Good morning to everybody in the room here with us today and to those joining on the live audio webcast. Welcome to the G&H interim results presentation for the half year ended the 31st of March, 2023, and a strategy update. Chris and I will be following the agenda shown on the slide. Firstly, covering the group's results for the first half of the year, including a segmental and an ESG update. Following the review that has been carried out over the last six months, I will provide an update on G&H's new strategy. We will open the floor to any Q&A at the end. Positive progress has been made in the first half of FY 2023 across the company, and I would like to extend my thanks to all our employees for their hard work during the period.
We saw increased operational output successfully coming online, which, supported by favorable exchange rate movements and the effects of price increases, delivered a 31.7% increase in revenues, up to GBP 71.3 million, compared to GBP 54.1 million in the first half of the prior year. There has been encouraging growth across all three end markets that we serve. The industrial and A&D parts of the business grew strongly by 36.7% and 33.6%, respectively. Despite some customer phasing delays, our life sciences business saw revenues increase by 19.3%. Chris will take you through the performance by market sector in more detail later in the presentation. It was also pleasing to see steady.
A steady reduction in factory past due backlog, down by 33% to GBP 7.5 million from the year-end high of GBP 11.2 million. We continue to see positive progress here and expect further significant reductions by the year-end. Adjusted operating profit for the period increased by 32.9%, up to GBP 5.2 million, compared to GBP 3.9 million in H1 2022. As communicated in our April trading update, we've continued to experience input cost inflation from both competitive wage pressures and parts of our supply chain. We have seen improvements in staffing levels from our revitalized recruitment initiatives, and our commercial teams have been successful in passing on higher costs through pricing. Although there has been some time lag here, we expect this activity to support the group's performance in the second half of the year.
The group's half-year order book was GBP 124.4 million, compared to GBP 119.9 million in the prior year. Despite ending the period 15.8% below the September 2022 year-end record high of GBP 147.7 million, the order book remains at a healthy level and provides the necessary cover to deliver the expected full-year revenues with a more evenly weighting between the two halves compared to prior years. G&H generated cash from operations of GBP 6 million compared to GBP 3.2 million in H1 2022, with a GBP 5 million investment into inventory to de-risk growth and minimize supply chain disruption on specific programs.
The group's net debt totaled GBP 19.2 million at the half year, compared to GBP 19.1 million at the prior year end, with a leverage ratio of 0.8 x. The board are proposing an interim dividend of GBP 0.048 , continuing to support the group's progressive dividend policy and reflecting the positive medium-term outlook of the business. As outlined in the final bullet, the review of the group's strategy is now complete, and I will share an overview later in the presentation. I will now pass over to Chris to take you through the financial results for the first half of 2023 in more detail and provide an update on progress with our ESG activities across the company.
Thanks, Charlie, and good morning, everyone. Now, just running down slide four. As you've heard from Charlie, we saw a strong revenue growth in the first half of the financial year. Reported revenues were up 31.7%, supported by a favorable exchange rate movement. Even after excluding the effect of FX, revenues still grew significantly by 20.6%. That revenue growth was achieved thanks to the additional productive capacity that the group now has as a result of our success in recruiting and the additional capacity available through our contract manufacturing partner that's based in Thailand. Our production teams are now substantially fully resourced, and our strategy of holding higher levels of safety stocks meant that our output in the period was unaffected by any supply chain shortages. Input cost inflation continues to run at higher than pre-pandemic levels.
Our commercial teams are working to pass that on by implementing price increases when they quote for new businesses, and in some cases, they're able to reprice orders already received. The size of our order book means that there is some lag in recovering the effects of inflation. The additional volumes in the first half of the year generated an increase in underlying operating profit of just under 33% to GBP 5.2 million. Adjusted operating profit margins increased to 7.4%. The effect of both foreign currency tailwinds and our program of passing on inflation in the form of higher pricing both have the effect of increasing revenues without benefiting bottom line profitability. They are therefore both dilutive to reported margins. Excluding the impact of these two factors, bottom-line operating profit margin for the period stood at 7.6%.
