Good morning, and welcome to the Diploma Q3 Results Conference Call. This call is being recorded. I will now hand over to Johnny Thomson, CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining our Q3 trading update. I'm here, as usual, with Chris Davies. Just a few words from me to start with, and then we'll move straight on to Q&A. It's been another strong performance in quarter three, consistent with the half. Our year-to-date organic revenue grew by 6%, predominantly volume. And the trends across the three sectors are also broadly consistent. In Seals, we've seen more encouraging market share gains and strong structural end market tailwinds. And Seals were largely at the end of the destocking cycle, but broader industrial markets are still pretty tough, and growth, therefore, remains modest. In Life Sciences, we've seen some great business development activity and improving market dynamics, which is supporting mid-single-digit growth.
Overall, our reported revenue growth was 13%, 10% contribution from acquisitions and FX, just a little more of a headwind at -3%. I'm very happy with how Peerless and PAR have settled into the group with good early performances. And more generally, the acquisition pipeline remains strong. M&A markets seem to be picking up a little, and we have attractive opportunities across all the sectors and geographies. So overall, we're pleased with the performance and the progress so far in the year. You'll see a reminder of our full year outlook, which is positive and unchanged. Some markets remain a bit tough, but overall performance so far demonstrates, I think, the resilience of our business model and the continued execution of our strategy. So we're feeling good about continuing to deliver sustainable compounding. With that, I'll hand over to questions.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question today, please signal it by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. That is star one for your questions today. First up, we have Annelies Vermeulen from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, Chris. I have two questions, please. On the U.S. business, regarding some of the headlines in the press, we've seen recently around potential tariffs coming in under a new administration in the U.S., could you remind me what your exposure is here? How much of your goods, which are sold in the U.S., are imported from China or elsewhere? And is this an area of concern for you, you know, as we move through the rest of the year? That's the first one.
Okay, shall we take that one first then? Thanks, Annelies. Good morning. Look, obviously recognize the point you're making. I'm not too concerned about it at this stage. We've got about 10% of the U.S. supply chain comes from China. We've been working hard over many years now, actually, to localize, and about three quarters of the U.S. business is locally supplied right now. And even where, you know, it's not locally supplied, or indeed, it's China supplied, we do second source as well. So, you know, and I think we've seen in the past through previous Trump presidency, previous tariffs, previous supply chain crises, you know, I think our access to products competitively acts, in fact, as a competitive advantage for us. And we've seen in the past, you know, market share potential coming from that.
Windy City is a good example. And indeed, where we do have to pass on, I think the fact that we have good customer relationships, you know, we're a critical part of the value chain for our customers, we're able to pass that on, as well. So, yeah, of course, these things are work, but I'm not too concerned about it.
Okay, perfect. Thank you. And then secondly, again, on aerospace markets, again, a lot of mixed headlines from some of the OEMs and also the airlines, in fact, you know, continues to be quite volatile. It sounds like from your opening remarks that, there's nothing to see there in terms of aerospace remaining, you know, strong at Diploma. Are you seeing any softness anywhere or any indications of a slowdown?
No, I mean, I think, I think let's take a step back from it, you know, you know, I think maybe you're referring to Airbus just fractionally downgrading their their output, and Boeing's continued communications around, et cetera. For all, if you take a step back from aerospace market growing tremendously, and for us, these things are at the margins, they're at, at the edges of it. For us, we have... We're, we're in a great growing market. You know, Peerless, for example, is benefiting from lag in new builds, but also the very attractive MRO. If you have businesses in that environment which have critical supply chain advantage, with a quality reputation, as Peerless does, then, then you're in a great place.
So I think the things around Airbus and Boeing, for us, certainly are around the margins and the fundamentals of both the market's growth and the quality of the business position. For Peerless has started incredibly strongly, and I should also reference our other space fasteners business , Clarendon, and continues to perform incredibly strongly as well.
... Perfect. Thanks, Johnny. That's very clear.
Thank you. Up next, we have Ryan Flight from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning. So firstly, on the Seals division, you just kind of commented through in cycle. Could you give any kind of color on order patterns there? And it looks like we've seen some green shoots, if that's correct. And then secondly, if you could build on kind of any other end market trends. I know you just touched on any other end market trends would be very useful. Okay. Just on M&A, and if you've seen any changes in kind of price aspirations or trends or anything else you wanted to mention there.
