing our product and our marketing effort and our commercial effort on growth sectors and those top customers in the first quadrant.

[Rowan Baker, CFO at Essentra]

That is then deliberately, as we've already discussed, offset by a reintroduction of variable compensation, which we're intending to get most of the way there with during 2026, but there is still a bit more to go in 2027. That is where you can see a significantly smaller market growth bar. There is still some market growth there in terms of what we're expecting in that chart. It's around the sort of 70 basis points of market growth. You can also then see in the 14% bar, the hashing, the shading at the top of that bar, which essentially means that actually with M&A, we could de-risk that market growth bar entirely. That is our journey to 14%, the target is for full year 2028. The rest of the chart remains pretty much as was, I won't take you through that.

[Rowan Baker, CFO at Essentra]

It essentially takes those principles on further, and enables the journey to 18%, and again, provides that potential for de-risking market growth through M&A activity. That's the picture as it stands, and that's our journey to 14%. I will hand back to Scott to finish with outlook. Thank you.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

Just to summarize then, trading in line with expectations to date, sequential improvement in all regions from a revenue growth point of view, new business wins, and particularly in those faster-growing end markets, focusing on those highest potential customers. Also, underlying volume trends do remain correlated to PMI. PMIs have been positive for the last few months, which has been helpful. Finally, M&A expanding our product offering, enabling us to target new products and the pipeline remains active. Expectations for this year remain unchanged. Obviously, we remain mindful of the wider geopolitical environment, but as you can see from the pricing, we've offset any direct impact of that and continue to remain positive of doing that through the rest of the year.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

Strong order intake and revenue momentum give us confidence in the full year, supported by the work we're doing on self-help margin improvement plans, efficiencies, cost reduction activities, simplification activities. We're confident that this is going to give us underlying margin improvement, enabling us to reinvest in Growth and Simplification program and reinvest in that variable compensation. All in support of us achieving the 14% adjusted margin target for 2028. With that, I will hand over to Q&A and invite Rowan to come and take all the difficult questions as always.

[James Beard, Analyst at Deutsche Numis]

Thanks. Morning. James Beard at Deutsche Numis. I have one question. On the 150 basis points of margin benefit that you are talking to from IT costs coming out, that equates to about GBP 5 million from what I can see. Can you just give us a reminder of how much the group spends on IT and technology today, and where these savings will come from?

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

The total spend is a mixture of above the line and below the line because we have the Dynamics spend, which is a program spend, and as we've said, is coming to an end. About GBP 3 million of those savings are simply that program, GBP 3 million-GBP 4 million of that savings, of that program coming to an end. We have another GBP 2 million-GBP 3 million of savings that we're aiming at, which actually is the element which flows into the operating margin because the previous element is only cash. The GBP 3 million-GBP 4 million that's flowing through the operating margins coming through this simplification of the IT infrastructure, the turning off of legacy applications. We're also looking at how we manage IT support in the organization.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

We have had, unfortunately, a number of redundancies recently as we've moved away from direct support on larger sites to more of a third-party supported model. It's us just challenging that level of investment, and making sure it's right-sized for the organization that we are. We talked about a 30% total reduction, which that GBP 6 million-GBP 8 million represents the 30%, effectively so.

[Rowan Baker, CFO at Essentra]

It also is slightly broader than that in terms of the broader SG&A because we mentioned finance shared services. It's a full SG&A number rather than solely IT, that number.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

IT is the first element

[Rowan Baker, CFO at Essentra]

Of the savings. IT is the first element of it, yeah

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

that we've started to deliver along with the finance shared services.

[Rowan Baker, CFO at Essentra]

Yeah.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

We're confident of taking that 150 basis points of SG&A out of the organization by 2028.

[Andrew Nussey, Analyst at Peel Hunt]

Good morning, Andrew Nussey from Peel Hunt. Couple of questions from me. First of all, with the acquisitions of Device Technologies and Boteco, to what extent are those scalable? Are you able to take that manufacturing capability into new markets to help drive additional revenue synergies? The second question, slide 21, with the sort of the 80/20 split. I noticed that was 2024 data. Has the business been shifting in a particular direction anyway, which will make that understanding and that change easier to achieve? Thirdly, just a modeling question on the tax rate for 2027 and 2028. Would you expect that to normalize back to the 25%-26% level?

[Rowan Baker, CFO at Essentra]

I will do that one quickly. Yes.