Our R&D charge for the six months increased to GBP 5.4 million. Our customers continue to recognize the expertise of our engineers and to pull on their support for their next generation product developments. Adjusted effective tax rate for the first half stood at 17.8%, which is consistent with the prior year. Non-underlying charges excluded from our adjusted profit figure total GBP 1.3 million, the principal element of that being the amortization of acquired intangibles. Moving then to slide five and cash flow. Net cash flow from operating activities totaled GBP 6 million after we invested a further GBP 3.5 million in working capital, and that was specifically in inventory. We continue to invest in higher levels of safety stocks, and in some cases that is at the specific request of our customers.
While we don't anticipate being able to significantly release this additional inventory in the near term, we do expect some reduction in the Group's inventory levels in the second half of this financial year. Our investment in new capital equipment and business systems totals GBP 4.2 million. The most significant additions were in our precision optics facilities, where we invested in both equipment to automate some parts of the production process and in advanced measurement equipment that's required to ensure we comply with the very tight tolerances that we offer our customers. Net debt, excluding lease liabilities, was GBP 12.9 million, rising to GBP 19.2 million when lease liabilities are added. Net debt to EBITDA, as measured for our debt facility, stood at 0.8 x, which is comfortably within our limit of 2.5 x.
Our debt facility extends to 2027, and at the end of the first half, the Group had around $46 million available from its committed and uncommitted facilities to fund its future growth. Turning now to slide six. Overall sales into our industrial markets grew by 36.7% or 22.1% when measured on a constant currency basis. We achieved good growth in the semiconductor market, and demand for our Germanium Acousto-Optic Modulator was particularly strong. In the period, we achieved first production revenues from our splitter, fiber optic splitter units, and those are integrated into our customers' advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment. Deliveries of our high-reliability fiber couplers were stable compared with the comparator period.
We're in the final stages of approving our contract manufacturing partner in Thailand for the production of these products, and they will make their first deliveries to customers in the second half of this financial year. This will give us the opportunity to both increase supply and achieve some margin accretion on this product line. The additional volumes achieved in this segment helped deliver a 29% growth in adjusted operating profit compared to H1 2022 to GBP 5.3 million. In common with the reported return on sales figures in the Group's other two markets, the effect on revenues of both favorable FX and the pass-through of inflationary cost increases suppressed the reported return on sales percentage, which was 14.1% for this segment. If you remove those two effects, the return on sales was 15.1%.
Moving on to Aerospace & Defense. R&D revenues were up 33.6% on the comparator period or 24.6% on a constant currency basis. Deliveries to our customers' imaging systems programs, typically used on manned and unmanned aircraft platforms, grew during the period. Our Boston business has also delivered encouraging growth and output compared with the first half of 2022, thanks to its success in recruiting and training new team members. Several of the site's programs transition from the development to the production phase, although the site continues to work on improving its production yields. Our camera systems are used for the identification of targets, including drones, and there is an encouraging level of interest from our customers for our advanced infrared products that can help address their emerging needs in this area.
The Ukraine conflict is also driving a growth in requests for quotations for our periscope systems used on armored vehicles. The commercial aerospace end market has recovered from the slowdown of the pandemic, and demand from our components used in commercial ring laser gyros is growing. We remain very active in programs to develop laser-based communications, communication in space, both for satellite-to-satellite and satellite-to-ground applications. Our high-reliability fiber couplers are used in these applications, and we are also developing very high power amplifiers that will be at the heart of these new systems. We believe we are well placed to benefit as space communications migrates away from the current RF-based technologies towards lasers. Additional volumes in this segment help to reduce the adjusted operating loss to GBP 1.9 million.
We continue to suffer from poor production yields on some programs in both our Moorpark and our Boston facilities. The continuing training programs for new employees recruited to service our large order book should help to reduce the cost of poor quality in these sites in the future. We're also reviewing carefully some of the product lines within this sector to assess whether we have sufficiently differentiated capabilities to allow us to secure acceptable returns. Moving on to slide eight. Our life sciences revenues were up 19.3%, or 13.6% on a constant currency basis. We saw further recovery in demand for our components used in laser surgery, especially cosmetic surgery. Revenues from the sales of our medical diagnostic equipment were slightly down compared with the first half of 2022.
