Right then. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining me for the TT Electronics' 2023 half year results presentation. I'd also like to extend a warm welcome to those of you joining on the webcast. As usual, with me today is our CFO, Mark Hoad. Now, it's our last double act together, as I will be leaving in the autumn, and Mark will be working with our new CEO, Peter France, who many of you will know. Now we'll run through the presentation and then open up for your questions. We've had a really good H1 building on the momentum of last year, and I'm delighted with these results.
We've delivered on all the key priorities we set, and at the start of the year, we said we needed to execute on the strong order book that we had and deliver more organic growth, improve margins, continue the improvement in power and connectivity performance, return to positive free cash flow following a period of investment, and finally, reduce leverage. We've ticked the box on all of them. Importantly, there's plenty more to come. The team have been brilliant, as always. I'm really proud of the job that they continue to do. They've delivered strong growth while working closely with our customers to secure more new projects and continue to build for the future. A big thank you from me to them.
There are lots of high points in these results, all of which show we are starting to reap the rewards of the actions taken to reshape the business. The order book remains healthy, with good visibility despite the normalization in order intake, which is happening as we expected, and I'll come back to this in more detail later. Our key customers have continued to grow in partnership with us, and we've secured 15 new significant contract wins in the H1 with over GBP 150 million of potential lifetime revenues. We have also recently been working with a number of them as they plan to reshore parts of their business.
Our order book visibility into future years is still similar to the same time last year, and being designed in on many multi-year projects means that for TT, it is not all about the order book, it's about the project and platform positions as well. These have long-term forecasts. On order book, despite the normalization of intake as expected, it remains materially ahead of pre-COVID times, and we expect it to stay that way. We're executing on the order book. First half revenue is up 12%. This is further evidence of the success in repositioning the group to benefit from structural growth markets, targeting customers that are growing in these markets, and we are increasing market share. We're making good progress towards our key milestone of 10% margins.
First half margins up 140 basis points to 8.3%, 8.6%, excluding the pass-through revenues. The improvement in power and connectivity has been a contributing factor, and more on that shortly. GMS has delivered another 200 basis point increase in margins to 9%. That's 9.7%, excluding the pass-through revenues, a record for the business. On cash generation, we said 2023 would see a significant step-up in free cash flow. H1 is just the start, with further improvement expected in H2. Cash conversion in H1 was back to almost 75%. Leverage is down, as promised, with further to come. Overall, there is significant forward momentum in the business, giving us increased confidence for the full year outlook.
We said we still had work to do with power and connectivity. I want to go through this in more detail on this slide. Importantly, it is firmly back on track. The recovery that started in the H2 of last year has continued. Commercial aerospace, which has been quiet through COVID, is recovering nicely and is expected to underpin growth over the next three-five years. With the current geopolitical tensions, we're also well positioned to benefit from a favorable market backdrop for defense spend. There's a well-documented need to bolster, upgrade, and replenish existing defense capabilities, as well as to develop and accelerate new technologies. The team have recently been awarded a contract supporting feasibility studies for the technology development on the BAE Tempest Program.
Harnessing our extensive engineering expertise, we will develop electrical power solutions in support of this crucial next-generation combat air platform. The outlook for healthcare is also strong, with our segments of electromagnetic navigation and implantables, and we continue to expand our medical device portfolio and have ramped up our capacity to meet growth requirements for a number of leading healthcare OEMs. In April, we officially opened our second clean room in Minneapolis, doubling our capacity. We're also proud to announce that we've added two new top-tier medtech companies to our customer list by winning new contracts. Year on year, the H1 margin was up 430 basis points to 7.4%, and higher volumes will underpin further margin progression towards 10%-12%.
This slide is a reminder of the reasons that underpin our confidence in the transformed group and its ability to deliver higher growth and create value. First, improved growth.... The growth is driven not only by megatrends that mean that we can expect our markets to grow at around 4%-6% over the medium term, but also we have shown over the last 18 months that we are winning share, both through adding new customers, but also growing our share of wallet with existing customers, enabling us to outperform these market growth rates. Secondly, given the work we've done to transform TT, we now have a better quality revenue growth, which, coupled with operational leverage, mean 10% operating margins are in reach. Thirdly, strong cash generation.
As we highlighted previously, 2023 will see a significant step-up in free cash flow from strong operating cash conversion, the end of the Self Help program investment, and the impact of the pension buy-in. Importantly, we are expecting to further delever as we go through the H2, retaining the capacity to invest in the growth in the business. With that, I'm gonna hand over to Mark, who's gonna take you through the numbers and how they develop from here.
