Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Diploma's first half results presentation. My name's Johnny Thomson. I'm joined today, of course, as usual, by Nigel Lingwood, the Group's Finance Director. I've been Chief Executive of Diploma for a little under three months now. I'm delighted to be here, my first results day. I'm very much looking forward to working with you all over the next few years. Today, I'm going to give you an overview of the group's performance. Nigel will take you through the financials. I'll come back to talk about the sectors, my first impressions as CEO, and finally, to give a few comments on our outlook. There'll be plenty of time for questions and answers at the end. The group's had a strong first half of the year, in line with our expectations. Growth of 11% was underpinned by an encouraging 6% underlying growth.
Our margins improved by 20 basis points, supporting 14% progression in EPS. We're declaring a 10% increase in our interim dividend, reflecting the strong financial position and our confidence in the group's growth prospects. Free cash flow was GBP 14 million. Our balance sheet remains strong as we continue to develop our acquisition opportunities in the second half of the year. Our full year performance expectations, therefore, are positive and unchanged. Nigel.
Thank you. Thank you, Johnny. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Looking at the half year results for the six months ending 31 March 2019. During the half year, we achieved an 11% increase in reported revenue to GBP 260.4 million and a 12% increase in adjusted operating profit to GBP 45.6 million. Adjusted operating margin moved up 20 basis points to 17.5%, which is the same as we achieved in the full year last year. After adjusting for acquisitions completed in the last 12 months and a small currency tailwind, we had a good 6% increase in underlying revenues. Adjusted PBT was up 13% at GBP 45.5 million. Free cash flow fell in the half year to GBP 14 million after strategic investment in inventory, as I previously indicated at the trading update in late March.
We spent GBP seven and a half million on acquisitions. We ended the period with cash funds of GBP 22 million. Adjusted EPS was up 14%, which reflected the additional benefit from a full half year of the U.S. tax cuts announced on the 1st of January 2018. Finally, we've increased the interim dividend again, this time by 10% to GBP 0.085, reflecting the strong financial position and confidence in the group's growth prospects. Summing up, we have good underlying growth of 6%, a robust increase of 20 basis points in the operating margin, and good cash flow, free cash flow of GBP 14 million. Before turning to the detail of the results, let me just take you through a bridge of revenue. This bridge's reported revenue growth of 11% to underlying revenue growth of 6%.
The impact from a slightly weaker U.K. sterling, particularly against the U.S. and Canadian dollars on translation of overseas results, was GBP 2.9 million or 1%. Acquisitions net of a small disposal contributed GBP 9.3 million or 4%. This was GBP 4.9 million from the acquisition completed in October of Gremtek and GBP seven and a half million of incremental revenues from the acquisitions last year of FS Cables and Coast. We also disposed of Bulldog last year, and that accounted for GBP 3.1 million. That provides growth in group underlying revenue of 6%, with Life Sciences contributing 5%, Seals 4%, and Controls 9%, which Johnny will come back to explain later. If we go back to the income statement. Adjusted operating profit up 12% at GBP 45.6 million, reflecting the adjusted operating margin up 20 basis points over the comparable period to 17.5%.
This was driven by a slightly stronger gross margin. There was also some operating leverage as costs were tightly controlled and revenues increased more strongly. We had just GBP 100,000 of interest cost on the pension scheme deficit. We get adjusted profit before tax of GBP 45.5 million, up 13% on last year. Below this line, we have acquisition related charges of GBP five and a half million, principally being the amortization of acquired intangible assets. We have a small adjustment to fair value the put options that are held by the minority shareholders in Kentek and M-Seals. With these items deducted below adjusted PBT, we arrive at a statutory profit for tax, also up 13% at GBP 40.1 million. The group's effective tax rate was reduced to 23.7% at March 2019 from 24.5% last year.