This was due to two of our significant customers migrating to next-gen equipment programs and ramping down demand for their current products. We're selected to manufacture their next-gen systems, and volumes from these programs are expected to ramp in the second half of this financial year. Our design team, based in our ITL Medical diagnostic business in Ashford, are fully engaged on the development of our customer's latest systems, and these will typically migrate to production over the next two-three years. Adjusted operating profit in this segment grew by 8% to GBP 2.3 million, and adjusted operating profit margins stood at 14.3%. After eliminating the effects of currency and pricing, H1 2023 returns on sales stood at 15.4%.
We intend to invest in our medical diagnostics businesses U.S. operations in order to secure a greater share of the very significant U.S. market. Moving on to slide nine, which gives an update on the group's ESG activities in 2023, which as you can see from the slide marks our 75th anniversary. We're continuing to invest to generate more of our own electricity from solar sources, and where we have to purchase electricity, we are progressively increasing the proportion that comes from renewable sources. As a result, in the first half of the year, the group achieved a reduction of 13.4% in its greenhouse gas emissions intensity measure. We're firmly on track to achieve our target of being net- zero on Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2035.
Our Ilminster and Torquay sites have now achieved accreditation for ISO 14001 environmental management, and we will now extend this program and its U.S. equivalent to the other sites in the group. Building on the group's commitment to greater diversity, we're delighted to be able to welcome Susan Searle, who joins us in the audience today, onto the board as a Non-Executive Director. Thanks very much, and I'll now hand you back to Charlie.
Thank you, Chris. I'm delighted to be able to share an update of G&H's strategy focused on delivering sustainable margin growth and establishing a clear executable path to mid-teen returns over the medium term for the group. Since joining G&H last September, I've been working with the executive team and board to carry out a review of the group's strategy. Before taking you through the agenda outlined on the slide, I want to pause to acknowledge that the group's performance over the last few years, despite much hard work from the employees of the company, has not delivered to expectations. Many elements of the company's previous strategy aimed at diversification into new markets, focused R&D investment, operational excellence, and value enhancing acquisitions were valid. Execution has been below par, and implementation had stalled.
A refresh is overdue, and we need to do things differently to harness the full potential of the company, which I believe is significant. This strategy is a new strategy, a new approach that will be delivered with agility and wisdom to avoid repeating the problems of the recent past and place the company on a path of sustainable margin growth. The photonics market is undergoing rapid growth. Following the review, we are confident about the exciting prospects of combining G&H's photonics products and unique technical capabilities with the next wave of growth forecast in the global photonics industry. Despite the photonics component landscape becoming increasingly competitive, end markets are large and growing at pace, with closer integration of lasers, optics, and sensors, creating new sources of value aligned to many of the unique technological capabilities that can be found across G&H.
This medium-term growth is underpinned by many of the world's megatrends, from advancing technologies like IoT, 5G, artificial intelligence, machine learning, virtual reality, remote patient monitoring, non-intrusive healthcare, environmental sustainability, and geopolitical tensions. Photonics is at the heart of global innovation and a critical enabler for these new frontiers of technology. Turning to slide 13. Our new strategy for delivering sustainable margin growth in the medium term is focused on transforming G&H to become an innovative, customer-focused technology company that we will deliver responsibly by making a better world with photonics. We will seek to ensure that G&H becomes and remains the first choice for all our stakeholders, including our employees, customers, shareholders, our ecosystem partners, and the communities in which we operate. We will offer differentiated performance through four key strategic priorities focused on people, self-help, technology, and investment.
Firstly, through harnessing the best talent across our whole organization, we will change the culture of the company to establish dynamic, high-performance teams and create a purpose-led culture that ensures G&H is a safe, engaging, diverse, and inclusive place to work and thrive. Secondly, by delivering an exceptional customer experience and making it easier to do business with G&H, we will build long-term customer partnerships and deliver profitable growth. This will be achieved by disciplined focus on superior operational execution and self-help activities to improve safety, quality, delivery, inventory, and productivity, transforming the business to meet and beat industry standards and accelerate our time to customer. Thirdly, we will deploy our advanced photonics design engineering talent and know-how to deliver a better return by creating enhanced value from carefully selected R&D projects for the right applications.