Great. Thank you, Richard. Good morning, everyone. This is a really good set of results. They show that we're on track to hit the targets we set in March, and that we have a great foundation for the future. In the H1 of the year, we delivered 12% organic revenue growth, reflecting good underlying growth and the anticipated return to a more normal H1/H2 weighting compared to last year. Operating profit increased by 34% at constant currency to GBP 25.6 million. Adjusted operating margins took a very healthy step forward, increasing by 140 basis points at constant currency to 8.3%. Excluding roughly GBP 12 million of pass-through revenues, margins were 8.6%. This margin improvement was a result of operational leverage on growth and the benefits of the now completed Self Help program.
Earnings per share increased by 28% at constant currency, net of a higher interest expense and an increased tax rate of 25.2% due to the increase in the U.K. tax rate. After a couple of years of investment to support growth, we told you in March that cash flow had now reached an inflection point. What does that mean? It means cash conversion up because the big investment in working capital is behind us. It means no more Self Help spend because the program is complete, and it means no more pension contributions because of the buy-in. You can see this coming through in the H1 with a free cash inflow of GBP 7 million, and leverage has continued to reduce with a further reduction to come in the H2.
With the improvement in profit, along with healthy cash conversion, return on invested capital took a step forward, increasing by 150 basis points to 12.0% since the end of 2022. Given the strong H1 performance, the positive outlook for the H2 of the year and beyond, the board is declaring an 8% increase in the dividend to 2.15 pence per share. Moving on to the specifics of the revenue and profit performance in each of the divisions. The recovery in Power and Connectivity that started in the H2 of 2022 has continued as expected in the H1 of 2023. H1 2022 was difficult for the division, impacted by COVID, site moves, and program delays.
In H1 2023, revenue increased by 13% organically as the business executed on the order book built through 2022. Adjusted operating profit increased almost 3-fold to GBP 5.9 million, and operating margins by 430 basis points to 7.4%, reflecting revenue growth and the benefits of the Self Help program. The division has also been busy preparing for the move of the Ferranti business into its new facility in the Greater Manchester area. That move has now started and is expected to be completed during the H2 of this year. Alongside substantial revenue growth, order intake has been strong and the order book has continued to grow. We've also had a number of significant new business wins. This supports our confidence in further improvement in the H2 and for the medium term.
The GMS business has been transformed and continued to build on the strong momentum of 2022. GMS delivered organic revenue growth in H1 of 12%. This largely reflects a more normal weighting of first and H2 revenues. As we've said previously, after several years of exceptional growth, 2023 is a year of consolidation for GMS, so you can expect growth for the full year to be more muted. As I said, within the revenue number, there's around GBP 12 million of pass-through revenues. We expect this to be similar in the H2 before substantially reducing in 2024. As these pass-through revenues unwind, this will be a headwind to headline growth for the group, but on an underlying basis, the group is well positioned for growth in 2024 and beyond.
GMS order book visibility remains very good, with revenues for the balance of the year covered. We have good visibility building for 2024. Profit performance was again excellent. Adjusted operating margins, sorry, operating profit increased by 44% to GBP 13.8 million. Margins increased by 200 basis points, benefiting from the H1 growth as well as pricing actions. Excluding the pass-through revenues, margins were 9.7%. These are truly best-in-class margins. With the relatively low capital intensity of the business, return on invested capital is now in excess of 20%. We believe that both these margins and the ROIC are sustainable at these sorts of levels, significantly ahead of our expectations of a few years ago.
Finally, in the divisions, Sensors and Specialist Components, here revenue is up by 11% organically as the division delivered on its very healthy order book. This level of growth was delivered despite a machinery breakdown in June, which moved some revenue into the H2 of the year. There was a small reduction in adjusted operating profit in the H1 reflecting that breakdown, but overall, still a robust performance, with 13% adjusted operating margin. For the H2, we expect margins to be back to mid-teen levels. This is clearly the earliest cycle part of the group and is where we're seeing the greatest normalization of order book. Despite that, we have over six months of order visibility against historical norms of 8-12 weeks, with the order book for 2024 already building.
This slide on cash flow illustrates the point of inflection, with operating cash generation now returning to much healthier levels. Cash conversion improved to 74% in the H1 of the year, back to the kind of conversion we've normally delivered in the H1. We're still investing in the business. Investment in CapEx ran a bit higher than depreciation as we invested in efficiency projects, the new Ferranti facility, and in additional capacity in GMS as planned. The H1 working capital outflow is largely a reflection of normal seasonality, as accruals built in H2 last year were paid out in the H1. The H2 should see some improvement on this position. The real driver that caused free cash flow to inflect was the almost complete absence of exceptional cash restructuring costs and no pension contributions. With the Sale-Help program complete and the pension buy...
pension scheme buy-in done, this will remain the case going forward. As a result, we generated a free cash flow in the H1 H1 of GBP 7 million, and we expect the rate of free cash generation to step up in the H2. With that free cash flow and improved EBITDA, leverage is now down to 1.8 times, and again, we expect a further reduction in H2. Finally, in the H1 of the year, we increased our debt facility size to GBP 162 million and exercised the 1-year extension option on the RCF, taking the maturity out to June 2027. All of this leaves us with more capacity and flexibility to invest in the business at prudent leverage levels.
