Welcome to the Morgan Advanced Materials strategy update. My name is Ian Marchant. I'm the Chair, and I'm just literally going to set the scene before I hand over to Pete, our Chief Executive, and Richard, our CFO, who I'm sure you all know. So I believe that we at Morgan have the potential to be a leading force in our chosen markets, and that's within reach. Why do I believe that? Because we've got the capabilities and clear differentiators that have been layered over the last century. It's not many companies that can look back over that length of time, and they form our strong foundations.
Now, I do recognize that the last few years has not been an easy time for the company, but we're going to set out today a clear multi-year strategy to improve operations, focusing on our larger sites, improve asset utilization, drive stronger, higher margin growth, and actively manage the value of our portfolio. And the strategy will be able to enable us to unlock our potential and be a leading force in the markets in which we operate. So I'm confident in our prospects that we've got the right team to help us deliver. But actually, you don't want to hear from me. You want to hear from them. So welcome, and over to you, Pete .
Thank you, Ian. And thank you, everybody, for taking the time and being here today. It's been a pleasure to have you. Everything I'm going to be talking about today is about becoming the leading force in our chosen markets. And I'm really excited to share with you our strategy on how to get there. After that, Richard will be covering the financials. We'll have some time for Q&A, and I hope some of you stay with us for informal discussions over drinks. So there are four points that I would like you to take away today.
We're setting a clear path to achieve 12% margins by 2028. We're focusing on our right to win to drive above GDP growth at higher margins. We're executing distinctive strategic mandates for each of our divisions, and we're maximizing portfolio value to sustain 12%-14% margins further out. Many of you are familiar with Morgan, so my introduction will be short about the company, and I won't start with products and markets. We felt it'd be good to start with our impact. So.
This is a world driven by innovation, where materials science powers progress, shaping how we move, connect, and explore. Our solutions are at the heart of society's most essential systems today and enable the breakthroughs of tomorrow. We help the world to travel cleaner and faster, from carbon seals that enable safe and reliable air travel to advanced technologies for greener mobility over land, in the sky, and beyond. Increasing reliability, reducing emissions for a more sustainable future. Dependable energy will define the next era.
Our technology in wind, solar, and energy storage systems powers industries, communities, and homes, delivering more than electricity: reliability, opportunity, and growth. We support the systems societies rely on for safety: materials that protect buildings, vehicles, and people from fire and blast, resilient by design. Rapid digitalization is transforming the planet.
We enable production of the semiconductors driving progress in telecoms, data centers, and artificial intelligence. We work with precision at life's most critical moments. From cutting-edge surgical lasers to oncology equipment and medical implants, our solutions are transforming healthcare. From the widest horizons to the tightest spaces, our products help people move, build, and thrive. Morgan Advanced Materials: powering human progress where it matters most.
I hope that gave you an inspiring view on how we impact the world and how we're uniquely positioned to power progress that truly matters. And we're passionate about it. So clearly, this is a fantastic business, and we will make it even better. But before I explain how we do that, just give you a quick snapshot of where we are today. So we're the global leader in advanced materials with a turnover of GBP 1 billion, a global network of 57 plants, and approximately 8,000 employees.
Our core capabilities, for which we're well known and sought after, are materials science, deep application expertise, and co-design and manufacturing excellence. Our customers trust us for supplying mission-critical solutions. At the core of our activity, there are technology-demanding applications of advanced ceramics, graphite, and carbon. These are very versatile materials.
So we formulate and we process them to tune their porosity, their hardness, their electrical conductivity, their thermal and their chemical resistance, their mechanical strength, and many other physical properties. And that leads us to supply around 3,000 combinations of materials and applications. So as you can imagine, in a business like this, agility and customer intimacy are critical factors. And this is why our three divisions are the backbone of our operating model.
They're set up to have short operational decision-making processes and to be in close proximity with our markets and with our customers. This organization also drives agility, and it drives performance. The divisions have full accountability for their P&L. Let me now bring to life what we do and how we differentiate with three examples.
Take a first example in aircraft engines, where we turn graphite and carbon into safety-critical seals, which have to adhere to strict aerospace standards. They're simple things. Seals, they look simple, but they're not. There is a lot of material science and process know-how that goes into them, from raw material selection to mixing, pressing, heat treatment, testing, and inspection. The second example is in healthcare diagnostics. Here, our differentiation is our ability to manufacture specialized ceramic-to- metal a ssemblies to operate in high voltage and high vacuum environments.
