Good morning. Thank you to everyone joining us here in person and to those of you connecting in on the live audio webcast. Welcome to G&H's interim results presentation for the half year ended the March 31st, 2024. Chris and I will be following the agenda on the screen. Firstly, we will cover the group's first half results, including a segmental and ESG review, and then I will provide a progress review on our strategy launched 12 months ago, and an update on outlook. We will open the floor to any Q&A at the end. Now, turning to slide three. During the first half, we've made further positive progress with establishing strong foundations to deliver our strategic priorities. I would like to take this opportunity, firstly, to thank our customers for their continued and growing confidence in G&H.
Secondly, to extend my thanks to all our employees for their hard work and highlight the positive way the whole organization are embracing the changes underway across the company. As reported in our AGM trading update in February, we experienced reduced demand in our industrial and medical laser markets that persisted longer than expected, resulting in a material impact to the trading in the period. However, we are well positioned to benefit from recovering demand in these markets now expected to be early next year. Revenues for the first half of the year from continuing operations declined by 1.4% to GBP 63.6 million, compared to GBP 64.5 million in the prior year. Chris will take you through the performance by market sector in more detail later in the presentation.
It was pleasing to see the continued reduction in factory past due backlog, down by 50% in the period to GBP 3 million. We continue to see positive progress with improved delivery and lead time performance across the group. Following the review of the group's portfolio, particularly focused on our A&D business unit, we completed the divestment of the EM4 business in Boston in March. Aligned to our strategy, we retained the fused fiber coupler product line that has been successfully transferred and re-qualified at our Torquay site. Adjusted operating profit for the period decreased by 29% to GBP 3.8 million, compared to GBP 5.4 million in the first half of the prior year. Reflecting the market declines I referred to earlier, and also due to owning EM4 longer than we had expected.
I'm pleased to report that following the acquisitions of GS Optics in Rochester, New York and Artemis in Plymouth last summer, the integration of both businesses is proceeding to plan with commercial synergies being realized. I will provide more. GBP 3 million at year-end, and it has risen post period-end. We saw a positive book-to-bill ratio in the first half of the year, which has continued into H2. The group's net debt was down slightly to GBP 30.4 million, compared to GBP 31.7 million at year-end, with a leverage ratio of 1.3x . The board are proposing an interim dividend of GBP 0.049, continuing to support the group's progressive dividend policy and reflecting our confidence in the positive medium-term outlook for the business. Our expectations for the full-year performance of the group remain unchanged.
The execution risk of delivering a large second half remains, but has been reduced. G&H's technologies and capabilities have tailwinds in all target end markets, supported by the progress we are making to accelerate the delivery of our strategy. I will now pass over to Chris to take you through the financial results for the first half of 2024 in more detail and provide an update on progress with our ESG activities across the company.
Thanks, Charlie, and good morning, everyone. Turning then to slide four. As you've heard from Charlie, group revenues declined compared to the first half of the prior year, driven by the previously reported falling demand from our industrial and medical laser customers. On an organic constant currency basis, revenues were 5.3% lower. As you know, the group sold its EM4 business in March, and as a result, the financials presented here are those of our continuing operations, excluding the results of the divested business. Comparative numbers have also been represented. Further details of EM4's trading in the period is shown in the appendices to this slide pack.
Input cost inflation in the period was successfully covered by our pricing actions, and attractive margins on some new programs have started to contribute to revenue in the period, helped to lift the group's gross margins to 29.1% from 28.5% in the comparative period, despite the lower volumes. Our spend on R&D was maintained at similar absolute levels to the first half of FY 2023. Group overheads were up as a result of the inclusion of GS Optics and Artemis, which were acquired in the second half of last financial year. If you exclude the effect of those two businesses, overheads grew around 5%, reflecting our wage inflation and the addition of some new roles to support the delivery of our strategic objectives.
Following the sale of EM4 in March, we have made some reductions to our group functions to right-size them for our continuing operations. The reduced volume drove operating profit lower to GBP 3.8 million from GBP 5.4 million in the first half of last year. The adjusted effective tax rate was 19.3%, which is similar to last year's rate. Adjusted profit before tax was GBP 2.6 million, and the adjusted basic earnings per share, GBP 0.083 . Non-underlying charges excluded from our adjusted profit totaled GBP 2.3 million, with a cash cost of GBP 1.4 million arising from restructuring and site closure costs. The loss from discontinued operations was GBP 9.3 million.