Lastly, before I hand back to Richard, I just want to take stock of some of what we've achieved over the last 12 months. TT is now delivering much better returns with more to come. Margins have increased by 140 basis points to 8.6%, excluding pass-through revenues, a meaningful step towards the 10% milestone. Even with investment in the business, return on invested capital has increased by more than 300 basis points in 12 months to 12% pre-tax. Cash flow has now inflected. We've generated GBP 17 million of free cash flow in the last 12 months, and leverage has reduced by 0.6 turns in that time, and again, further improvement is expected. We've extended our debt facilities. The RCF now matures in 2027.
It's complemented by the long-dated fixed-term PP debt that we put in place in 2021. Last but not least, we've de-risked the U.K. pension scheme by completing a buy-in with Legal and General. That scheme represented a GBP 200 million plus burden back in 2016, and we now have a surplus of GBP 29 million. The business is in a really good place, and there is more to come. With that, for the last time, I'll hand back to Richard.
Thank you very much, Mark. The group's in great shape as I prepare to hand over to Peter. We have a great platform to accelerate the ambitious growth strategy and support the next chapter for TT. A quick recap on our achievements in the H1 all in line with the commitments we made when I stood here in March. We're growing our top line and executing on our order book. Megatrends and our repositioning into structurally growing end markets will continue to drive revenue growth going forward. All meaning that TT is now a sustainable organic growth business with significantly enhanced sales visibility. We're committed to drive the group margin to 10% and beyond, and we've made really good progress with a 140 basis point improvement. Power and connectivity is on track, and recent wins in the business will support further progress.
Importantly, this is the year when TT gets back to generating strong free cash flow. GBP 17 million of free cash flow in the last 12 months and leverage to come down further by the end of the year. We have transformed the business to ensure it faces into markets with long-term structural growth. When Mark and I started at TT, our first priority was to turn around the transportation business, at the time, representing 45% of group revenue. We did it and then successfully sold it for a good price, and over the last few years, we've reinvested the proceeds, focusing on structural growth markets with long-term visibility, such as healthcare, which now represents a quarter of TT sales, to reposition us for growth. On this slide, I wanna show you how we have transformed the business on a number of metrics.
It is this transformation that gives me confidence that TT is in a strong place with momentum across the business. We have taken TT from a no-growth business to one delivering good growth from key customer accounts and an improving share of wallet. This has come from new customer wins and the development of a strong pipeline of business development opportunities. Market growth is driven by mega trends in the segments that we operate, and as I mentioned earlier, we believe that the market growth rate of 4%-6% is achievable over the cycle, and TT has shown that we can outperform and take share. On top of that, the business is to positioned not just for revenue growth, but also ongoing margin improvement.
Although the supply chain has eased a little, there remain opportunities to drive further efficiencies within the business as we bed down our new facilities and processes post the completion of the Self-Help program. Margins have already doubled since 2015, with GMS transformed from a business that was contributing just 4% margins. As you can see from the top right chart, recent progress shows our 10% milestone is now in touching distance, and there's more opportunity from there. Our other key financial metric, the chart bottom left, shows that we've improved ROIC in the group, now up 300 basis points to 12%, with GMS leading the way at 24%. Finally, employee engagement has always been core to the strategy. It's at the heart of our values, and in July, we completed our latest group-wide survey.
I'm delighted that we achieved an exceptional participation rate of 91%. That's up from 68 back in 2015, but even more so, that we achieved the highest rating, a three-star world-class company to work for ranking. That makes us one of the highest engaged global manufacturing companies within the Best Companies survey. We continue to progress our own ESG initiatives. Sustainability and the need to have products that are cleaner, smarter, and healthier is good for us all and good for TT. It drives revenue growth and continues to open up more opportunities. Our products and technology address key sustainability mega trends in our target markets, and we work in partnership with our customers to design products integral to their environmental goals, creating revenue opportunities for both of us.