Again, the driver to this was the benefit of full six months period for the reduction in the U.S. federal corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, which came into effect on the 1st of January 2018, and from some dilution from U.K. acquired businesses where the tax rate is lower. This reduction in the effective tax rate boosts the increase in adjusted EPS to 14%. Turning to free cash flow. Operating cash flow was 6% below the comparable period at GBP 30.1 million. You will see that this reduction is primarily due to the increased investment in working capital in this period, up GBP 5.7 million to GBP 16.9 million. Much of this increase has arisen from a decision to build strategic inventory to mitigate the impact of both a disruptive Brexit, also to meet specific customer and product requirements as well.
Beyond that strategic increase in inventory, the increase in working capital is entirely consistent with the growth in trading activity and with the trends that we see in each first half of the year. The businesses have set firm plans to wind down their strategic inventory build over the next six months. These actions, together with a seasonal reduction in working capital in the second half of the year, will be consistent with historical trends and provides us with confidence that we will see overall working capital falling back to more normal levels by the end of this year, 30 September. I.e., towards the 15% working capital revenue metric from the 17% that we've reported at 31 March. Moving down the cash flow, tax paid at GBP 9.6 million remained broadly in line with last year and represented a cash tax rate of 21%.
The benefit of the U.S. tax cut coming through there. Capital expenditure was GBP 3.5 million, up GBP 1.2 million on last year. Briefly in Life Sciences, the healthcare businesses spent GBP 1.4 million on acquiring new hospital field equipment for placement in hospitals. In Seals, GBP 600,000 was invested in both new ERP projects that we've commenced, but also on completing the one in the U.S. industrial OEM business. In Controls, we spent GBP 400,000 completing the refurbishment and expansion of our facility in Sommer in Germany. This is a GBP 1.8 million project which is coming in on time. It will be complete later this month. We're looking at opportunities to do a sale and leaseback on that property. After spending GBP 2.9 million to fund the company's long-term incentive scheme, we ended the period with free cash flow of GBP 14 million, which was GBP 3.7 million below last year.
We spent GBP 6.4 million of that free cash flow on the acquisition of Gremtek, a small control sector business based in France. We spent GBP 1.1 million on deferred consideration payable to the vendors of FS Cables acquired last August. After paying the final dividend to shareholders in January this year of GBP 20.5 million, we end the period with net cash of GBP 22 million. Of course, the second half of the year is historically when the group generates most of its free cash flow. This cash flow, together with a committed bank facility of up to GBP 60 million, provides the group with substantial resources to apply to acquisitions. As you know, acquisitions are very much an integral part of the group's strategy. Although we only spent GBP 7.5 million on acquisitions in this half year, we have continued to see new opportunities come forward.
Some of these are coming forward from the last one or two years and have come back to kick off a process. Some of them are just completely new. As I've mentioned before, these opportunities are nearly always nowadays in the form of structured sales processes with several rounds of documentation until we manage to gain exclusivity, and as such, remain very competitive. We remain disciplined in our valuation criteria, and while we are optimistic about acquiring some quality business this year, we are realistic that because of the valuation criteria, we can never commit to the timing of these acquisitions or even if we will complete them. We definitely have a healthy pipeline, and we do remain optimistic about acquiring quality businesses this year. Finally, turning to the balance sheet. Trading capital employed of GBP 298 million.
This increase reflecting the investment in working capital and in acquiring Gremtek. The annualized ROACE, this is our return on adjusted trading capital employed, effectively a fully invested capital, that remains strong at 24.2%, well above our threshold of 20%. Of course, as I've mentioned, our key metric of working capital to revenue increased to 17% from 15.8%, reflecting that larger investment in working capital. We continue with the closed defined benefit pension scheme, which has a net liability of GBP 10.3 million and continues to be funded at around half a million GBP a year in cash. Our acquisition liabilities now only comprise the put options held by the minority shareholders in Kentek and M-Seals. That's both at 10%. These options now crystallized and are likely to be exercised over the coming 12 months. At 31 March, we have total shareholders' equity of GBP 294.1 million.