This comprised a loss on disposal of the EM4 business of GBP 8.9 million, a trading loss for that business in the period of GBP 600,000, and a tax credit of GBP 200,000. Turning to slide five, cash flow. Net cash flow from operating activities totaled GBP 2.5 million. Working capital levels increased by GBP 4.4 million from the end of FY 2023. This was driven by outflows from the payables held on the group balance sheet at the end of the previous financial year. No further amounts were invested in inventory in the period, despite the planned ramp-up in output in the second half of this financial year, and the underlying trend on our inventory holdings is now downwards. Capital expenditure on tangible and intangible assets was GBP 3 million.
Investments were a little lower than in the first half of the last year, given the significant investments that have been made in prior periods, especially in our precision optics facilities. The principal area of investment in this six-month period was in our fiber optics facility in Torquay. We're investing in our production facilities there to prepare them for new fiber optic module assembly work that has been secured, as well as adding further high-reliability coupler capacity at our contract manufacturing partner's facility in Thailand to allow them to further increase their output. The net cash inflow from the sale of our EM4 business totaled GBP 2.4 million. This comprised consideration received of GBP 4.2 million, less transaction fees and other costs of GBP 1.4 million, and there was cash included in the business at sale of GBP 400,000.
Working capital net debt adjustments concluded early in the second half of this financial year resulted in a repayment of GBP 700,000 to the purchaser. The net proceeds from the sale have been used to reduce the group's borrowings. Net debt excluding lease liabilities at the end of March was GBP 22.2 million, rising to GBP 30.4 million when lease liabilities were added. Our leverage ratio, as measured for our banking covenant, was 1.3x compared to the facility cap of 2.5x . The group has access to circa $36 million of undrawn funding from its committed and uncommitted debt facilities, which extend through to 2027. Turning now to slide six. Sa les into our industrial markets declined by 13.4% on an organic constant currency basis.
As we previously reported, destocking by our customers impacted the group's revenues into many of its industrial sub-markets, with our industrial laser market most impacted. Within the semiconductor market, our deliveries to the latest deep and extreme ultraviolet photolithography markets grew, but this was more than offset by reductions in deliveries to the more mature elements of this sub-market. We did see growth in our shipments into the subsea data cable market, and we expect a further step-up in revenues from this sub-market in the second half of this year as demand continues to grow and we make first sales to an important new subsea data cable customer for a very complex fiber optic module assembly. Part of our revenues for our high-reliability couplers supplied to the subsea data market are now being sourced from our contract manufacturing partner in Thailand.
In the first half of this financial year, we put additional production rigs into their facility to enable them to further ramp their output, allowing our Torquay facility to switch its focus to more complex fiber optic module assemblies. The reduced volume in this segment drove adjusted operating profit down to GBP 3.5 million. We expect volumes for our industrial segment to recover in the early part of financial year 2025. Moving on to our R&D segment. Revenues grew strongly by 19.6% on an organic constant currency basis compared with the first half of 2023.
This growth was principally driven by deliveries of our superpolished optical components, which are used in ring laser gyros. Our largest end customer there is indicating demand for these components will continue to grow, fueled by strong demand from military applications and underpinned by a solid commercial aerospace market. Within this segment, we completed the divestment of our EM4 business. That business had struggled to demonstrate that it could offer a differentiated product offering compared with its competitors, and we have therefore concluded that it would not be able to contribute to the profitable growth of its business of the group. Its sale is an important step on the group's journey to deliver sustainable margin growth and to consolidate our R&D activities into those areas where we can offer a differentiated products to our customers.
Additional volumes in this segment help to improve margins, but we recognize we still have much to do to improve production yields and generate acceptable returns for the group. However, we are confident in our continuous improvement programs, the better use of our supply chain, and the addition of more G&H content into subsystems and systems offerings can lift returns from our R&D segment to target levels. The trend in funding priorities in both the U.S. and Europe continues to favor G&H products and capabilities. The conflict in Ukraine is generating high-level inquiries for the group's precision optics, including for our advanced thin film coating capabilities, which can protect optics against lasers used in an offensive manner on the battlefield. The recently acquired Artemis Optical business, which primarily supplies the R&D market, is performing very well under G&H ownership.