I was delighted that we met our target to halve cumulative emissions a year earlier than planned at the end of 2022. There is no letup. We continue to push for further reductions. Our investment in solar energy in the Kuantan facility is the latest example, commissioned earlier this year. This will reduce its emissions by around a third. As I flagged previously, we are delighted to have delivered an exceptional engagement score this year, demonstrating a highly engaged workforce, a critical part of the strategy. The business is humming, and there's so much going on. On this slide, we show a number of the latest successes. I'm not gonna cover all of them, but I'll pick out a few examples.
In our medical technology segment, we have had a number of wins in the growing surgical navigation space and implantables market, and notably, these include two new clinical applications in surgical navigation. I mentioned the BAE Tempest win earlier. In the automation electrification markets, following a best-in-class supplier award from AMI at the end of 2022, we have recently won a further significant contract, this time out of Kuantan, as we support their expansion into Singapore. The message is we're continuing to win new programs, building out multi-year revenue streams we have been targeting and giving better visibility to future growth. Our strong order book gives us great visibility as well. Our new business generation has got better and better, and it's great to be positioned in growing markets where customers are helping to deliver improved outcomes, whether cleaner, smarter, or healthier.
As we expected, our order intake has been normalizing a bit, as I mentioned up front, in the H1 of 2023, we secured 15 new significant contract awards. These have the potential to deliver over GBP 150 million of lifetime revenues, working with some great customers and reflecting the fact we are designed in on long-term programs. This underlines the visibility that we have. The order book also remains close to the peak level seen in the H2 of last year. It provides visibility to the balance of 2023 and building nicely for 2024, and visibility is still 40% higher than we operated with back in 2018 and 2019. Remember, I said, it's not just about the order book.
It's also about the business now having multi-year visibility on long-term projects and programs. Furthermore, we're having very constructive conversations with our customers to facilitate reshoring, which is increasing the pipeline of new business opportunities with modest incremental CapEx. We've successfully grown our Kuantan facility for the GMS division from scratch to $25 million of turnover in just 24 months. Using the same low capital intensity model, we're establishing GMS capabilities within our existing Mexicali facility in Mexico. We're in the best shape ever. The outlook is really positive. Good momentum and continues in our chosen structural growth markets. More significant new contract wins, and the strength of our order book provides excellent visibility well ahead of pre-COVID levels.... the benefits of the self-help program and better quality revenues, coupled with operating leverage, mean 10% operating margins are within reach.
We are back to generating positive free cash flow, with great momentum for H2 and 2024. All of this giving us increased confidence in delivering full-year expectations. We're obviously mindful of the wider macro environment, but TT is executing well and positioned in markets with strong mega trends and structural growth drivers. As this is my last presentation, I would like to thank my excellent team for their incredible passion, hard work, and support to create the business with the opportunities it has today. I'm proud to pass on to Peter, a group positioned for sustainable organic growth with excellent visibility, significantly improved margins, and more to come, and a best-in-class engaged workforce. I'm confident that in Peter and Mark's hands, TT has a very bright future. Thank you very much. That concludes the presentation.
Perhaps before I before I open it up for questions, maybe just if you indulge me a minute, just a couple of, a couple of, couple of few words about Mark. Mark came to join me, I think, as most of you know, from a much bigger company. Mark was taking a bit of a risk on a first-time CEO, I think it's fair to say, on a promise of... I think the promise was quite a lot of hard work, but we'd have some fun. I think that was, that was, that was broadly the way I put it. Anyway, Mark has been an absolutely fantastic business partner. He supported, and I guess not just supported, but trusted me, frankly, when we decided to take some pretty big risks with the group, early on.
After that, basically, he's been a huge part of generating a company that is significantly bigger, significantly improved, profits, enhanced margins, and I would say a much higher quality business as a result. I guess, you know, more importantly than that, Mark's become a great friend. I'd like to say thank you, Mark. It's been. I've just loved every minute of it. Anyway, I guess the one thing I would say is it's just been fun. Thank you.
Perhaps just to respond, respond in kind, I should sort of I should, of course, say on behalf of the board and, and the whole team, a huge thank you for your amazing leadership over the last, last nine years. I think the engagement score that Richard just talked about absolutely speaks to that in spades. Perhaps on a slightly more personal note, although he's got a weird dislike of raisins, Richard is probably the nicest guy I've ever worked for. I'd echo what you said. We've been on a tremendous journey together. It's been a huge amount of fun. I'll miss working with you, but I wish you every success for the future, and I look forward to winning, continue my winning streak on the golf course.
Thank you very much. Well, anyway, thank you, Mark, very much. Kind words. With that, we will open the floor and the webcast to questions. Please, there's a mic going around. Can you say your name and your question for the benefit of the webcast, and then we will answer them.