I will now hand you back to Johnny, who will talk you through the performances of the businesses. Thank you.
Good, Nigel. Thank you very much. I would like now to remind you of what it is that we do. I will review each of our sectors in turn and give some of my initial impressions of the group. Our business model is based on sourcing and distributing specialized products, technical solutions, and value-add servicing to a diverse range of end customers. These products attend our customers' operating needs rather than capital needs. The focus on a provision of a broad range of specialist products at short notice, accompanied by technical servicing, allows us to differentiate ourselves in the supply chain and add real value to our customers. Our margins are a reflection of this added value, and of course, our cost control. We operate globally in three distinct sectors.
The diversity therefore of our geographies, product ranges, and end customers allows us greater access to growth and somewhat protects us from broader economic cycles. We have excellent businesses in our life sciences sector representing 28% of the group's revenues. They are specialized in niche product sectors, particularly clinical diagnostics, surgical, and endoscopy, and in our important end markets of Australia and Canada. We have highly qualified technicians who support the medical community in designing and sourcing these products, and work closely with our suppliers to ensure the next generation of medical device and consumables are being developed. Product lifecycle management is key to the sector's successful development, and I feel we're making real progress in this area. Although never without risk, our long-term customer and supplier relationships, as well as ongoing development of new and exciting product ranges, will continue to drive growth and margin opportunities.
There are structural growth drivers as populations age and medicine advances. Plenty of opportunity to develop a broader product portfolio, and further end markets for us to explore. The prospects for life sciences are very positive. We've made good progress in life sciences in the first half, with growth of 5%. Growth in healthcare itself was 6%. The quality of our clinical diagnostic businesses in Canada and Australia is impressive. We are taking advantage of new product opportunities and deep-rooted partnerships with the medical profession and manufacturers to stay ahead of technological requirements in the niche spaces. In surgical, we have won a new regional customer group in Canada for smoke evacuation, continue to drive good capital sales as a lead into future consumable revenue streams, and have placed a new endoscopy product into the market.
Despite pressure in the healthcare budgets, we're pleased with the margin progression in the half. This is driven in part by ensuring we have new and profitable product ranges coming on board, and in part by tight cost control. The seals business is our biggest at 39% of the group. We have scaled operations in aftermarket and industrial OEM in the most attractive market in the world, the U.S. Our scale and position in this market allows us to invest in talent, technology, and facilities to sustain future growth. As an example, we are excited to be developing a second state-of-the-art automated distribution center in Louisville, Kentucky. With scale and investment advantages, we target to grow above GDP levels through the cycle. Internationally, we have been and continue to develop important positions in key markets around the world.
We are excited at the prospects to penetrate further into our current markets, taking advantages of scale, and to enter some important new markets in the future. The seals sector grew by 4% in the first half. We're encouraged by a 9% growth in international seals, and we remain positive about the prospects for the rest of the year. North American seals was flat in the first half. A few thoughts on the short term. An influx of new machinery since U.S. tax reform somewhat dampened the aftermarket repairs in the first half. Challenges with our industrial OEM ERP implementation at the start of the year affected our service delivery and performance. Finally, there are some early signals of slower industrial growth in the market impacting our industrial seals businesses more generally. We are, however, very positive about the future prospects for the following key reasons.
Firstly, aftermarket sales are beginning to pick up again as we enter the second half of the year, and the ERP issues are largely resolved in the OEM business. Secondly, we note encouraging signals on a U.S. infrastructure bill which should benefit the aftermarket sector in the coming years. The recent spike in new equipment investment will soon flow out of warranty and into our repairs market. Finally, we have plenty of opportunities to continue to improve our business, investing in talent, technology, and the new distribution facility. The prospects for Seals are exciting. The Controls business is 33% of group revenue, but has been becoming a more important contributor over time. The large majority of the business are Interconnect products and specialty fasteners, delivering significant value-add service across a diverse range of end customers. We're excited about continually expanding our product offering.