This will include developing platform solutions to accelerate our time to market for new technology and existing technology into new applications. This will unlock greater value through increased G&H photonic system content in new products. Fourthly, we will apply a more disciplined approach to the allocation of resources to deliver value and accelerate accretive growth, both organically and inorganically. We will refocus the business to invest in higher margin products and sectors at the same time as addressing non-performers in combination with pursuing speed to value acquisitions strategically rather than opportunistically.
The transformation of the company through the successful implementation of the group's new strategy will be achieved by following G&H's corporate values that guide the way we endeavor to do business, consisting of customer focus, integrity, action, unity and precision to deliver fundamental and lasting improvement for our employees, for the profitability of the company, and the sustainability of our planet. On slide 14, I would like to cover in more detail which strategic priorities are being kept and what is new. There are parts of the existing strategy that are being retained, but with better execution and greater focus on delivering the desired outcomes. The group will continue to look at diversification within limits and with greater emphasis on leveraging synergies and simplification.
The new strategy continues to seek opportunities to enhance value by moving up the value chain, but the focus will be more specific to areas like coating or subsystem solutions, and in our life sciences area, specifically through to full systems where we can embed our biophotonics technology into medical or IVD devices. Our commitment to being customer-led remains, but this will require changes in behaviors and processes to ensure better results. We will continue to offer a balanced portfolio around industrial, A&D, and life sciences, but with an increased emphasis on capturing the opportunities in life sciences, especially in North America and Industry 4.0 from the next generation of global semiconductor infrastructure buildouts. We will also establish greater clarity for our value proposition into the A&D market, aligning resources to turn around this business unit and deliver accretive performance for the group.
We've also clearly identified areas where we need a different emphasis and a new direction. A new approach is required in the way that we invest in our people and our core technology. We will make proactive investment decisions through product platform development in collaboration with our customers to better monetize our technical capability and advanced technology. We will also become more proactive about the outsourcing of certain stable product lines to our contract manufacturing partners at an earlier stage in their product life cycle, where technological sovereignty is not a differentiator. During 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% today to circa 25%.
The new strategy will also address non-performance, and the process has begun to assess and rationalize non-core product lines where we don't have sufficiently differentiated capabilities to enable us to secure acceptable returns. This will be carried out in combination with pursuing speed to value acquisitions that enhance value creation through delivering commercial synergies and which fill any gaps in our existing portfolio. As shared earlier, we are updating our technology roadmaps to deploy platform design solutions to accelerate time to market where G&H has technical differentiators. Let me share the areas that we will be focusing on by the three end markets we serve.
In our industrial business, we will invest to grow our acousto-optic offering by focusing on advanced deflectors and modulators for optical wafer inspection, advanced lasers in microelectronics, photolithography applications supporting the 193 and 13.5 nanometer wavelength ecosystems, and other high-tech wafer fab infrastructure expansion. In our fiber optics business unit, G&H's ultra-clean couplers for extreme ultraviolet semiconductor foundries are now operational, and we will continue to develop this world-leading capability. We will also focus on exciting new product growth opportunities for G&H with fiber optics for distributed acoustic sensing, wind sensing, undersea sensing, and quantum sensing. Our undersea telecom coupler business remains strong, and we are in discussions with customers for G&H to provide new coupler architecture systems in the future. In A&D, we will become more focused.
The applications addressed will be rationalized down and priority applied to high growth areas where we offer a highly differentiated product, such as satellite comms, directed energy systems, imaging for shipborne, airborne, and spaceborne platforms, multi-spectral periscopes, and advanced protective coatings. In order to respond to market pull-ins for our A&D systems in several of these areas as a result of the conflict in Ukraine, we will be growing our U.K. systems innovation hub. In life sciences, our R&D teams will focus on converting opportunities that merge different segments of our biophotonics market with our medical sub-subsystem and full device design and manufacturing capabilities. Key areas of focus are ophthalmology, DNA sequencing, fluorescence and confocal microscopy, flow cytometry, and therapeutic lasers for aesthetic and robotic surgeries. Turning to slide 16 and the path to mid-teen returns through the new strategy.