Morning, guys. Well done. I'm really sad to see you go, Richard. Oh, sorry. Vanessa Jeffriess from Jefferies.
Thanks, Vanessa.
Maybe if you could just talk a little bit about pricing dynamics in each of the divisions this year. It seems like in GMS, you're saying volume's flat to maybe slightly down, and pricing holding up. Is there anywhere you're seeing pricing pressure, or do you expect kind of that dynamic across the group?
I suppose the way to think about the dynamics in GMS is firstly in terms of the sort of pricing and value from the capabilities we have in GMS. You can see the expansion in margins. That's going really well. I think if you like, the pricing's holding, it's ahead of any of the inflation dynamics, and we're getting more value out of the services that we're providing. The main dynamic on the revenue stream is all about the pass-through revenue. And that is linked to pricing, right? Because we are passing through the cost increases transparently.
Those are definitely starting to work their way off, so that the bookings going into the order book are way lower than they were, and that's why we've sort of guided to that revenue kind of coming off as we go through H2 and into 2024. That's really the main thing. In terms of price pressure, nothing out of the ordinary at all. We're continuing to sort of mainly plan to price up appropriately for 2024. I don't think it's gonna be like the last year was kind of in the various businesses, sort of sometimes once a quarter even, or once every four months. Doesn't feel like it's gonna be like that this year.
Then power and connectivity, a really good recovery. What do we need to get to that 10%-12%? Is it just volumes, or is it a bit of supply chain easing?
Yeah, I think, I think it's exactly that. Obviously, you can see from, from the chart that Richard showed you, the momentum is there in both the, the growth dynamic now and in the margin, step-up. As I said, order book has grown beyond, you know, it's, you know, the intake is higher than the, the, the high increase in revenue that we've got. It's absolutely in front of the business. It's all about execution. You know, I think the sort of the time, you know, is probably 12 months, around 12 months away from getting back into that 10%-12% range.
Thanks.
Thanks, Vanessa.
Harry?
Hi. Excuse me.
You want to go check in, Harry?
I'm not quite as old as that American senator, but feeling like it. Just a couple questions. Just on, on GMS, I mean, obviously, the transformation has been substantial.
Mm-hmm.
What I'm trying to get a handle on is, is how much when, when we look at GMS today, how much is sort of value add, training, testing, proprietary, and how much is still contract manufacturing? Clearly, that's changed quite a lot. Notwithstanding where the order book goes, how do, how does that evolve? I always had in mind that GMS was predominantly a China for China business. I look at the very helpful segmentation of geography at the back end, and it's 27% Asia, 26% U.K. I'm sort of, if we could just marry that up, that would be quite helpful. Just in terms of the sort of medical, broader medical exposure, healthcare exposure, there's been a sort of big theme in this results here.
Well, it's there already, but it's been manifested again in this results season, of sort of, parts of the sort of medical equipment, supply chain, big destocking, et cetera, et cetera.
Mm-hmm.
you know, the Thermo Fisher, even of this world being caught up in that process.
Yep.
What's your experience there, and are you sort of running a different channel to that?
Sure. Actually, your last one first.
Sure.
We go back that way.
Yeah.
Well, just on, on the medical stuff, as I said, we're now, we're now running with that over a quarter of revenues. For us, we've seen, I think it was 18% growth. Is that right?
In healthcare for the group.
In healthcare.
10%.
Te-
-organic for the group.
Okay. I was maybe thinking the GMS. Anyway, 10% for the group, so it's going... It's positive. I highlighted a few of the reasons for the positive performance. I think, you know, some of that is in power and connectivity with the implantables and stuff, and some of it is in surgical navigation, and some of it is in GMS. I guess the dynamic that you've obviously read about and listened to with some of those other companies, that one particularly is one of... You know, as you know, is one of our customers. We've seen that dynamic play through the order book and the revenue stream, so it's in our outlook, if you like.
Whatever, whatever impact it is as far as their total segment is, the, the areas that we're working with them is built into our outlooks and that 10%, that 10% growth number for the group. Honestly, it's positive, it's healthy, it's got good dynamics underneath it, and the order book looks good. Right.
I think on, on the value-add versus sort of contract manufacturing, we don't split out the, the sort of revenues from the services that you described. It's all part of it. It's a, it's a bundled package. It's actually, it's absolutely been fundamental to the whole shift in strategy, and it underpins everything that you've seen in the transformation of the numbers. You know, GMS was a pure-play contract manufacturer of principally printed circuit boards, which frankly anyone can do, to industrial companies who would rebid it every year to sort of save a cent in the dollar. The shift was to healthcare and aerospace and defense markets, higher-end industrial company, blue-chip companies that valued a manufacturing partnership, more complex equipment, more of those value-added services in terms, in terms of design for manufacture up front and testing at the back.