The quality of these assemblies is the critical piece to the performance and the precision of the imaging systems. The last example, I'll take a recent innovation in automotive. For compression engines, when the new European regulations were announced, there was no ceramic fiber available in the market that was able to comply with the new limits.
Within 24 months, we developed a new ceramic material to solve this problem. We were able to crack this in time for our customers. That's because we have the material science, the rapid prototyping, and the capability to test according to the industry standards. All these three examples show how our closeness to our customers, our technology expertise, and our ability to solve problems create value for our customers. These collaborations create loyalty and trust for years, sometimes for decades.
Another strength is that we're diversified across end markets and applications. Today, I'm sharing this breakdown of our business by markets. It's a different chart to the one that you've seen before. My intention here is to provide more clarity, taking on board your feedback.
I'll refer to it in this presentation later when I'll comment on executing our strategic priorities for each of the divisions. A few things to note on this chart. Approximately 40% of our business is exposed to manufacturing investment cycles. That means that during market recovery, we grow faster than GDP. Conversely, during recession, our growth is more subdued. It's also important to understand that within these markets, there are a range of end market dynamics. If I take the example of industrial components, you have parts for water purification.
You have parts for automotive, like I just mentioned. You have parts for analytical equipment. Each of these has their own market dynamics, and that contributes to our resilience. Now, in addition, this diversity of end markets opens a lot of opportunities to grow.
I've talked to you about who we are, how we create value with technology, and about our diverse end markets. You've seen how these key capabilities come into play to create value with the examples and how our market position is underpinned by strong and clear differentiators. I've been with the business three years now. And since my appointment as CEO, I've had time with all our senior leadership and our broader teams. And I've been so impressed by our winning culture.
We thrive when it comes to solving tough problems. We embrace challenges, and we're resilient and united as a team. So what has held us back? There is a clear and consistent thread to where we're limiting our own progress. Our supply chains are not sufficiently effective, and they're not efficient enough either.
This holds back our service levels, constrains our growth, leaves margin on the table, and above all, it distracts us from executing. We've positioned ourselves in growth markets, but we have not been sufficiently disciplined and proactive in leveraging our right to win, and we have not been sufficiently upgrading our position in the value chain to grow irrespective of market cycles. It is my priority, together with the executive team and our senior leaders, to address these areas and unlock our potential.
We can be the leading force in our chosen markets. A successful growth agenda starts with how we can unlock our customers' ambitions and serve their needs. I've had the privilege of meeting several of them, and we've also been listening to their feedback, looking at their feedback. We asked 300 of them what they thought of us, and the message was consistent.
Our product quality and reliability are excellent. In many cases, they are unsurpassed. However, there is a real opportunity to improve both our lead times and our delivered performance in these areas, we're not best in class. Our customers expect better from us. We can and we will do this. As you can see to the right of the chart, the customers we surveyed also want a more strategic relationship with us. We have this strategic relationship with half of them already, but we have many more opportunities to build more collaborative relationships. So in summary, our customers are telling us two things.
Step up your game in delivered performance and move toward a more extensive, higher-value collaboration. You don't have to take my word for it. Actually, I'll invite you to take a moment to hear from one of our customers, John Crane. We asked Mike Eason, their CTO, about his experience of working with us. Let's see what he has to say.
Morgan has a long and respected heritage in advanced material science, and their carbon and silicon carbide components consistently meet the high standards our sealing solutions demand. But the real differentiator was Morgan's mindset. They offered more than materials performance and manufacturing consistency. They offered partnership and a willingness to engage in early-stage technical collaboration. They demonstrated a clear understanding that precision, repeatability, and reliability are non-negotiable for John Crane. And they delivered these against expectations while investing in materials and manufacturing innovation.
Our customers are often operating in extreme conditions that push technology to its limits: high pressures and high temperatures. In addition, they need to comply with increasingly demanding environmental regulations. The materials we provide must be capable of maintaining seal performance under those kinds of stresses while also supporting our drive towards more energy-efficient and lower-emission solutions.
Partnering with Morgan helped us access advanced material properties that improved seal life, reduced frictional losses, and enabled operation with cleaner fluids and gases, all of which directly contribute to improving performance and helping our customers reach their sustainability goals. The collaboration with Morgan has been excellent. Their technical and engineering teams operate seamlessly with ours. They are open, responsive, and committed to finding the right solution, not just delivering a part. I think what really stood out was their proactive approach.