While the history of this sector has been predominantly U.K.-based, we have started some careful expansion into the U.S. and Europe. We're very pleased with the underlying growth of 9% in Controls, complemented by two very good strategic bolt-on acquisitions, FS Cables and Gremtec. The Interconnect group's growth was 7%. Our U.K. business has broadened product scope and penetrated further into Europe. While there may be some Brexit related stocking supporting this, we continue to feel positive about the growth rates into the second half. We are delighted to welcome FS Cables into the group in August 2018, complementing our existing Cablecraft business. It is also encouraging that we're making positive strides into continental Europe. We continue to successfully develop our German business, establishing a strong foothold in this important market. The acquisition of Gremtec in October 2018 gives us entry into the French market.
Specialty Fasteners has been performing excellently, with growth of 17%. We have strong trading relationships with manufacturers and contractors in the civil aerospace market, we have taken advantage of the positive structural trends in that sector. Margins have progressed well in the half, with a focus on gross margin and tight cost control. While we may see some Brexit related destocking impact, we remain excited about prospects in Controls in the second half. In my first two months, I have visited all of the businesses in the group. I've spent considerable amounts of time with the leadership teams. I've started to understand our businesses and the dynamics of our markets better, I've met many of our bigger shareholders. My initial impressions are very positive.
They support the due diligence I did before I joined, I'm sure they won't be too much of a surprise to you. The group has some fantastic fundamentals. The people I've met have been open, committed, and passionate about what they do. It's a decentralized model, one that I'm very familiar with in my time running Compass businesses, our people certainly demonstrate the local accountability necessary to operate this model successfully. They are agile and customer orientated, a key factor in making us niche and differentiated in our distributor model. We have some strong positions in important markets such as U.S. Seals, U.K. Controls, and Healthcare Australia and Canada. Finally, the track record for organic performance delivery, bolt-on acquisitions, and shareholder value creation is unquestionable. I joined because of these exciting foundations that provide a fantastic platform.
I wouldn't have joined Diploma if I didn't also think there was opportunity to develop the group in the future. Like all good businesses, we must continue to evolve. It would be complacent of us to stand still. The foundations I've just described must, of course, be preserved. Here's a few initial thoughts on how we might develop into this next phase. Firstly, we could focus on and leverage core, common Diploma capabilities to improve our business model, thus optimizing our performance as we get bigger and insulating ourselves from disruption in our deep specialization. This can be done without affecting the decentralized approach, local accountability, and our niche customer orientated model. That's important. Secondly, the development of our talent should be a priority.
With scale, our businesses require a more strategic and less tactical commercial approach to grow organically, a structured approach to the necessary incremental investment in technology and advanced facility management that scale demands. Finally, our portfolio of market sectors and products is generally strong. As we look forward, however, we will be very clear to focus our resources on developing in core scalable markets and products without commoditizing the model. In doing so, our approach to M&A will progress to recognize that we now compete for assets in a more structured and competitive environment. This will all be a natural and measured evolution of the business, with the objective of maintaining the excellent track record of shareholder value creation. Having been through such a journey in a decentralized model with Compass, I feel well positioned to manage this over the coming years.
I am excited to have joined such a great business with such a fantastic opportunity. After more time in the business, I'll elaborate further on these impressions in November. Finally, a few words on our outlook. We've made a strong start to the year. Although there are some early signals of slower industrial seals markets, our business model is resilient and successful, and we still have plenty of opportunity to improve. We're optimistic about the acquisition pipeline, and our full year expectations are positive and unchanged. We'll take your questions now. If you can raise your hand, someone will come with a microphone. If you wouldn't mind stating your name and institution before your question, I'd be very grateful. Thank you.
Thanks. Good morning. It's Henry Carver from Peel Hunt. Just one query on the aftermarket in the U.S. seals. Just to get a feel for the sort of influx of new machinery coming on stream. When that started, and if warranties are typically sort of three years, are they still, or are they longer than that, or shorter? Just to get a feel for when we might see that market come back in earnest.