We have added further coating capabilities at its site to allow it to serve the growing interest from our customers. The commercial synergy between this business and our other precision optics businesses is strong and is being exploited through a number of material proposals currently being submitted to customers for optical sighting systems for military vehicles. Moving on to slide eight. Our life science revenues declined by 5.9% on an organic constant currency basis. Revenues from the medical laser market were impacted by our end customers correcting their inventory holdings. This was partially offset by good revenue growth into our medical diagnostic customers. Here, two important customer programs completed their regulatory approval stage and transitioned into volume production. Despite the decline in revenues from this segment, profit margins improved to 14.7% thanks to favorable pricing on some of our newly introduced products.
We substantially completed the build-out of our new life sciences design and production center in our Rochester, New York facility with ISO 13485 medical device manufacturer accreditation. Our first R&D contract for that facility has already been secured, and we expect our first production program to be received in the second half of this financial year. The integration of our newly acquired GS Optics business, which secures an important part of its revenues from the life sciences market, is proceeding to plan. With our additional business development and engineering support from the rest of the G&H group, we are implementing targeted campaigns to offer GS Optics polymer products into the group's existing life sciences customers to address their needs for disposable optics and other components. Moving on to slide nine, which gives an update on our ESG activities.
We're continuing the migration of our U.S. sites to sourcing their purchased electricity from renewable sources, following the lead of our U.K. sites, which are now fully migrated. This helped the group achieve a like-for-like reduction of 15% in its greenhouse gas emissions compared with the first half of 2023. We're delighted to have secured ISO 14001 environmental management accreditation for our Ashford and Keene, New Hampshire sites. That's in addition to our Ilminster and Torquay facilities, which have achieved that accreditation last year. We have a plan in place to have all of our facilities accredited by the end of 2027.
During the year, we started working with third-party assurance agencies to help us gather data on our suppliers' performance on sustainability matters, and we will use this as one of the factors in our selection of suppliers for new work in the future. Thank you. I'll now hand you back to Charlie.
Thank you, Chris. Last summer, we launched our new strategy focused on delivering sustainable margin growth, and I communicated how this would be focused on transforming G&H to become an innovative, customer-focused technology company, delivered responsibly by making a better world with photonics and ensuring that we become and remain the first choice for all our stakeholders, whether that's our employees, our customers, our shareholders, our ecosystem partners, or the communities where we operate. I explained while maintaining our guiding values of customer focus, integrity, action, unity, and precision, we would refocus the whole company on achieving this through four key strategic priorities. Firstly, through better harnessing the talent of all our people across the company, establishing dynamic high-performance teams, a purpose-led culture, and ensuring G&H is a safe, engaging, diverse, and inclusive place to work and thrive.
Secondly, through self-help, focused on delivering exceptional customer experience and making it easier to do business with G&H. Ensuring long-term customer partnerships and profitable growth through a more disciplined focus on operational, supply chain, and customer service execution. Thirdly, by delivering a better return from our differentiated technology, and G&H's advanced technical expertise focused on a vital few, lucky seven. Fourthly, through allocating resources and investment with greater rigor, focusing in on addressing non-performance and accelerating accretive growth, both organically and inorganically. On slide nine, I would like to provide a progress update on the deployment of these key strategic priorities that will deliver mid-teen returns on sales over the medium term. This 700-800 basis point accretion of earnings is captured under the five areas outlined in the boxes along the bottom of the slide. Better utilization of our well-invested factories from increased volumes.
Productivity gains through waste elimination. Proactive expansion of outsourcing at an earlier stage in the product life cycle. Higher margin new products and the increased mix of subsystem solutions with greater G&H technology content. Finally, the enhancement of G&H's portfolio through non-core product rationalization and bolt-on accretive M&A. I'm pleased to report that we are already making positive progress across all our strategic priorities. I've sought to summarize this on the slide with a color-coding of the numerous key work streams that are underway. Under people, firstly, as Chris covered earlier, we have successfully aligned efforts company-wide around the sustainability agenda. We've also made significant progress to close the recruitment and training gap that hurt the business so badly in the recent past, and we are now fully staffed across all our sites with a refreshed focus on skills and development training.