They didn't just work to the specifications. They helped refine it through testing, data sharing, and problem-solving. That level of engagement accelerates innovation and has helped build genuine trust between our organizations. Together, we've delivered mechanical seal components with significantly higher reliability, improved wear resistance, and greater operational efficiency. For our customers, that means reduced maintenance intervals, lower total cost of ownership, and measurable reductions in energy consumption.
Beyond the technical gains, the partnership supported our supply chain resilience and demonstrated the real value our customers benefit from when advanced material science and engineering expertise are combined. We would definitely collaborate with Morgan again. We already view Morgan as a strategic partner, not just a supplier.
And there is a real potential to extend this collaboration beyond components into new materials research, sustainable manufacturing processes, and the co-development of complete sealing and bearing solutions. This is particularly exciting for emerging energy sectors such as hydrogen, carbon capture, and biofuels, where innovation and reliability are critical.
What is the way forward for Morgan, and how do we unlock our potential? Our strategy is simple, and we have three clear levers. First, we want to transform our operational effectiveness. We have a well-established and successful practice of continuous improvement. It has delivered at least GBP 10 million per year of manufacturing efficiency savings. We will now go beyond this. We'll be more holistic, and we will leverage our group scale to transform our operational effectiveness. And we will address the performance of a few large underperforming sites. These actions will improve our costs, and they will help us grow.
But to really drive stronger growth, which is our second lever, we need to be more proactive and programmatic in strategic collaborations with our customers and other stakeholders in the value chain in order to expand our value proposition.
We need to focus our efforts where we have the strongest right to win and consistently upgrade this right to win so that we can grow irrespective of market conditions. Our third lever is to maximize our portfolio value. We've carried out a thorough review of our products and applications with a focus on assessing the market attractiveness and the strength of our right to win.
We will actively manage our portfolio and pursue bolt-on M&A to support and accelerate a step change in market position where there is a clear opportunity, or where we determine that we're not the best owner for the business, we'll seek to divest. Let's now look at these levers in detail, and I'll start with operational effectiveness. This is all about making more of the group's scale and of its digital transformation.
There is a significant opportunity in procurement, which is currently the responsibility of individual sites or business units. In the past few months, we've collected and consolidated data at group level, and we have determined where to focus our efforts. We've also implemented information systems to provide real-time consolidated insights about our spend. We can now deploy group-led category management. Initially, we will target GBP 170 million of indirect procurement spend. This will deliver significant savings and reinforce the reliability and the efficiency of our supply chain.
We're also implementing transformation plans for underperforming larger sites that represent around 20% of the group revenue. These are structured, comprehensive multi-year programs. They focus on the optimization of the production cycles, the simplification of the asset base, and of the product lines.
Together, these actions, which are in addition to our existing programs of continuous improvement, will deliver GBP 20 million margin improvement by 2028. We're also investing in the digital transformation of our back office. All administrative activities will be done through standardized processes to ensure consistent service reliability at the optimal cost. We've already implemented change in selected countries in accounting and in payroll. The pace will accelerate with the deployment of our centralized ERP system. This transformation will enhance our business analytics.
Our decisions will be better informed. Margin improvement opportunities will be identified faster, and we will be more agile. I want to be clear. These are not simply cost-improvement projects. They support and they enable growth. They make our business more scalable, and they allow us to leverage that scale. So let's talk now about how we're going to drive stronger growth.
Here, it's about leveraging our right to win and constantly upgrading our position in the value chain. We're doing this already, and that's why we know that it works and that it creates value. Our strategy is to do this in a proactive and programmatic way. I'll give you three examples. The first is where we can develop the scope of our supply from a single component to a multifunctional subsystem. Imagine the rail system in North America in winter.
You have Arctic temperatures, freezing pantographs. If you're the operator, you don't want electric current to be passing through ice. So what you typically do is you purchase a heating system from a specialist engineering company, and you bolt it onto the pantograph. We developed a heating system to be integrated into the collector strip for one of our customers, RTD Denver. Now, the collector has become a higher-value subsystem.
It simplifies sourcing and maintenance activities. We've sold it to other operators, and we are developing similar system upgrades for other customers. The second example is our ability to co-develop a technology that enables game-changing advancements of the end product. We've been doing that in aerospace, where we developed a new process and material solution that allows our customers, who are engine manufacturers, their specialized casting houses, to generate complex cooling channels in the turbine blades and vanes of a modern jet engine.