I think in general, we've seen an uptick in the capital investment over the last year, 18 months or so. My experience, and Nigel should add to this, but my experience would be around about two years before they come out and into warranty. I guess that references my comment in the presentation about why we're positive about aftermarket trends in the next year or two.
Yeah, I mean, I would just add, Johnny's absolutely right there in that you'd expect in about 18 months because that's when the Trump tax cuts came through, and you got full depreciation on your new capital equipment, which was important on the new Tier 4 machinery. It is two years warranty or I think about 2,400 hours. At the rate they're working in the field, we expect to see some of that benefit coming out in the second half of the year.
Jane Sparrow from Barclays. Just a couple on your initial impressions, Johnny. Can you sort of give maybe just an example of how you mean to leverage common capability without impacting that local accountability? I know it's initial impressions, so you might not have too much detail, but just a sort of couple of examples maybe. The second one, on the recognizing that the approach to M&A has to progress to reflect that you now compete in slightly different processes.
Yeah.
What does that mean in terms of compromising on returns criteria?
Sure. Just on the first point on core competency. Having had the advantage of going to every single business very quickly, what's been encouraging for me has been while there are, of course, different sectors and different products within the system, actually the core competencies behind the model are very consistent. What therefore is interesting to me is the opportunity to be able to share best practice. I think it sounds fairly obvious, but doing it in a informal networking capacity and giving people the tools to be able to improve their businesses with reference to where we're exceptional at it without reinventing the wheel, I think is both natural and doesn't necessarily compromise their local accountability.
My expectation would be of them eventually, that if we're reviewing the business and there's a particular area where they have some challenges, that I would expect them as good managers to be able to reach out to Jimmy in another country and say, "Have you got the tools? Have you got the capability? Show me how to do it." I think, as I said, natural evolution means connecting up those dots. That's the first point. The second point on M&A, as we get, and as we have got bigger, of course, we start to compete with for fractionally bigger assets, which just means that we poke our head above the parapet and into processes that are structured, perhaps run by banks, et cetera, and with more people involved. They have become a little more competitive.
At the end of the day, we have a good track record, as Nigel pointed out, to maintaining discipline. That discipline will not change, and return on capital will still be very much part of our key metrics. Might we have to pay a turn or two more for certain really important strategic assets that we see, particularly the U.S.? Perhaps, but we wouldn't expect that to fundamentally change our disciplined approach. That's why we don't give any commitment to what we might do in the second half of the year.
Thanks. It's Will Kirkness from Jefferies. Firstly, just on trading, could you talk about current trading in that industrial seals business? It was something that wasn't flagged up at the pre-close as something that has changed. I just wondered if you could talk generally about the rates there. Then just a couple for Johnny. Just wondered firstly where you've added to headcount most.
I'm sorry?
Where you've added to headcount most since you've been with the group. Then secondly, you talk about tech and facilities. I just wonder whether we should anticipate a step up in CapEx.
Sure. Shall I take that?
You want to take the first one?
Yeah. I think increasingly over the last few weeks, we've read and seen indications in that industrial OEM space, both internationally but particularly in the U.S., that there is slower activity. We've seen some of our larger customers either asking us to delay delivery of orders, or we've seen just inventory, reported inventories being a little higher and people slowing down again with orders. That's quite consistent with what we're hearing from other industrial players in these markets as well. We're just a little cautious. Remember, industrial manufacturing is early cycle. Back in 2009, that's where we saw the first signs of things slowing down. The aftermarket follows quite a lot later.
Across the businesses, perhaps also Cubo in Switzerland, M-Seals in Denmark, again, just a little bit of slowdown in activity. You have to remember, last year, we were reporting 14% underlying growth in these businesses. It was exceptionally strong. We can't do that every year. We'd expect to see some slowing at some stage.
