Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the Porvair PLC interim results presentation. Thank you all for coming, those of you in the room and those of you who are listening elsewhere. This won't take very long. This is a decent set of results for the first half against a very consistent strategy. Hasn't changed now for many years. James will take you through the financial results for the first six months in just a moment. Record set of results, but with some interesting inconsistencies across the divisions, which we'll touch on. The aggregate results are good. The five, 10, and 15-year track record of the business, which we put up on slide two, is largely unchanged, and we don't see that changing very much in the balance of the year.
To remind you, and very quickly, what we do, we're essentially a filtration business, specialist filtration. We make all sorts of engineered products that clean, curtail emissions, prepare samples, reduce waste, and so on. There are a number of attractive business characteristics that that brings us. We are essentially a niche manufacturer. We have very long life cycles. Good barriers to entry, some patents, mostly design or quality accreditation, which is what we really prefer in terms of barriers to entry. Then some fundamental demand drivers, which we list on this slide in the top right. I won't take you through them. I think they're very well known.
To some extent, the trick with a business like this is to make sure we remain in the swim, so we continue to be to have a following wind with these global growth trends, and that is certainly the case across most of what we do in the last six months. In terms of how we set the business up, we have three divisions. You see them here in different colors, and this is a rather a busy slide, but it's quite important in terms of the sort of background, and it gives you the share of revenues. Highly regulated markets, some more than others. Aerospace, very highly regulated. Water quality, very highly regulated.
Some which are perhaps less regulated, but no less powerful in terms of, you know, metal melt quality. The aluminum in a wing strut or the back of an iPhone is very tightly controlled by Apple or Boeing, and that gives us useful moat, useful barriers to entry. Clear growth drivers, that's the sort of growth, that sort of GDP growth, GDP plus growth, that these markets can deliver. Competitive advantage is mainly around the installed base. This is the sort of business where once you are specified on a given job, you tend to stay there unless you make a significant mistake or get your pricing or delivery wrong. These, I think, are quite well known.
I'm gonna move through them quickly because we have talked about them in the past and they don't change. Neither does the strategy. The development of specialist filtration businesses for the benefit of all stakeholders. This phrase, the principal measures of success, we actually do come back to a lot internally. It does inform what we do, how we think about things, how we motivate and incentivize the staff, consistent earnings growth and ESG metrics. We're not gonna talk about ESG. That is very much this time around. We do it in much more detail for the final results, though, in the January, and we produce a full ESG report at the same time as the financials in at the end of January, and we'll report again in on that in six months.
It is worth saying that everybody's all senior management in the business have ESG metrics as part of their incentive package. No change to the strategy, and that really means finding and sticking with regulated markets with long-term growth prospects. I've shown you that. Continual customer-led product development, and it's been a very good six months for that, and James will pick up on one or two of the more eye-catching new products in a moment. We allocate cash. Mainly organic growth and margin enhancement, and there's very good e-evidence of that coming through in the results.
The odd acquisition, we have made one in the last six months, I'll come back to Ratiolab a bit later, then a progressive dividend, which is increased by GBP 0.1 -GBP 2 at the interim stage this year. This probably is the sort of main slide in terms of how we are actually trading. It's been an unusual year. We've had strength in aero and petrochemical and clean water. We've had destocking, quite sharp destocking in consumables, in laboratory and industrial. Then we've had inflationary pressures easing on the input, on the raw material side, but still pretty strong in services and wages.
Um, and, and those things have made it a more difficult year to manage, uh, uh, than, than some, uh, and our res-response is to, uh, continue with investment and, and sort of keep going because we don't see anything fundamental, uh, uh, uh, changing in, in, in the business. So to, to give you a bit more detail on that, uh, destocking of consumables is different rates in different markets. Um, mar- more marked in laboratory, less so perhaps in industrial. Um, and, and so the year is turning out to be, uh, the exact opposite of last year. Last year, laboratory was going very strongly, and aerospace was weak for reasons that everybody... Post-pandemic reasons everyone understands. The reverse is true in twenty twenty-three. The net effect is, is, is, uh, is positive.
Actually, if you look at the, in many cases, this doesn't quite work in aggregate, but in many cases, business by business, if you look at their February 2022 order book and divide it by the lead times they were then offering and do the same sum today, the result is the same. We are simply seeing destocking right the way across the sort of consumables markets. It was interesting that the same pattern, when we came to look closely at Ratiolab in the due diligence, they have seen exactly the same same pattern. That's encouraging. Looking ahead, we're just sort of, it's a bit too early to call as to whether where we are in the destocking cycle, whether we're at the end of it.
It's been going on a while, so can't go on for very much longer. Whether we're gonna get stability in the second half or whether other tailwinds kick in to make life more difficult, we'll see. We feel relatively positive about the second half, but it is too early to tell, so we'll have to come back and give a bit more detail of that in the third quarter. I think with regard to laboratory, it's worth saying, again, no change to the fundamentals. Laboratory's four-year revenue compound growth rate is 9.7%. It was much higher than that this time a year ago, and so it's perhaps not surprising that things are gonna even out in the six months to May 2023.