These more effective cooling channels are a critical enabler of the higher fuel efficiency of new generation engines like GE's GEnx series, Safran's LEAP engine, and Pratt & Whitney's Geared Turbofan family. Oops, sorry. The third example is where we establish a right to win via structural partnership along the value chain.
We're seeing that in fire protection in the UAE, where the enforcement of a more stringent building fire regulation has created a compelling value for our ceramic fiber technology. We can't sell this ourselves. We don't have the network. So we're joining forces, developing, marketing, and scaling up a new compliant duct system with leading fabricators who are local, well-established, and operating at scale with building companies, engineering houses, architects.
These are just three examples of how we're strengthening strategic relationships to drive stronger growth. We're now being more proactive and more programmatic on these opportunities. Here is how we've decided on our focus as we do this. As I said, we've carried out a thorough review of our products and applications with a focus on establishing the market attractiveness and the strength of our right to win.
We're seeing that in fire protection in the UAE, where the enforcement of a more stringent building fire regulation has created a compelling value for our ceramic fiber technology. We can't sell this ourselves. We don't have the network. So we're joining forces, developing, marketing, and scaling up a new compliant duct system with leading fabricators who are local, well-established, and operating at scale with building companies, engineering houses, architects.
These are just three examples of how we're strengthening strategic relationships to drive stronger growth. We're now being more proactive and more programmatic on these opportunities. Here is how we've decided on our focus as we do this. As I said, we've carried out a thorough review of our products and applications with a focus on establishing the market attractiveness and the strength of our right to win.
This systematic approach is new to Morgan and is already driving decisions in our business. We determined that our CDS business was in an end market that was relatively less attractive to us and that there was not enough potential for us to enhance its right to win. We sold the business. In semiconductors, we're making a clear distinction between material growth and wafer fabrication, which are two different parts of the value chain with very different dynamics.
For material growth, although there is a large and growing market, especially in silicon carbide, the supply chain is experiencing a shift to China. We remain committed when the market returns to supply our customers in the U.S. and Europe.
The highest purity products which we provide them are critical to the differentiation of their materials, but we have adjusted our growth expectations, and we are redeploying some of the new capacity to other markets. We're focusing on the wafer fabrication part of the value chain. It is dominated by American, European, and Japanese OEMs, and the barriers to entry are high. We're supplying most of them, ASML, Applied Materials, Axcelis, in various parts of their process. Our goal is to deepen our collaboration, working as one enterprise, and expand the scope of our supply.
You will see other examples of these portfolio choices. I come on to talk about our divisional priorities. So let me recap shortly on our three strategic levers. We're taking transformational steps in operational effectiveness by leveraging our scale in supply chain and back office, and by focusing on fixing a few large underperforming sites.
We will rely less on the underlying growth of our markets. Instead, we will drive margin-enhancing growth through a much stronger alignment with our key customers and channel partners. We're shaping our right to win and optimizing our position in the value chain to maximize our portfolio value. What I want to do now is to provide some color on the implication of this strategy and its practical implementation for each of our three operating divisions. I'll start with Thermal Products. In Thermal Products, the majority of sales are in process industries, which are mature, more competitive cyclical markets, and currently at a trough.
We set the benchmark in these markets in insulation standards, and we benefit from a large installed base. So the objective for this cash-generative division is to optimize cost, enhance delivery performance, and expand in high-value segments.
In transforming operational effectiveness, Thermal Products already have a strong track record in deploying the best manufacturing practices across its global network. An additional focus now is on asset utilization, which is targeted to improve significantly already in 2026. We also have a phased program in progress to turn around the performance at our largest site, where we expect progressive improvements in revenue and margins to continue over the coming three years. To drive stronger growth, we're reinforcing our outreach in the process industries to enable the decarbonization of steel and chemical processes.
For example, we've been selected by one of the largest petrochemical plants in North America to supply insulation for the construction of their low-carbon plant. To maximize value, we have set up structural partnerships in fire protection. This is a very large market, and we're targeting the geographies and the applications where the value proposition is compelling.
The mandate for Thermal Products is to deliver GDP growth and sustained 8%-10% margins. In Performance Carbon, our products are critical to pumps, motors, generators. They're essential components that form the backbone of many industrial systems, and we have a large installed base. We're also in highly regulated markets such as aviation, rail, defense, and this provides a high barrier to entry. Our leadership position across these markets underpins our high margins. The objective here is to constantly renew our differentiation, extend our leadership in mature markets, and expand the addressable market.