Just on the headcount point, I don't necessarily believe that we'll be investing significantly more in headcount. There may be some incremental changes to bring in some expertise that I feel the group might need for the long term. For example, we have an HR director for Diploma starting in a few weeks' time. It's very much incremental, as I said, an evolution, not revolution. On the tech and facilities point, you should not expect significant changes in the investment profile of the group. This is a decentralized model. I'm used to working in this environment, and large technological implementations don't necessarily work in our kind of environment. We've already started making some investments, as I talked about with the Louisville facility, and obviously, we've done some ERP implementation, so it's already baked into the investment profile, and I wouldn't expect that to change materially over the future.
Good morning. It's Julian Cater from Numis. Two unrelated questions, please. First, you alluded to your own Brexit build in terms of the inventory and the plans to unwind that in the second half, and just linking that with the comments that you made about your controls business and some of your customers bringing that forward. Are you also seeing your customers start to unwind the inventory that they built up in the run-up to March, and how should we think about controls growth, certainly in the second half of this year?
My second question in terms of the new facility you're developing in the U.S. within the seals business, is that focused on increasing the sort of geographic coverage and for the next day delivery, or should we also think about that in terms of broadening the product range as well to sort of grow your addressable market?
Do you want to take the first one and I'll take the second one?
Yeah, sure. As you rightly say, the controls business is, as you did expect, we have buffered up probably about GBP 2 million of inventory in advance of March 31st deadline, which we are now very much focused on winding down over the next six months. It's difficult to tell what's happening with our customers. Everything you hear anecdotally says that a lot of people are doing the same thing, one would expect that to be unwinding over the next six months. April has started off reasonably well, we haven't seen any obvious signs of that unwinding yet. I guess our view is cautious over the next six months, just as to when that stock will unwind, because it's definitely being built up out there.
I should just say the underlying controls growth is very much there, Brexit to one side. Whether it's 9%, 10% or whether it's a fraction lower than that, over the long term, I feel really positive about controls growth. Just going back to the facilities, I'm really excited about this facility in Louisville. I think to your question, it's part of why I'm excited about the runway for organic growth because at the moment, in our biggest market, in our biggest sector, we don't have the reach across the whole country. That should be a signal of how much organic growth potential the business has. By moving into this facility, of course, we broaden our geographical reach within the U.S., firstly.
I think secondly, it gives us a more advanced capability set because of course, part of the move is around automation and the technology that goes with that. Therefore, once you've done that, the opportunity to look to broaden the products that's going through it increases too. Of course, some of this is going to be incremental, we're going to learn a little bit as we go, but I think it's incredibly positive for the business. Again, to my point about having scale in some markets that allows you to make this kind of investment without commoditizing the model is critically important.
Gentleman here.
Hi, it's Karan from Moore Investment. I'm wondering how hands-on in the operations will you be relative to, let's say, Bruce. Are there any sort of granular KPIs that you're tracking at the operating subsidiary level? Just the level of touch that's going to be required.
It's an interesting question. I'll go back to what I said in my presentation about the importance of maintaining a decentralized model. That's my history, that's Diploma's history, and I believe that it's very much the foundation for the management approach, too. Don't forget, in order to maintain this customer-orientated niche offer at the front end, we need commercial, agile, and accountable managers. If I'm stamping all over them every five minutes, then you're going to lose that. That's certainly not what I intend to do. Of course, I've been around the businesses pretty intensively over the next couple of months. Of course, I may be a fraction more involved than Bruce was in his last year or two, but I think that's probably natural.
What I would like to do is, coming back to my first impressions, is perhaps to help people from a supporting capacity, putting the governance to one side, to provide the tools and capabilities to improve their own businesses, as I said to Jane a fraction earlier. I guess an important part of my time and my job will be to help design what those core capabilities are, to give them some form of substance, and to allow people to network and contact each other to be able to take their businesses forward, and that's what I'll be encouraging. It certainly won't be trampling all over their local accountability.