Well, I'll let Chris maybe answer on the M&A point. I'll pick up the other two on Seals. As I said earlier, it's obviously patchy, but you know, the destocking cycle, industrial destocking cycle, we think is broadly at an end. You know, there are still patches here and there, but broadly it's at an end. But as we know, as we all know, industrial markets, you know, remain quite tough. Softer in the U.S. and the U.K., a lot tougher probably in continental Europe. From our perspective, we are expecting, you know, quiet sequential improvement, but it'll be a bit of time yet before we get the Seals businesses back, I think, towards the group average.
But, you know, just before I, just before I go on to the next part of your question, I think there's really three things I would say about it, though. The first is that even though the industrial markets and the destocking has been pretty tough, Seals is still printing a positive growth number. And I think, you know, that demonstrates, compared to, say, 10 or 15 years ago, much, much more resilient in the sector itself, which we're very pleased with. You know, secondly, in no way does this compromise the long-term attractiveness of the Seals sector. You know, we've got infrastructure investment coming, renewables investment. We've got lots to penetrate in US and Europe, and we've also got the rollout of our fluid power product set ongoing. So very confident about the long term.
I think the final point really about this is that it just demonstrates again the power of the diversity of the group. You know, if Seals is having a more modest year than Controls and others are having a more positive year, and so on and so forth, and it demonstrates, I think, the incremental attractiveness of the quality compounding model. So that's Seals. End markets. Well, I mean, end markets, I think the industrial sector, as I've just said, without repeating myself, that's definitely where we feel it, we feel it most. However, on the other side, yes, we've got aerospace, which is positive. There's also defense markets, which are positive. Energy markets are positive. All things data centers and technology, which had been quite slow, maybe 6-12 months ago, have now picked up a little bit.
You know, I think as I said in the, at the top, we're pretty encouraged by what we're seeing in the healthcare spaces as well. More investment coming into diagnostics again, which is, which is an exciting space to be. Surgical, coming back to normalized patterns as well. So there's plenty again, within the portfolio of, of end markets for us to be, for us to be, enthusiastic about. Chris?
Yeah, look on M&A markets, I think we are seeing a little bit more now in North America in particular, sort of coming back up to speed, perhaps less so in continental Europe. But I think it's important to point out here that, we're not particularly driven or guided by the macro market for acquisitions. You know, a lot of what we do with bolt-ons are bilateral. A lot of what we end up doing is the end product of multiple years of relationship building, business by business. So yes, there is a little bit more going on in macro. We are kind of as busy now as we were a year or two years ago, pretty active.
You know, we'll just get on and stick with the discipline we have and do the deals that make sense for us, it frankly, irrespective of what the market.
That's great. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. As a brief reminder, that is star one for your questions today. Up next, we have David Brockton from Deutsche Numis. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Can I ask just a couple around Windy City Wire? It feels like that business is obviously continuing to perform pretty strongly. I just wondered if you can touch on how broad-based the demand is there, given that obviously a lot of focus tends to be on sort of the data center side, but knowing that that business is quite broad-based in terms of security, fire, AV data, et cetera. Could you just touch on that? And also, given the growth that we are seeing, can you sort of touch on the capacity that store has to continue to sort of scale up going forward? Thanks.
All right. Thank you very much, Dave, David. Yeah, look, where are we on the growth perspective? I mean, I think probably if you looked at over the course of 10, 15 years, our core business, which in there, in Windy City's Wire, would be security, fire, AV. The core business has grown volumes at around the kind of 5-ish%, slightly better than the underlying market. Probably during the course of the last 12 months that slowed a little in slightly tougher markets, et cetera, less investment. What we're seeing now is that that's picking up back towards normalized levels.
Of course, on top of that 4%-5%, you have, you know, product mix benefits, and you also have acceleration from things like data centers, as you mentioned, and, and Digital Antenna Systems as well, which takes them up to their, to their full growth rate. So we're seeing that coming back to normal. I think probably slightly different profile from, you know, maybe a pre-COVID time. You know, a lot of the work that they would have done, as I said, was pretty much balanced between, new builds, commercial space versus refurbished commercial, commercial space. And unsurprisingly, I think the balance has switched toward a bit more towards the latter than the former. But at the moment, we're seeing underlying growth rates in that core business, pretty much consistent with the long-term track record.