We're seeing success in talent acquisition and retention with positive results in the first half in both these areas. We made a number of important new appointments in sales, business development, finance, engineering, and site leadership, as well as appointing a new chief people officer and an experienced executive vice president for our life sciences business unit, supporting better organizational alignment across the group. On self-help, we continue to see our operational performance metrics turning in the right direction for output, on time delivery, and past due backlog reduction. Plans have now been deployed around productivity to deliver the much-needed benefits from cost of poor quality reduction and other efficiency improvements through lean activities. We've already made notable progress with our outsourcing strategy, which I will cover in more detail later in the presentation.
In the first half of the year, we opened our new North American medical diagnostics facility in Rochester, New York, significantly enhancing our medical device offering into the large U.S. life sciences market. Around the key priority of technology, our R&D teams are prioritized on delivering the group's refreshed technology roadmaps focused on the vital few programs that will deliver value creation for the group. We've identified more than GBP 50 million worth of margin -accretive business from new products over the medium term. For investment in portfolio, having completed two strategic acquisitions and streamlined our operating footprint with the closure of satellite facilities in Shanghai and Richmond, Virginia during the second half of FY 2023, in the first half of this year, we focused on the successful integration of Artemis and GS Optics into the group. This is proceeding positively in line with the plan.
Also, as part of the ongoing product portfolio review to address underperformance and rationalize non-core product lines that aren't sufficiently differentiated to secure acceptable returns, we divested the A&D-focused EM4 optoelectronics and laser business in Boston. This business also manufactured and supplied the strategically important fused fiber coupler product line, which was excluded from the sale and we have successfully transferred it to our Torquay Fiber Optic Center of Excellence in the U.K. Now, let me provide some further H1 2024 highlights around these key activities. On slide 12, outsourcing. We are proactively implementing our plan to use low-cost region manufacturing partners for certain stable product lines at an earlier stage in their product life cycle, where technological sovereignty is not a differentiator.
Over the cycle of the new plan, we expect the proportion of the group's revenues built by contract manufacturing partners to increase from less than 10% in 2023 up to circa 25%. During H1 of 2024, we've established dedicated leadership and upgraded the supply chain and materials management function across the business. We've expanded the outsourcing of additional acousto-optic products to include our 80 MHz product line. We started full mass production of high-reliability couplers with our partner in Thailand, and this is expected to continue to ramp up through the second half of the year and into 2025. Qualification of additional product lines is underway for more transfers next year and into 2026. As I shared earlier, we've updated our technology roadmaps to deploy platform design solutions to accelerate time to market, where G&H has technology-led differentiation.
The early indications for future success are positive. Let me provide an update on progress over the first half of the year and highlight some of the design wins G&H are achieving from this more focused approach to value creation from our technology. Spending on R&D of GBP 3.6 million in the first half was broadly in line with the prior year. This investment is now being deployed with greater disciplined focus on where G&H can differentiate and drive value creation. We've strengthened our acousto-optic engineering and product line management to accelerate the development and commercialization of optimized germanium-based modulators for advanced CO₂ lasers that are used in cutting-edge semiconductor fabrication and metrology.
The refocused fiber optics engineering group are seeing successful customer take-up on next generation fiber optic components and modules for DUV and EUV semiconductor fabrication, high-reliability submarine couplers and modules, environmental sensing, and medical diagnostics. Our precision optics and optical systems development team continue to design novel imaging and sighting solutions for land, air, and naval defense systems, complemented by our advanced thin film coating and laser protection filter offering that has recently been substantially enhanced through the acquisition of Artemis Optical. The build-out and staffing of our new US life sciences R&D hub in Rochester, New York, is proceeding to plan. Turning to slide 14, I would like to share an update on our acquisition and portfolio activities. After completing the acquisitions of GS Optics and Artemis last summer, I'm pleased to report that the integration is proceeding to plan.
The key value creation drivers expected from the deals have been validated, and commercial synergies are starting to be realized. The polymer precision optics and coatings capabilities acquired with GS Optics are proving to be a genuinely complementary offering for our customers, especially in life sciences. We've been able to attract and recruit great optical and photonics technical talent in Rochester, and as mentioned earlier by Chris, our life sciences center of excellence for diagnostics and medical device design and manufacture is substantially complete, with the first design contracts awarded and the production planned in this new ISO 13485 certified facility in the second half of the year. Artemis Optical, which primarily supplies the A&D market, is performing well under G&H ownership. We've added additional coating capacity into Plymouth to support the growing interest from our customers for its advanced thin film coating capabilities.