It's just, it's integral to everything that GMS is about. If you're going to be really uncharitable, you could still describe it as a contract manufacturer, because it does manufacture product to someone else's designs, but that's not what that business represents today, and that's why you see the margins and the return on invested capital that you see.
Then the geography.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, so the footprint is North America, and as Richard said, now expanding into Mexico to, you know, accommodate some of that reshoring. We have a facility here in the U.K. and one in China. It, it is a blend, and that's all about being able to offer the customers the manufacturing where they want it.
Thank you.
Sorry, one final one. Sort of capacity utilization. Sorry, just around capacity utilization, particularly in China, how much headroom do you have?
We-
There's plenty, there's plenty of headroom in China.
Yes.
I mean, the other point I would say about that business is the agility that they have demonstrated to adjust their strategy to meet global geopolitical situation has been really impressive. That, that really is, you know, if I point to the Kuantan, 0- GBP 25 million in two years, that's all part of meeting that dynamic, creating more capacity, and getting an increased business development pipeline to deliver growth from. We believe that opportunity exists in Mexico as well, and that's why we're doing it. It's sort of what I was referring to as the pipeline of opportunity from reshoring, which is incremental, right? It's not just moving stuff around. You know, overall, we were quite rightly challenged a few years ago about GMS in the portfolio at 4% or 5% in contract manufacturing, as I said.
It's a different business now. People need to think of it differently.
Thank you. Mark Davies-Jones from Stifel. Which is a kind of strikingly upbeat outlook you give, given the state of the world and the state of the PMIs out there. I can see the, the tie-in to the long-term contracts in your key verticals-
Yep.
There's still a big chunk through distribution within the sensors business.
Yep.
Can you give us an update on what that looks like and the risk of a, a sort of bigger contraction there?
Sure. I mean, that is where the... You know, we expected a bit of normalization in that part of the sensors business. That's, that's happened kind of as expected, so the order intakes just come off a little bit. I think that what we'd point you to is that business ran with a three-month order book, majority through distribution, back in pre-COVID time, right?
Mm-hmm.
It's sitting there now with 6 months, it's double that, with the normalization of intake in the first 6 months sort of built into it. It's got incredible visibility in booking into 2024. Of course, there's some specific bits that may be a little softer than other bits, but some very strong bits as well. Distribution dynamic in totality for the product suite that we sell through distribution, we've got a point of sale, as in their sellout to the market, tracking where they've got inventory to and tracking our growth rates at the moment. They've got a bit more inventory, but they've got a lot more growth. It's tracking at the growth rates that we're expecting.
The pattern of all of that seems very close to the way lead times have moved generally, without any big chunks of ups and downs. We're feeling like it's playing out as we anticipated at the moment, and I guess when you look into sort of 2024.
Yeah, I think, I think perhaps one way to think about it is, if you get, you know, economic, industrial softness, this is the division where it, you know, it becomes most obvious. When that happened in 2018 and 2019, it had six months where it was soft, and then it bounced back quite, quite quickly. I think as we look into next year, that's probably how we'd think about things. The problem bounce, the chances are that it will be softer in H1, but then it see growth again in H3, so probably flat for the year in that division. The other two divisions are positioned really well. The capacity's going into GMS. They've got the order book. They've got the new wins.
Same for Power and Connectivity, so I think that, that, you know, positions the group for growth when you strip out that, you know, nonprofit impacting headwind from the pass-through revenues.
Okay, great. Thank you. Can you give us a little more help on the H2 revenue outlook? Because there are quite a lot of moving parts, obviously.
Yes.
FX has turned a little less helpful.
Yes. Yeah.
Flattening off in terms of the pass-through and the price, but it's not going negative yet. There's still some volume.
Yeah.
So-
First of all, pass-through revenues. If I talk in whole years, first of all, there was GBP 32 million of pass-through revenues in 2022. At the moment, our estimate is that it'll be GBP 22 million in 2023. That actually means a GBP 12 million headwind in the H2 of the year. Then in 2024, it's gonna go to something like GBP 4 million or GBP 5 million. Won't have gone completely, but most of it. That's about a GBP 18 million, give or take, headwind to 2024.
FX, clearly it depends where rates are, but it's probably on the revenue line with spot-- with spot rates where they are right now, it's probably a 2%-3% headwind to revenue for the full year and 5% to operating profit. I think... when you strip out FX and when you strip out pass-through, I think that that means that probably the H2 will show a little bit of sequential growth over H1, is probably like for-- is probably a similar number to, to last year's H2 on an an FX-adjusted basis.