Of course, as I mentioned, I think that this call and maybe previous calls as well, we're seeing a pickup in their data center business again, which, of course, is, you know, the cherry on the cake for them, as well. In terms of capacity, you know, one of the things that, you know, we benefited hugely from, and I think I've said this a few times in these calls, is that the business was incredibly well invested when we bought it. You know, so I'm not going to take any credit for that. That was already in place when we bought it, and that's in terms of their operation, the automation of their operations, it's in terms of their depot exposure, if you like, and where they have depots across the country.
It's also in terms of their technology and, and their management team. So of course, we add to that, and we have to continue to make sure it's fit for purpose and fit for the future, but it's very well invested, and there's no short or medium-term concerns around, you know, either machine or, facility constraints in that business, which would, in any way, disrupt the continued success of their delivery.
Thanks very much.
Thank you. Question now comes from Karin So from JPM. Please go ahead.
Morning. Thank you for taking my question. I think most of my questions were asked already. So maybe just one quick one to check on Q3. Maybe if you could comment a bit on the organic growth this quarter, specifically, is around kind of 7%. Is about right, as it seems it could be a bit higher based on some calculations? And also, if you could comment just around the exit rate in Q4. Thank you.
Yeah, yeah, that it's about right. I'm not going to give you the, the specific organic growth number, but that's about right. And exit rates per quarter, I wouldn't get too hung up on. There's a whole lot of working day noise I don't want to get dragged into. If, if you step back from this a little bit, and, and the way I look at it, as we kind of normalized coming out of, you know, whatever supply chain disruption there was post-pandemic, if you think about the last half of last year and those two quarters, the first half of this year and those two quarters, you know, this quarter together, if you, if you, you've got a pretty consistent, 6% organic growth, over that.
I wouldn't get hung up on whether one was, you know, 6.4 and the other was 5.6. I think we're demonstrating now through the cycle consistency at that kind of 6% level.
Perfect. Thank you.
Thank you. Once again, a brief reminder, that is star one for your questions today. We now move on to questions from Sam Dindol from Stifel. Please go ahead.
Morning, guys. Congratulations on the results. A couple questions for me, please. Firstly, on pricing, appreciate it's modest, but just wondering if any change in trends there and, you know, still comfortable you can still offset cost inflation through price. And then secondly, on the margin, they're clearly way above the 17% target. Is that something you'll look at at prelims? Should we expect, and any sense of what is a sensible through the cycle margin, given you've bought some very good businesses in the past year?
I'll let Chris comment on that in a second. Just on the pricing point, I mean, look, I think for us, the vast amount of inflation, post-COVID, supply chain and labor is now well past us. So from our perspective, we're more into normalized pricing, if you like, and that's something that you do every year forever, type of thing. And so, you know, we didn't have any problems passing through the inflated inflation, if I can say that. And we certainly don't envisage any challenges with passing through the inflation that we have at the moment, which is largely, I think for the moment, a bit of labor inflation and that's about it. So, business as usual in terms of pricing, I would say.
And look, on margins, I mean, you're right, Sam. I mean, I mean, clearly, we are operating at a level, you know, somewhat above the teens, historically. I'm not going to give you, you know, new ones, but yeah, we are clearly looking at, you know, how we would expect, how we would shape that going forward. But I think the sort of level we've guided out this year, is, you know, is the level we should be operating at. You know, with...
Again, back to that pricing point, if you think about, you know, the way we talk about margin in this business, price cover inflation, and then if selectively we invest the operating, or partly reinvest the operating leverage that comes from these growing businesses, then we would expect a, you know, a moderate level of margin expansion as we grow and as expected from the levels we sit at now.
Brilliant. Thank you.
Thank you. As there are currently no further questions in the queue, I'd like to hand the call back over to you, Mr. Thomson, for any additional or closing remarks.
We're happy with the performance, we're happy with our progress, and we're carrying some good momentum, and we'll see you again in November. Thank you very much for joining.
Thank you for joining today's call, ladies and gentlemen. You may now disconnect.