The commercial synergies between this business and our other precision optics businesses are strong, and we expect to be awarded a number of significant contracts for G&H optical systems with Artemis laser protection filters for armored fighting vehicles and other defense applications over the next 12 months. The EM4 business had struggled to demonstrate that it could provide a differentiated product offering to customers, and shortly before its sale, some of the contracts that it was supplying were canceled by the customer. I'm pleased to report that we completed this divestment closely aligned to our strategy and found a good new home for the EM4 employees. Importantly, we were able to retain the strategic fused fiber product line that has been successfully transferred elsewhere within the group. Turning to slide 15.
Despite a challenging first half, our expectation for the full year remain unchanged, albeit there is still much to do. The group's order book has remained strong, at the same time as our operational improvement have driven down past due backlog by more than 70% from the highs of September 2022, when it was above GBP 11 million, down to GBP 3 million in March 2024. The positive book-to-bill ratio we saw in the first half of the year has continued into H2, with the group's current order book continuing to grow. It currently stands above GBP 125 million, providing more than 95% cover to deliver the expected full year revenues for FY 2024. Turning to slide 16 to summarize.
While mindful of the current uncertain macro and geopolitical landscape, G&H's healthy growing order book in each of our end markets, along with a large, high-quality pipeline of new business opportunities, provides good visibility and confidence for the future. As a result of the operational and supply chain improvements made over the last 18 months, the group is also well positioned to capitalize on the upturn in the semiconductor and other markets expected in 2025. Our Southeast Asian manufacturing partner is now producing selected acousto-optic and fiber optic product lines for us at volume, and the transfer and qualification of additional products is underway. Our R&D and design engineering resources have been refocused on a customer-led vital few list of next-generation development projects. Value creation synergies from the new acquisitions are being realized, and new contract awards are expected over the next 12 months.
The medium and longer term outlook for G&H's technologies and capabilities in all our target sectors remain strong, and is supported by the positive progress we are already making in delivering against our strategy. Thank you. Now I'd like to hand over for any Q&A.
Morning. Robin Byde from Zeus Capital. Just in A&D, can you talk in a bit more detail about the yield productivity issues? I mean, you know, how do you fix these? How far along are you? Is this all about internal actions and self-help, or do you need to go externally? And how much CapEx might be involved, for example?
So, um-
Sorry, a lot of questions.
Should I start with that? I think firstly, if we look at the four M's of manufacturing, manpower, machines, materials, methods, this is not about machines. This is not a CapEx challenge. The group's well invested. In the specific plants where, you know, we highlighted on our tracker, the productivity plan is the one area that's not performing in line or ahead of plan, like all the others. This is about the manpower, and this is about the methodologies. A lot of this is to do with the training and bringing up to speed of the now fully staffed workforces in a number of those sites, and we're making very good progress there.
We've also addressed some of the leadership in these facilities. In one of the main facilities, there's a new general manager for the site that comes in with extensive experience in what needs to be done here. Even though this area is currently the one that is tracking behind plan, and it is most exposed to the A&D part of the business, I think we are confident that we have plans in place to make sure that gets back to amber and green over the course of the next six to 12 months.
Just a quick follow-up. In your other two divisions, the normalized EBIT margin seems to be around 15%. Is that your expectation for A&D looking out, I don't know, next year after? Is that what we should be thinking?
I think, Robin, we've always said that probably A&D would lag a little bit behind, but, you know, our expectation is to try to get that to higher single maybe, you know, just into double -digit returns. There are various factors in A&D where, you know, it will probably just suppress the margin a little bit compared to the others, even once we're up to run rate, as it were.
Thank you.
Good morning, all. Charlie, can you scope out the Artemis TAM for us and any geographical bias, please?
I think that's a very good question, Ben. I think, I mean, the opportunity there is such that obviously, strategically, we identified a business that had a fantastic fit for G&H's capability. On their standard core sort of, ITO and other filtering of optics, that was a you know, an established capability that fitted very well with G&H. One area and what's come out, and this is where it's really difficult to answer your question. What's come out of the conflict in Ukraine and some of the other conflicts around the world at the moment, and as Chris referred to in his presentation, is how lasers are being used on the battlefield in an offensive manner.