[Andrew Nussey, Analyst at Peel Hunt]

Thanks.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

Coming back to Device Tech and Boteco, two slightly different product opportunities. The Device Tech product is very niche-y. It's sort of a Rolls-Royce cable management product suitable for high-end applications. We definitely see good growth opportunity there. They're growing well today because they have exposure to energy transition and aerospace markets. We are launching that product range into Europe and the core Americas business second half of this year. I think there's a very healthy growth trajectory there. But it's not a product range that's going to be worth tens of millions of pounds. It may double over years, but it's not going to magnify by 10. Boteco is the other end of the experience.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

They've got a broad range of standard products, many of which we're sourcing today, many of which we haven't driven heavy sales and marketing into because we haven't had all the manufacturing capabilities. Those are really good opportunity to insource and focus growth coming out of that Boteco product range. I can see that business scaling at a faster rate than Device Tech. Device Tech's great. It's niche-y, it's high margin. It's a really nice product. Boteco is broader and has a sort of longer growth trajectory associated with it. There's probably, not overstating, but I don't think I've seen the organization so pleased with an acquisition since we bought Mesan 10 years ago. There's a real sense of this is a great business, great product offer, things that we really want to get our hands on and drive harder.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

Yeah, I think Boteco probably has a longer runway of growth opportunity for us. Then 80/20 is 2024 data because we actually first used this last year in our strategy work. We have done some work already on things like minimum order values and pack sizes, so we're already squeezing that quad 4 space, if you like. The U.S. have been the guys piloting this in the first half of the year, so they've also done some pricing work on quad 4. They're deploying more sales resources into the quad 1, the large customer, large product category space. We're starting to see the business shift a little bit. As we come through the rest of this year, we're thinking about how we use methodology in the European business. Had a great session a couple of weeks ago with the European leadership team.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

Again, just thinking about the setting of fixed pricing in that quad 3 space, so the fast-selling products to smaller customers, how do we do that? We effectively plan to launch that by year-end. We'll do some more work on that opportunistic pricing in the long tail in particular, and then generally how do we deploy sales and marketing resources in high spend, high growth customers is underway but will continue to be refined as we come through the year.

[Andrew Nussey, Analyst at Peel Hunt]

Okay, great. Thank you.

[Henry Carver, Analyst at Singer]

Thanks. Morning. It's Henry Carver from Singer. Just following from Andrew's on that, on the thought and the sort of, well, both moving towards these target higher growth segments and customers, and that 68% that is the thought now, and I know that appreciate that's 2024 data, but is there a number that you're trying to get that to? Because it seems to me a fairly reasonable kind of spread at the moment.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

Yeah, part of our challenge is with high gross margins, we don't actually lose money anyway, there's not an obvious cut. I think there's an opportunity to improve margins in each of the quadrants by treating them differently, effectively. I don't think we seek to get that 68%-75%. I mean, mathematically, 64% is where it sits, we're quite slightly heavier weighted than the Pareto Principle today. I think leaving it there, enabling it to grow, probably reducing the quad four is important and moving that into the other three, because that quad four is a real question mark. That is complexity that we should be thinking differently about how we manage.

[Henry Carver, Analyst at Singer]

Can you actively exit those customers easily, or is that what you're doing, or is it more a case of just shifting everything, all the focus towards the high growth?

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

Yeah, I think when we increase order values and reduce the product offer to smaller customers, that Fourth quadrant of long-tail customers, long-tail products will just start to shrink. We'll have more barriers in terms of protecting the business. Now, it is still profitable, so it's not as if we can just turn it off, but making it more profitable or moving it back towards the core will be important for us.

[Henry Carver, Analyst at Singer]

That just for, I guess, in the target markets, a similar kind of question. Something like auto, for example, currently very weak. At some point that could return to being a pretty useful sector. Do you just sort of leave it as is and let it rumble along and then refocus when the outlook looks better?

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

I don't think I'd ever refocus because auto will remain highly cyclical, and that's never the easiest thing to manage. I think we'll continue to focus in those structural growth markets. We describe that business as maintain. Let's maintain it. We're not running away from it. We have good levels of profitable business in there. In terms of growing the business, let's look to grow in those structurally growing markets that we think will serve us better over time. Auto will always be a part of this business. It's what, 8% today. It should go from eight to seven and a half to seven over time. It's not going to go from eight from nothing because we're still making good money there. In terms of growth and deploying focus and efforts, put those into the structural markets, particularly those that have got growth potential.

[Henry Carver, Analyst at Singer]

Very clear. Thanks.