Thank you. That's very helpful.
Good morning. Hi, it's Jonathan Hurn from Barclays. I just have two questions, please. The first one was just on that pension surplus of GBP 29 million.
Mm-hmm.
How much cash do you think you can take out of that surplus? At what point do you think you will see that? Would that be H2 2024, or could it come sooner than that?
Yeah, the surplus sits in the scheme. We're now going through, the scheme is going through the process with LNG of truing up all the data, LNG getting it into their systems. When that's all done, there will be another. There's inevitably going to true up as they sort of refine all the final benefits that could cause a little bit of movement in the number. The scheme is also then funding its running costs out of that surplus. The surplus is going to reduce, and then it will be subject to tax. I mean, to the timing point in particular, the timing will be on wind up of the scheme.
You know, we're getting to the point where we will be able to make a decision about moving to buy out rather than just buy in. Once we make the decision to move to buy out, we can trigger a wind up. The wind-up process will probably take about 12 months. It probably means that takes us through to Q4 of next year. At that point, yes, there, there is, it is quite possible that there could be some kind of surplus, subject to 35% tax coming back from the scheme.
Okay, very clear. The second one was just on the balance sheet, M&A, and so forth. Obviously, the focus right now is paying down the debt.
Mm-hmm.
At what level does M&A come back when net debt hits 1 x or do you think it needs to, in terms of leverage, to go below that before that starts coming back onto the agenda?
I think that once we are into the lower end of the range, you know, this year's numbers just will be probably around, somewhere around the midpoint of the range by the end of the year. Then next year, EBITDA is going to continue to grow. We're going to continue to generate cash, probably then getting to the bottom end of the range by the end of next year. I think once we're in that zone of, you know, somewhere between the midpoint and the low point, you know, I think we would be looking at it and saying, "Okay, we've now got the flexibility and capacity to invest, to invest.
Maybe just, just squeeze one more. Just in terms of that GMS facility in Mexico.
Mm-hmm.
Obviously, the other one, that you, you, you expanded, you got $25 million of incremental revenue. Is that the same kind of number you're thinking about GMS in Mexico over the next sort of 24 months?
He can probably answer that, but I, I would say... Look, that, that, it's not an unreasonable ambition, let's call it, and there's, there's pipeline potential out there. I think the other, the other factor is the, in our current GMS footprint, the one plant that is kind of running capacity, and this is a bit more linked to defense and commercial aerospace, is the U.S. plant. You know, if we can add more capacity in North America, regardless of reshoring, that's a good thing for, for growth opportunity. So... Is that fair?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Stefan?
Yeah. Hi, morning. Stephan from HSBC. I have three questions. Let's start with the first one, maybe. Sensors again. Well, margins down, sales up. I understand that there was a machine breakdown, but is that all related to the machine breakdown? Do you want us to see it as a lost month that you can't recoup, or how do we think about that?
I mean, honestly, it was just... We, we, you've got that and the re- it's just factual what happened mid-June, and it's one of those kind of, pff, blips that just, it was an HVAC machine that fed, feeds one of our plant that has a clean room. You cannot produce when you've got, unstable air in the, in the clean room. We lost two to three weeks' worth of production in June in that one plant.... and, you know, one or two weeks of July until we got a temporary solution in place. There'll be a permanent solution in H2. Those revenues should catch back up in, should catch back up in H2, and that's what we're expecting.
At roughly one-one point something, of profit was kind of would've been there if we'd got those revenues, so that just slots straight into H2, and that's, I think Mark said, mid-teens margin for the year for Sensor, so you just get it straight back really.
Okay, cool. let's talk about the order book again and the margin quality. I mean, you have great visibility. Is the margin quality increasing at the same level? Is it all about volume coming to drive your, your margin uptick, or is pricing as well in the order book helping?
Well, I think you, you're seeing a bit of margin expansion through the, through the current numbers that we're anticipating continue, and that's a blend of clearly operational leverage and, and some of that pricing that's ahead of the inflation rates. We, we're expecting, based on the order book, for that to dynamic to continue, right?
Yeah, I mean, in the H1 of the year, gross margins are up by almost 200 basis points compared to last year. If you strip out the pass-through and to put it on a like-for-like basis, I think that's indicative.
Last one, the GBP 150 million contract that you won. Can you talk about the phasing? Can you talk about what sectors, and can you talk about as well, how that drives into your order book, actually?
Yeah.
Because it's not added into the order book yet.