Artemis has some very unique coating that can counter some of that by applying different forms of filtering, both to protect optics from the use of laser lasers in an offensive manner, and also effectively to camouflage the optics by negating the ability to establish a signature of the optics that is often used to locate a target before you know engaging with it. At the moment, we are in a position where we're trying to actually understand what the potential for that is. There's two sides to that. Firstly, because a lot of the optics that have been deployed on the battlefield are now being looked to be retrofit with this new protection.
Going forward, there's a requirement for this being used, obviously on new and applications and devices.
Hi, chaps. Just building on A&D, we can assume that most of the revenues are D, I would imagine. In terms of orders and inquiries from customers, are you getting more sort of visibility on l onger out sort of views when we have the right capacity to fulfill certain programs. Are you seeing any changes in the order book given current backdrop?
First, yes, from an A&D perspective, the majority of that activity is in the D, on that side. I think, generally when it comes to looking at the order book, I think a number of things are going on. I think the first thing is that due to the operational improvements that have been made around the group, getting our lead times and our delivery, and the pass-through and the customer experience and performance, we're starting to see re-engagement from a number of existing customers on additional allocations, and new opportunities. Effectively, it's being recognized that G&H is back on the map delivering and doing what it knows how to do. That's the existing customer base, and that's very positive.
The feedback that I've received from many of the larger OEM customers that we supply is, you know, they've noticed. I think the second area is we're starting to see, it's very early days, but some of the initial traction that's coming out of this redefinition and refocus of our technologies into those vital few seven areas. And as Chris referred to, you know, we're already starting to see one or two pieces of new work that's being awarded, around that, and the pipeline and the quality of that pipeline for, if you like, new logo wins for the group coming from our technology capability is also looking very positive. The third element is the piece then about what's happening from the cycle.
Obviously, we're in a position we believe now for the operational improvements we've made, the investments that have been made historically by G&H in equipment that was referred to earlier, and getting ourselves ready to respond, that when that market, particularly the semiconductor, does tick back up and others, we will be in a position to respond to that.
You have the capacity for a step change in A&D revenues, for example?
Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.
Second question, last one as well from me. Could you just talk a little about the quality or the composition of the order book looking out? Is it higher margin? Is it a combination of that plus the operational efforts and actions you've made that give you the confidence of the mid-teen margin? The current GBP 125 million, if that starts to come through, is it at higher price points? Would you describe as a higher quality stream of earnings potentially?
Do you want to take that one?
Yeah. I mean, Scott, we've certainly seen some good new programs coming into the order book, which have, you know, healthy margins on them. I'd say in terms of composition, you know, defense is clearly quite strong at the moment and, you know, Charlie's just been talking about it, but there are defense priorities going into armored vehicles where, you know, we offer a very complex system. The optical periscopes that go onto those vehicles is very good as well. Clearly the order book at the moment, you know, there's a chunk of that which is for delivery in 2025, so it starts to give us confidence around the build of revenue in future years. It's looking good at the moment in terms of order book.
Thanks. Morning, guys. It's Henry Carver from Davy. Just one fairly simple one, and I think you've touched on it a little bit in answering other questions, but you've got good visibility for the second half. The order book, you know, is in a pretty good position. But there was quite a healthy dose of caution in the outlook statement around delivering that. I just wondered, you know, is that just potential for slippage into next year or just sort of really where that comes from?
Yeah, exactly that, Henry. I mean, you know, what we're trying to message today is, you know, we've got the order book. I mean, it's substantially de-risked now, but there's still a lot to do in the second half. You know, we need to work our way through the operational execution. We have dependencies from suppliers, sometimes dependencies from customers as well. Some of it is free issue material. We need them to sign off on acceptances from time to time as well. It's just recognizing there's a lot to do, but we've certainly got it around us to do it.
Hi, guys. Post EM4, where would you say now, visibility-wise, looking across the portfolio, what do you think in terms of areas that are below those margin ambitions or visibility to further actions? I think before we've touched on sort of end of life-ing of different product lines, particularly in A&D. Can you just sort of talk through next steps, you know, if you can, percentage of sales you think could still be, you know, targeted, I guess, from a development perspective?