[Rich Hill, Analyst at Jefferies]

Thanks. Good morning. Rich Hill from Jefferies. It's positive to kind of see volume growth broad-based across the regions. If I could just ask question regarding APAC and in particularly China. From the first quarter, it was broadly flat to now plus eight, and then double digits in the Machine Building components. Could you just outline with a little more detail how you're going after that kind of sector and growth in particular, and whether that kind of increase in demand will allow you to push a little more pricing in the area?

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

A few things to comment there. Quarter one was, I guess, as we expected, but working off some very difficult comps from the previous year. We actually had some relatively low margin, high volume business in Q1 last year that didn't repeat. It had an impact negatively on volumes, but a positive impact on margin. What you have seen is the sort of trend of revenue continue to make some progress, but actually the comps are much easier in quarter two. I guess it's all known and planned for, but that one non-repeating large low volume customer is part of that drive. I have to say, when you're thinking about driving after growth markets, there are a few countries around the Essentra group that I always think do this very well, and we're trying to share those experiences. China would be one of those markets.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

They have a very good general manager leading them, a good sales leader, and they're very much focused about taking their resources into those growth opportunities. Obviously, there's a lot of growth opportunities in China, particularly in those export-orientated markets. We see good growth in solar manufacturing. We won some good business in digital infrastructure. Battery storage has been a big driver of growth for us as well. We've got a good commercial engine in China, particularly in our legacy business. We've been using those legacy sales resources to drive product sales of the Access Hardware business the last 18 months or so, which is really starting to bear fruit.

[Rich Hill, Analyst at Jefferies]

Thanks. If I could just ask one more. Looking at Japan and moving to that distribution model, have you also kind of seen a bit of volume growth there as well, noting that kind of machine building segment being.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

We haven't. We planned for a slight revenue decline, we've seen a slightly less revenue decline than we expected. It, again, executed slightly better than we thought it would. We've given some pricing to the distributor, but taken all of our SG&A cost out to make it overall more effective. We're not seeing growth, but well, maybe we are, because we're seeing less decline than we'd planned for as a result of stepping away from the market.

[Rich Hill, Analyst at Jefferies]

Thank you.

[Toby Thorrington, Analyst at Equity Development]

Thank you. Morning, Toby Thorrington from Equity Development. I've got two, please. One on turnover split and one on margin progression. For the five identified growth segments, can you give us a sort of rough indication on annualized revenues within them currently, do you think, please?

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

Total revenue is just less than half of the overall group. 47%. GBP 150 million-GBP 160 million total revenue in those five categories for the full year.

[Toby Thorrington, Analyst at Equity Development]

Which of those would be indexing above 10% and which ones would be indexing below?

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

The digital infrastructure is definitely the one which is the most positive right now. Actually, defense and aerospace has the lowest level of growth, but it's also the smallest market for us. I think machine build has been a little bit mixed, some strong markets, some less strong. Energy, generally pretty good. Although that large low margin, high volume China order was in energy, that will have had a negative on that overall mix impact.

[Toby Thorrington, Analyst at Equity Development]

Right. Okay. Just on margin progression, newly identified target to 14% by 2028. Should we be assuming that the majority of that comes through the unallocated cost line rather than through the regions?

[Rowan Baker, CFO at Essentra]

The majority of it will come through the unallocated cost line. Yeah. We have unallocated and central costs. Yes. Clearly, as I said to the earlier question, we're looking at SG&A as a whole as well. Yes, the majority of it, you're right. Yeah.

[Toby Thorrington, Analyst at Equity Development]

The 14%-18%+ target will be more regionally based subsequently. Is that the idea?

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

Look at the now to the 14%, the efficiencies bar is mostly gross margin, because that's automation in factories, procurement savings, the new SG&A savings, more central costs, marketing, IT, overhead. Pricing actually is gross margin. Volumes will do a little bit of everything, but the absorptions.

[Rowan Baker, CFO at Essentra]

Yeah. The 14%-18% is much more in-

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

The 14%-18% will be, yeah

[Rowan Baker, CFO at Essentra]

gross margin

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

at this point, more gross margin absorption benefits that we're starting to see as volumes are recovering in the business.

[Toby Thorrington, Analyst at Equity Development]

Got it. Thank you.

[Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive at Essentra]

Okay. I think we're done. Thank you all very much for your time, and we'll be around if there's anybody else has any further questions. Thanks all. Bye-bye.

Participants

Executives

• Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive
• Rowan Baker, CFO

Analysts

• James Beard, Analyst at Deutsche Numis
• Andrew Nussey, Analyst at Peel Hunt
• Henry Carver, Analyst at Singer
• Rich Hill, Analyst at Jefferies
• Toby Thorrington, Analyst at Equity Development