We believe that the successful execution of the four strategic priorities, people, self-help, technology, and investment, can deliver return on sales accretion potential of 700 basis points-800 basis points over the medium term, net of the investments required, excluding portfolio changes. This includes benefits from the following activities. The better utilization of our well-invested factories from increased volumes, proactive expansion of outsourcing activities at an earlier stage in the product life cycle to our proven contract manufacturing partner in Thailand, productivity gains from cost of poor quality reduction and other efficiency improvements. For example, we've already seen labor efficiency gains over the last quarter from the re-layout of several machine work centers using lean practices at our Ilminster site. Also, the introduction of 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 acquisitions. To summarize. While mindful of the current uncertain macro and geopolitical landscape, G&H is positioned for growth with a strong demand pipeline and a refreshed strategy. Positive progress continues with operational output from our factories and our Asian manufacturing partner is producing at volume with resourcing upgrades underway to manage the accelerated qualification and transfer of additional products. Despite some supply chain constraints and continued inflationary pressures, pricing adjustments will support in the second half of the year. Our R&D talent and investment is better focused on customer-led growth opportunities, and the outlook for the full year remains unchanged. Finally, the deployment of our new strategy is underway across the whole organization, and we will continue to provide regular updates on progress. Thank you.
Now I would like to hand over for any Q&A.
Thank you, and good morning. Scott here from Investec. A couple of questions, please. On the strategic change, outsourcing to me seems like the most significant change. If that's fair. How do you see that going? I know you talked about getting to 25%, but how are people finding it within Gooch & Housego? If you could just give us a bit more color around that, please. Secondly, the future run rate of CapEx and R&D as a percentage of revenues, is there a step change with the new strategy? Thirdly, in terms of M&A and speed to value, which, where would you be comfortable with net debt EBITDA? Clearly, cash generation's come in, and that will bring those ratios down quite quickly over the next few years. Just where are you comfortable taking the balance sheet to? Thank you.
Thanks, Scott. Shall I take the first one, Chris?
Yeah.
On the contract manufacturing piece. I think firstly, there's an evolution here, and even though it's a clear change of direction, we're starting from some very solid foundations. Over the last several years, G&H has done some very good work to qualify and establish a very good contract manufacturing partner in Thailand. Even though that was done during COVID, and there were some delays with it and some challenges, that piece of work has been done. Historically, the strategy was to transfer products at the end of their life to a lower cost manufacturing location to extend the life of the product in the market. We're addressing this in a very different way. We're looking at where it's appropriate and where technological sovereignty is not a differentiator.
We're looking at taking stable products at an earlier stage in their life cycle and moving them across to this contract manufacturing partner. In some cases, we might even choose to launch a product that we've designed and developed from that partner. Now we are resourcing our ability to do that at greater pace. The exciting thing here is, you know, we aren't starting from scratch. This is an established, reliable partner that is already, as Chris and I both mentioned, producing product for us today at volume.
Scott, on your second question around CapEx required to deliver the plan. I mean, we don't see a significant step-up required in CapEx. I mean, some of you may have visited the Ilminster site earlier this year. I mean, you know, when you're there, you can see that that's a site that's well invested in capital. Generally speaking, CapEx is not the constraint in the business. It's actually people. Yeah, no major step-up from levels you've seen through this business over the last couple of years, really. Then finally, just M&A and the balance sheet and net debt. I mean, as a board, I think we would be uncomfortable about going beyond about 1.5x-2 x net debt EBITDA.
Our bank facility has a limit of 2.5 x. At the moment, we're 0.8 x, so you know, there's a lot of headroom to go at, before we get to those kind of levels.