Let me start and then Tom, thank you. I mean, so clearly with the EM4 business, even though we took the time, effort, and stayed true to our strategy by very clearly carving out a not insignificant part of that business, you know, there was a part of the group that wasn't differentiating in the way that we believe was necessary. That meant that it was, you know, possible to present that in a format that was packageable to sell.
I think when we look around now, and it came up in a question earlier about particularly in the A&D space, there, you know, there are still some products that are delivering below where they need to, and we believe and we're working on a path that we believe we can take them up the margin profile by making some significant improvements in our operations to do that. At the same time, you know, we continue to assess our options and what might be the right thing to do.
Second question around medical diagnostics. Obviously, you flagged before, and obviously you've delivered those today in terms of those two programs that have ramped up. I guess maybe looking beyond that, just generally the environment, obviously, we've seen quite a lot in the sector. Life sciences is facing some headwinds. Can you sort of talk around outlook there, maybe ex getting new programs in, just the general backdrop there, whether you're reliant on just the two programs, et cetera.
Yeah, I mean, as you know, our life sciences business falls into sort of two quite distinct parts. What we do around medical and aesthetic lasers for cosmetic and other elective surgeries, and then what we're doing in the sort of the more diagnostic space. The destocking that went on in the medical laser piece, as we've highlighted, was more protracted than we expected. The indications that we're getting is that that will recover and return back to more normalized levels in 2025. That's sort of pretty steady. I think on the diagnostic piece is where we're, you know, really quite excited.
The pipeline of opportunities that our engineering and design team are working on in Ashford in Kent, and what we're now able to offer out of Rochester in New York, and we refer to the fact we've already been awarded our first design project into that facility, you know, is well beyond two programs, and is looking very positive indeed. I think we obviously need to caveat with that on the face that these products need to be designed in, they need to be going through regulatory approval, FDA, et cetera. So there's this several years of time it takes before that turns into volume mass production. The pipeline there looks positive.
The response we've had from the investments that we've made and what we've set up in Rochester, again, have surpassed our expectations initially. I've personally had the opportunity to take two CEOs from medical device OEM clients to visit Rochester to make sure that it's being built into their roadmap of how and where they want their devices manufactured to address that market. It is looking very positive.
Andy Edmond, Equity Development. If this is on. That's better. Just a couple of things. I mean, a lot of talk indeed, you started Charlie talking about growing client confidence. I just wonder if you can elaborate on that a little bit more. It's come up in other questions. The other side of that is what you describe as new logo wins. So it sounds like there are potentially new clients in your order book at the moment. Just to get a feel, looking a little bit further down the road, one to three years or whatever, how much you anticipate getting new client growth on top of further demand from existing clients.
I mean, you know, Andy has referred to. I think, again, the sort of transition and the change and the improvements and the investments and the deployment of our strategy that we're making was only launched 12 months ago. I think, you know, the key message that I'd like to communicate today is that those actions and all of those activities are picking up traction. If we'd specifically answer your question around what does that mean around customers, you know, if I think back to 18 months ago when I joined the group, you know, I was handling escalations for line stops and other issues, and we were sitting on, as mentioned before, large quantities of past due backlog.
We're now in a situation where our lead times are back to normalized levels, our refocus on customer service, and driving our past due backlog is now being recognized by our customers. They're actually escalating recognition of the change.
Mm-hmm.
That is being translated into a part, as we mentioned to Scott's question, part of what we're seeing in the firming up of the order book. That is being recognized in that from our customers. At the same time, the focus that we've got and the work that we're doing in a very focused way around our technologies, some of that is for existing customers, and some of that is absolutely for new customers.
Mm-hmm.
You know, as we mentioned in the presentation, you know, we hope that over the next 12 months, we'll be able to communicate some of those new logo wins or some of those new contract awards.
They're very much back on the map, I'd say. Just a quick one for you, Chris. You mentioned a little bit of right sizing. You just elaborate where and whether that will extend into the second half as well?
Yeah. No. Following the divestment of EM4, we just resized some of our group functions. It wasn't a major activity. It's all done. Nothing else to
Minimal effects. Right.
Yeah.
Lovely. Thank you.