As part of our transformational program, we're improving our lead times and enhancing our ability to serve the aftermarket. Our teams are already pushing here. To drive stronger growth, we're capitalizing on our reputation and innovation in armor by expanding to other defense systems. We're adding incremental capacity next year to fulfill multi-year contracts.
As we maximize our portfolio values, industrial seals is a significant opportunity. The supply chain is very fragmented and can be optimized for efficiency. There are new technology-demanding applications driven by the decarbonization and digitalization trends, which call for innovation, as we've heard from John Crane. We're exploring ways to move parts from parts to subsystems, as we've done in other markets. Remember the pantograph. The mandate for Performance Carbon overall is to deliver GDP-plus growth and sustained 14%-18% margins.
In Technical Ceramics, we're positioned in large, attractive markets like aerospace, defense, and healthcare, and we hold leadership positions in specific niches that can be leveraged for adjacencies. The objective of this division is to optimize the manufacturing network, bolster our leadership positions, and grow our market share.
We're transforming operational effectiveness by rebalancing production among sites and optimizing the capacity and capabilities and costs across the networks. Driving stronger growth starts with extending our leadership position in ceramic cores for engines in the aerospace and defense market. We understand our customers and their customers as well, and we're investing in capacity to meet the progressive ramp-up of aircraft deliveries in the medium term.
In maximizing our portfolio value, we're leveraging our expertise in high-value niches to expand into new adjacencies with priorities in industrials and aerospace. Across our divisions, we see the largest revenue growth potential for Technical Ceramics. The mandate for this division is to target 12%-16% margins. Lastly, I want to give you a sense of the timeframe.
In the near term, we will benefit from the initiatives which are entirely in our gift to execute, leveraging the group scale and digitalization for cost and efficiency gains, increasing our market share by improving delivery performance and with additional channel partnerships. Together with the drop-through from a modest market recovery, we target 12% margins by 2028.
Beyond that, we will reach 14% through building on leadership positions to expand into adjacencies, deepening our position in the value chain and portfolio management. This strategy provides us with a clear roadmap to be the leading force in our chosen markets. We have the right structure, the right team to execute this agenda. I will now hand over to Richard.
Thank you, Pete. In this part of the presentation, I'm going to convey four important messages. We have a clear path to a 12% sustainable operating margin by 2028, driven by our focus strategy and self-help actions. We have a clear capital allocation policy with a near-term focus to invest in the businesses outlined, continue to pay our dividend, and to reduce leverage to within our stated range of one to one and a half times.
We have strong conviction that cash conversion will improve as investment normalizes, providing the opportunity for additional investment and returns in due course, and we have updated our financial framework to reflect the opportunity for value creation as well as the reality of our end markets. In thinking about our margin target, we have taken a cautious approach with regard to end market recovery and are not planning for a recovery until late 2026.
We will therefore move into our target margin range predominantly through our own improvement actions, which gives us confidence in our financial framework. Of course, if end markets recover faster, the work we have done to reduce our manufacturing cost base over the last three years, coupled with our planned optimization opportunities, gives us the opportunity to accelerate that margin improvement via a healthy drop-through.
Taking the consensus expectation for the second half of 2025 of 9% as the starting point, there are three drivers of a return to 12% that deliver in approximately equal proportions and which mainly require us to execute action plans that are in our own control. We will firstly build on our track record of continuous improvement, which has on average generated net savings of at least GBP 10 million per annum by delivering more substantial benefits from our transformation of supply chain and procurement.
As you can see from Pete 's presentation, we do have a lot to go for. We will also in this period start to benefit from our investment in digitalization and back office transformation. Secondly, having nearly completed our rationalization of manufacturing sites for the time being, we will focus on turnaround plans for a number of sites where performance is suboptimal and where there is the opportunity for margin enhancement once performance has been improved. Thirdly, we do anticipate some benefit of sales growth.
This will partly be from an element of market recovery, but Pete has also spoken of the opportunity to grow in focus areas where we have a strong right to win, so growth in the near term will be as much about good execution as about market recovery.
Beyond 2028, operational effectiveness will drive further margin expansion with the benefits of digitalization and back office transformation accelerating through improved planning, forecasting, customer service, and transactional efficiency. Then we expect continued growth in the focus areas that we have described, which will be margin accretive. Finally, Pete has referred to the growth opportunity from proactively managing our business portfolio.