We expect to see things sort of evening out as we go into 2024. It has been an unusual period, a period of change and some pressure, but I think for the time being, we are managing things adequately well. That's it for me for the time being. James will now take you through some of the financial detail.
Okay, thank you, Ben. Good morning, everybody. Moving to slide seven for those dialing in, which, as usual, gives the headlines of the financial performance for the period. Top left-hand side, group revenue is up 10% in the half, as you can see across the top of the slide here, revenue performance has been mixed across the divisions, where we have had strong double-digit growth in aerospace & industrial and metal melt, whilst laboratory has settled back a little as anticipated. As usual, I'll give some insight into the divisional performance in a moment. Bottom left, adjusted profit before tax, up 20% to GBP 11.8 million, whilst adjusted basic EPS up 22% to 20.3 pence.
At the period end, we continue to maintain a strong balance sheet, which included GBP 19.7 million of cash. Turning the slides into slide eight. As usual, these are just the adjusted results this morning. Details of the adjusting items could be found in note one to the statement from this morning. The 10% revenue growth has delivered GBP 90.6 million in the period, with the top line growth coming from price increases introduced over the last year or so, right across the group. Increased volumes in aerospace & industrial and metal melt, which have more than offset reduced volumes in certain parts of the laboratory division.
We've also had some growth coming from foreign exchange tailwinds in the period, primarily from the US dollar relative to sterling on the retranslation of our US operations. Revenue growth was 5% at constant currency. The operating profit of GBP 12.2 million is up 17% on prior period, with margin improvement to 13.5%, up against the 12.6 that we had at this time last year. You can see here the interest charge has reduced a little to GBP 0.4 in the period following the repayment of debt at the back end of last year, and the effective rate of tax has also reduced a little from 22% in the prior period to the 21% being consistent with the rates that we had at year-end.
The 17% increase in operating profit, together with a reduced interest charge, and reduced rates of tax, has dropped 22% increase through the EPS to 20.3 pence. Moving across, slide nine to the cash flow. Calling out some of the headlines from the period. Cash generated from operations at GBP 8.2 million is GBP 1 million up on prior period, and you will recall from the January results announcement that we agreed to increase our deficit recovery payments into the UK defined benefit scheme, increasing from GBP 1.6 to GBP 2.1, and that started in December 2022, which is in these numbers here. Working capital increased by GBP 5 million, broadly consistent with the prior period.
As a reminder, we typically see a working capital outflow in the first half of the year. Moving down the cash flow, calling out some of the headlines, you can see we have been busy still on capital investment. We invested a further GBP 2.2 million in the period on various initiatives across the group. As I've mentioned earlier, Ben's touched on, finished the period with GBP 19.7 million of cash on the balance sheet and no debt. That position is GBP 7.5 million up on this time last year. The cash position is GBP 1.4 million up on the year-end. As ever, a reminder, these cash numbers that I talked to exclude the IFRS 16 lease liabilities, which forms part of our reported position.
A word on the interim dividend, Ben has already mentioned, actually, the board has maintained the group's progressive dividend policy and has approved a 5% increase to 2 pence. Okay, turning the slide then to slide 10, which gives some insight into the divisional performance and working from left to right. Aerospace & industrial revenue of GBP 36.5 million, up 19% on prior period, or 15% at constant currency. The recovery in aero has continued, which, together with an improved petrochemical order book, which we signaled at the back end of last year, has driven increased throughput in the half. Towards the end of the period, we started to see a slowdown within industrial demand, particularly within microelectronics in the U.S., where general destocking has impacted the near term.
But the HRW acquisition, which completed in March, has been helpful and will support microelectronics margins going forwards. Along with the productivity investments of recent years, the division has delivered an OP margin just shy of 15%, which is back towards target levels for that division. Moving across to laboratory. Revenue of GBP 29.1 million, down 6% on prior period, or 10% at constant currency. SEAL has had another period of record sales, supported by new product introductions, notably the AQ700, again, which we talked about at the January results presentation. Also just steady demand for water quality assurances driving performance there. Elsewhere within the division, a destocking impacting volumes, and certain cost reductions have been taken in the half, where appropriate, to mitigate the reduction in the top line.
This destocking was anticipated. Certainly don't see any fundamental changes in the underlying growth drivers of the Laboratory division. It's in this division that investment continues, and the margin of 16.8% is still above the target level that we've signaled for this division of 15%. Last but not certainly not least, metal melt quality, revenue of GBP 24.9 million, up 20% on prior period, or 12% at constant currency, and a strong blend of both volume and price across the various product lines at each of our sites, has delivered margins just shy of 15%, again, above our target level of 10%-12% for that division. That's it for me. Thank you. Pass it back to Ben.
Great. Thank you, James. One slide on Ratiolab. It's a pretty straightforward bolt-on, slots nicely into the laboratory division. It brings us, in Hungary, clean, modern, low-cost manufacturing, which we didn't have before. We bought the freehold in order to further develop the site, which we'll get to, you know, once we've sort of integrated properly. It also brings tool development and maintenance skills, which we didn't have before, which will be very useful, sort of plumbing-type skills that will reduce maintenance costs. Germany brings sales and distribution, which we didn't have in that division before at all, opens up markets. Very, you know, very good in Germany, some strength in the Middle East, other parts of German-speaking Europe. A very complementary product range, actually.