Morning, Robin Byde from Zeus Capital. Just on book-to-bill, can you talk a bit about the dynamics in the first half? 'Cause I think that metric was at 0.8 x, and what do you expect that to trend to in the second half and into next year? Secondly, just on buffer inventory. You've been running up your stock. What are you buying or holding in higher volumes at the moment, and how does that unwind in the second half?
You want to take that?
Yeah, sure. In terms of book-to-bill and order book, I mean, it's quite a sort of complex picture across the whole of the group. I mean, I think in terms of A&D and life sciences, we see underpinning. You know, there's good, strong demand there. We had a bit of a surge in intake in A&D during last year because we got the big Challenger 3 program orders in. It's in industrials where we've seen a little bit of destocking by some customers because I think frankly, over the last six to 12 months, maybe 18 months, they were actually buying ahead capacity in the supply chains and potentially actually trying to head off a bit of inflationary price increases coming through as well. It's those areas where we're starting to see a little bit of destocking.
We don't believe, underpinning that, there's any issues with ongoing demand. We're watching that situation closely. I mean, in terms of the book-to-bill ratio in the second half, I mean, I'd anticipate it will probably stabilize a little bit more, so probably a bit higher than we saw in the first half. The order book is still GBP 124 million. It's still higher than, you know, this group has traditionally had. I mean, it was typically sort of GBP 90 million, GBP 100 million. That was a good level of order book. You know, as we continue to eat away at overdues and our lead times come down, you know, that, the order book will follow it a little bit.
Just on inventory.
Inventory
Buffer inventory.
Yeah. I think the areas where we're investing at the moment is mainly electronic components. That's where it is most unreliable in terms of getting consistent supply. We've certainly increased our safety stock levels in those areas. In some cases that's specifically at the request of our customers, particularly in some of the life science areas, where they want to ramp their programs quite quickly.
As soon as they've got qualified product available to them, they're saying, "Right, just de-risk the supply chain, get it all in now, even though, you know, that will take us a few months to burn that inventory off." I mean, I mentioned earlier, I think inventory levels have probably peaked now, and there may be a little bit of reduction during the second half of the year, but it's still an uncertain situation in supply chain, so I think we need to continue to hold our higher safety stock levels certainly into FY 2024.
Thank you.
Tom Elgar, Numis. I think really coming through this strategy review there is the focus on the platform solutions from going forward. I wonder if you could add some color around potentially what you see as sort of the after-market opportunity, recurring revenue opportunity, just trying to grow that visibility to sort of reduce any elements of sort of cyclicality in the business and how you're thinking about that. Secondly, sort of on as you're assessing the portfolio, the acceptable returns, you know, is there any guidance you can give around potentially how much of the portfolio today is under active assessment, you know, could be near that boundary? Just get a sense of, I guess, the gravity of some of the moves that could come through, I guess. Thanks.
On the platform piece, I think the approach here is that particularly when we look at our fiber optic business and our acousto-optic, there are some very clear cases where you look at how that technology is evolving and what's required to address some of the megatrend drivers that I mentioned during the presentation. I think our team, with inputs from our customers, can make some pretty informed decisions about sort of platform requirements in those areas. The thinking here is that we will be making some very well-informed and customer-guided bets about where we think the opportunities are in the future and establish a platform capability. In many cases, this is something that G&H did 10 years ago in acousto-optics.
People came to G&H to see where this technology is capable of performing. To some extent, it's reestablishing that across a slightly wider area. Then we reduce our time to market. We establish that capability, and when the customers that we've been working with need it in a certain application or a certain area, we can configure and customize that off the platform. We have established three or four areas where we're going to focus on that initially with our R&D teams. You know, we've been reviewing, and that team has been reviewing all of our technology roadmaps in enormous detail in the last six months. That is a process that's still underway on that side. I think your second question about what percentage of the...
Let me start this one, Chris. What percentage we're looking at with regard to sort of portfolio or rationalization. I mean, I think that would. At the moment, it's a process that's underway. It hasn't been completed yet. I think it would be less than 10%, directionally, or in that type of range, would probably be a fair answer at this stage. We will keep you updated as that develops.