This will involve much more precise capital allocation to accelerate organic growth along with partnerships and bolt-on M&A. And whereas any time we find we have businesses that don't meet the requirements of our financial framework, we will not hesitate to divest them as we did with CDS.
In terms of margin impact, we anticipate the need for some benefit from this activity to get us to 14%, but given the growth potential and accretive margins in a number of our end markets, there is the potential over time for margin to progress even further. Moving on to capital allocation, we are fully aware that the decline in our EBITDA combined with the need to complete our investment in semiconductor capacity, albeit cut back, has resulted in our leverage moving above our target range. We are focused on correcting that and will bring leverage to around one and a half times over the next two years.
Our target leverage therefore remains in the one to one and a half times range in relation to ongoing operations, and as before, we would consider increasing this in due course into the one and a half to two times range in the event of a compelling acquisition. While organic capital investment remains a priority in support of organic growth opportunities, we foresee limited needs for capacity investment and expect to be able to maintain overall CapEx at around 1.2 times depreciation. We will maintain the dividend for now, then grow it in line with adjusted earnings once cover returns to around two and a half times.
However, in the very short term, we will prioritize stabilization of the balance sheet as we go through the current downturn, as well as our organic investment, and will pause our buyback following completion of the current tranche.
Once stabilized, we will consider the need to fund inorganic investment alongside additional returns to shareholders. The board will review this situation regularly, recognizing the opportunity that additional returns present to return cash to shareholders and enhance earnings. The outcome of these measures can be seen in our cash flow forecast. On the left-hand side of the chart, you can see the forecast for the next two years reflecting our short-term focus on stabilizing the balance sheet. We have allowed for a modest increase in EBITDA in line with analyst consensus over the next two years.
We're also allowing for GBP 45 million of receipts from the sale of our shares in Foseco India, mainly during 2026. As well as reducing our capital expenditure, we're coming to the end of our restructuring program, allowing exceptional costs also to wind down in 2026.
We are investing in a digital transformation, first in the form of our ERP, while also embracing new data analytics and data management capabilities that are enabling better decision-making and business management. We expect that to continue at around GBP 20 million per annum until the second half of 2027 when we will have completed our ERP program. We will keep dividends stable and pause the buyback. Taken together, these measures give the opportunity for leverage to come down steadily as EBITDA improves.
Then, once we've achieved that steady state, we anticipate achieving a good level of free cash flow conversion at around 65%, giving the opportunity for meaningful further investment and/or returns to shareholders. As noted, we expect our capital expenditure to stabilize at around GBP 50-GBP 55 million a year, or 1.2 times depreciation, having completed our investment in semiconductor capacity.
This will allow for investment of around GBP 28 million in new capacity in line for our strategy over the next three years, focused on those opportunities where growth is already evident and where we have a strong right to win. We would then expect maintenance CapEx to remain at around one times current depreciation. It is worth noting that this does reflect one benefit of our having closed 26 factories between 2016 and 2025, in that our need for maintenance capital has diminished over time, leaving scope for future investment in capacity should growth require it.
Finally, I will sum up with our updated financial framework. Pete has spoken of the strategic mandates for our segments, with Technical Ceramics and Performance Carbon expected to grow ahead of GDP, while Thermal Ceramics will be slightly below.
Overall, we expect our growth over the next few years to amount to some one to two percentage points ahead of GDP. Our margin target is to achieve 12%-14%. This is largely based on transformational measures we can undertake ourselves, with a cautious element of market recovery also assumed. Our target for return on invested capital remains in the 17%-20% range. Our target leverage range also remains the same, and once stabilized, we would aim to keep leverage in the one to one and a half times range in relation to ongoing operations, and we'll consider increasing this into the one and a half to two times range in the event of an acquisition.
Our ambition then is to achieve sustained growth in adjusted EPS through above GDP organic revenue growth, a greater focus on self-help from operational excellence and portfolio optimization, then enhancing returns to shareholders as appropriate. Thank you, and I'll hand back to Pete for concluding remarks.
Thank you, Richard. I'm going to conclude with our four key messages. We're setting a path to achieve 12% margins by 2028. We're focusing on our right to win to drive above GDP growth at higher margins. We're executing three distinctive mandates for each of our divisions, and we're maximizing portfolio value to sustain 12%-14% margins further out. Thank you.