They have a whole lot of products that we don't, and vice versa. We see both cross-manufacture and cross-selling opportunities there, and as soon as the Hungarian authorities release us, we'll get going on those. We don't see it being earnings enhancing in the current year. We think the acquisition costs will more or less offset what it brings in, depending on when we close, but we see it being accretive from the beginning of 2024, and it looks like a nice acquisition. We have GBP 19.7 million of cash on the balance sheet at the 31st of May, and we will be cash, we will have cash on the balance sheet at the end of the year, we expect. Final slide, the outlook and the summary and the outlook.
Record half-year, above-trend growth, but inconsistent order patterns, and we'll need to sort of come back to you in quarter three and update on that. No change to the underlying growth drivers, and a good, strong balance sheet, so we can cope, we think, with whatever the second half brings, and we think it will be slower. We think we'll come out with a positive outturn for the year overall, but we think the second half will be slower, and these are the headwinds of destocking, of recession risk with high interest rates. There's a bit of FX headwind in the second half, we expect, and wage and services inflation. It's not all bad news by any means. The aggregate order book remains high.
It's not quite at the record levels that it was at for most of the half, but it's still very high. There are some terrific new products in the business now and supporting SEAL Analytical and others. We continue to invest and see the benefits of that. There's no issue, we don't think in the medium term. We think there's a bit of choppy water ahead, and we're pretty confident that we can navigate it. That's it from us. Thank you very much. If there are any questions, we'd be delighted to answer them. Andrew?
Good morning. Yes, thanks. Andrew Shepherd-Barron, Peel Hunt. A couple of questions, if I may. One is on Ratiolab. Once you've got access to it, full access, what will you do to it? Do you need to bring its accounting into line with the group? Do you need to do this or that with sales, or manufacturing, or whatever, and sort of timescale? A second question from me, if I may, is just the, you know, where's how is reshoring going? Not necessarily, you know, or what's your comments on it, I think, perhaps, is the, is the broader question.
Okay, Ratiolab, the answer to Ratiolab is what do we do first? We try and fill that Hungarian factory with manufacturing that we already outsource elsewhere, and that shouldn't be too difficult, and it shouldn't take too long, although moving tools is never as straightforward as you think. Within 12 months, we should have the Hungarian factory full, and we will be looking then to expand either its capacity or its footprint, or both. There's a one team specifically looking at that, and then bearing in mind that the laboratory sells now or will do sell now across Europe and the U.S., there are a whole lot of products in Finneran that the Ratiolab don't have, and Ratiolab make a whole lot of products that Finneran don't have.
Between the two of them, we think there's really quite a lot of opportunity to cross-sell, and so there's a team on that. In terms of the backroom facilities, it's pretty good. We are, as you know, one of the things we don't, with acquisitions, we don't insist that they take our systems or our name or our anything else. We believe in management autonomy, and so, this is a well-run, German-based administrative team, and we don't need to do a lot to that, we don't think. Your second question was reshoring.
I wouldn't say I've noticed more of that in the last six months, but on a sort of two-year view, without question, all the U.S. businesses, and we've got seven, have benefited from supply chains, working more on resilience than price. Metal melt, particularly, has benefited from it, both directly in terms of winning back market share from domestic customers and indirectly from the really quite marked increase in investment in car shops, aluminum processing plants, foundries, and investment casters that for 20 years have been moving out of the U.S. and have, and are now moving back. The future is looking pretty strong there. Laboratory, similar influences, I would say. I wouldn't say it's got any more marked in the last six months than was the case over the last 18.
Hi there, Gavin Laidlaw, Stockwatch. Just, you touched on the new products. Could you give a little bit more as to new products and the new prices you get and how that's helping?
Yeah, the one that James referred to was a SEAL Analytical, which has sort of exceeded our expectations. It's a rather, it's got a rather imaginative name, the AQ700, Gavin, and that, of course, relates to all the other AQs that preceded it. It's a discrete analyzer. What we're finding and it which is perhaps not surprising, as environmental testing grows, and we specifically do water, and which includes soil, it's done in the same way, the drive a market that is consolidating, Eurofins and others who you'll have come across, are buying up environmental laboratories and consolidating them. The drive for automation grows all the time, and we are quite good at that in our little niche.
We bought a business called Rohasys in 2017, I think, in Holland, which specifically automates these processes, and that's why we bought it, and that's starting to work really nicely. This AQ700 is a variation of a product we already made with some automatic automation put on it, and it has exceeded our expectations. That's probably the star of the show in the last six months. The other areas that are looking promising, and we're starting to see some benefit from, is the next generation of aero engines, where which have been worked on for years and years and years, the LEAP and other new engines, and we've got decent positions in some of those.
That's starting to help in the aerospace side of things. I think those are the two that I would probably point to this time around. Any other questions? Are we done for now? I think we're seeing most of you again later in the week, so that's probably sufficient. Really, anything else? We're done. Thank you very much. To those of you who dialed in, thank you, and, I hope you all have a good week.