Thank you. It's Scott again. Sorry, just a quick follow-up. On slide 16, could we take comfort that the first box volume, so 100 basis points, is conservative? Because if we look over the medium term and look at incremental revenue and drop through, is there a bit of upside potential there? I'm not trying to make you give an even bigger margin target because it's pretty handsome as it is. Can we take some comfort that there's probably opportunity for a bit more drop through on higher volumes?
It depends a little bit, Scott. I mean, you know, we tried to obviously put enough into that plan in terms of investment in the overheads required to support that revenue growth. Clearly, you know, exactly where the volume comes determines the drop through. Hopefully it's cautious, but let's see how things go.
Andy Edmond, Equity Development. Please, Charlie, if you could just elaborate where you are. I realize it's only a few months in terms of both the organic and the inorganic, organic element. Particularly on the client early involvement and development of projects, to what extent you've already had some of those discussions. Then on the inorganic side, everybody likes to make accretive acquisitions and bolt-ons. How advanced are you in developing a target list or a pipeline there?
I mean, maybe we're on sort of slide 16, maybe that's a good place to start the answer to that question. You know, we've outlined these sort of five blocks that are going to drive the improvement, and this path back to mid-teen returns. I think the important point to make there is this is not being done sequentially. This is being done concurrently. We are actively focused already in each of these areas. Now, the first three boxes, volume outsourcing and productivity, are to some extent much more within our control on the timeframe. New products, slightly less. Sometimes, you know, that's about the adoption of technology. That's about when new products get regulatory or qualification approvals. And then the portfolio piece is more out of our control from a time perspective.
We remain active in all of the areas as we believe that they will all contribute to this journey.
Engagement with key clients?
On that one, I mean, myself with the CTO is, you know, personally been visiting a number of strategic customers where we would be deploying this type of engagement. It's still work in progress, but we're not starting it tomorrow, I think the absolutely clear answer.
Thank you.
Thanks. Just one sort of follow-up. I think more specifically, I think it was mentioned in the statement around the life sciences opportunity within North America, but also having potential to announce a sort of launch customer. I don't know if there's any further color you can add or whether that's a change in strategy, but more sort of customer connectivity and whether that just gives you more confidence achieving that scale and value creation going forward in that, you know, what many would see as probably one of the greatest growth opportunities you've got across the portfolio.
I mean, we've talked before about a sort of a lighthouse customer in North America.
Yeah.
We're still very heavily engaged with them. That has not been awarded yet, Tom.
Yeah.
You know, we're already supplying very complex biophotonics components into their device. You know, we're on the program already. It's just about expanding and moving up the value chain with them. I think we as an executive team, we're much clearer about how we're going to deploy and execute in North America for our life sciences business. You know, this is something that's been talked about before. I think this strategy will only strengthen it and enhance our ability to be successful in that, as you say, very large market.
Yeah.
I think the other piece on that is that obviously our ITL business, you know, is well established in the U.K. and a presence in Europe, as a, you know, as a very capable, you know, design, development and regulatory approval and manufacturing partner for medical IVD devices. Obviously, that's a pretty competitive landscape in that space in North America. The strategy is very clear. We're looking to add to that capability the embedding of unique biophotonic capability, which is a genuinely differentiated offering. You know, that is a slight nuanced difference to what's been focused on previously.
Thanks.
We have a question online from Vishal Bhatia at J O Hambro. Can you please elaborate on the AI and machine learning opportunity, given the material updates we have seen in the space and recent material outlook comments from the likes of NVIDIA? Is this a space that could be a material contributor to the firm in the near to medium term?
Okay, that's a good one. I mean, G&H does not work directly with NVIDIA. I suppose this is where we are very heavily involved in the ecosystem that enables that AI capability to be deployed. You know, when we start talking about the ever-shrinking miniaturization of semiconductors down to a nano scale, obviously the enabling of IoT, AI, machine learning is all of these things are only enabled by that process continuing to move forward under the guidance of Moore's Law. Obviously, our capabilities enable you know, semiconductors to get ever smaller, and that would be absolutely what's required to establish. Those semiconductors would be going into NVIDIA chips to enable AI, as an example.
We are part of that ecosystem rather than working directly with NVIDIA.