Yeah, it. There's only a small part of that in the order book. I mean, I'd say circa GBP 15 million perhaps is in the actual order book, which is why I'm pointing all the time to everybody about, you know, we, we deliberately had a strategy to get into markets and customers and products that give us long-term visibility, and that's a, that's a completely different business model than TT had five, six years ago. Those contracts are the main ones with that visibility are in defense, in healthcare, and there is one particular one that's in kind of high-end semiconductors. The visibility ranges from. I mean, one of them, it's I mean, honestly, it's gonna be probably 20 or 30 years, but we've given 10 years' worth of the possible revenues in, in that number.
Another one's gonna be, well, is, is there for the next two, two buys in a big defense program, which will last about five years and, and maybe even less than that, maybe four years, and then there'll be another set of buys after that, which aren't in that number. It's, it's, that's, if that gives enough of an indication.
Yeah. The drop was, like, GBP 15 million per annum now, what you, what you're saying, more or less?
In different phasing, yeah, probably. Yeah, yeah.
Thanks.
Hi, I'm Mark Fielding from RBC. Yeah, typically three questions again. Can we start actually with sensors, where you've talked about the, you know, that potential for a softer H1 of next year? Just how do we think about the operating leverage in that business, and do we therefore think that if demand's a bit softer versus that 15% more normalized margin, mid-teen normalized margin, do margins drop a bit in the H1 of next year, or are there other factors, you know, playing a part there?
Yeah, I mean, all other things being equal, probably the margins would drop a bit in the H1 and recover in the H2 with the growth, and for the year, we should still be whole, I would think.
Perfect. Thanks. Then sticking on margins, I mean, obviously, you know, P&C, the first thought is the 10%-12%. How do we think about the timeline for that? Then you have been hard on that before, so, you know-
Agreed.
How do we think about the, the medium-term potential of that business?
Yeah. Well, I think, as I said before, you know, it's all there in terms of order book and prospects for us, for us, for us to execute on, and I think that gives us visibility to getting, you know, into the entry point of the range in a sort of 12-month timeframe. In terms of how, how we then kick on from there, you know, it will clearly depend on exactly what's in, on, in the order book. If you look at what happened between 28 and 2019, when this business reached that, you know, critical inflection point, it went from 10% to 12% a year. You know, it has, it has the ability to do that. Whether it will move quite that quickly, you know, clearly, no, no guarantees, but it's capable of doing it.
I think, you know, we've been pretty consistent saying that over the longer term, the IP, the IP-rich nature of that business means it should absolutely be capable of getting to the sorts of margins that SNHC delivers.
Thanks. Then, finally, just curious about your supply chain's lead times. I mean, you've talked earlier in the year about, you know, a large portion of your supply chain having sort of six-month tight lead times. You know, your order book hasn't come down that much, but as theirs come down a bit more, you know, what's your ability to, you know, not that we're in a mindset where people are really thinking about ramping up growth, but you know what I mean. How, how does the supply chain support you now?
Well, I think as we said, supply chains have eased a bit, but lead times are still for particular, more, more challenging components and some designs, still long. You know, they, they are in the 40-52-week lead time in some cases now. As, as you know, we invested in inventory last year to support the growth, so some of that helps us. As, as lead times reduce, generally, that's, that enables us to layer in growth in a shorter time period. You can see the order visibility is long, and it's long for the reasons of sort of that collaborative management between our customers of what they really need over the next sort of 12 months and what we can manage in the supply chain to deliver it.
It's coming back a little bit, but that's why we kind of say we expect it to normalize higher than it used to be before.
Thank you.
Thanks, Mark. Rich?
Thank you. Morning, Richard Page from Numis. Hopefully, just the one from me. I might make it two parts, though.
Two parts.
Yeah, yeah, it's okay. Yeah, you beat me to it. just, could you just elaborate a bit more on that order visibility, please? Aligned to that, obviously, you talk about multi-year contracts. What level of opportunity are you leaving on the table for Peter with it?
Shall I pick, shall I pick, shall I pick, shall I pick the first one?
Do you want to pick the last one?
No. On, on order visibility, I think the way to think about it is, is go back to sort of the 2017, 2018, 2019 timeframe. We were running at sort of, on average, across the group, about six or seven months of, of visibility. That peaked at just over 11 months last year. We're now down to around 10 months. We think it's gonna come down a little bit more than that, but it's probably gonna settle somewhere around the 9-month level. Then we also-- I mean, that, in that, I'm only taking out what's in the order book for this year and next year. We actually have a bit of order book, sort of GBP 50 million or so, that's for 2025, 2025 plus, but I'm not counting those numbers.
Some of those long-term programs, and we do get some orders into the order book as well.
Thank you, and sort of multi-year contract opportunities to help-
Yeah, opportunities.
Yeah, sure, sure.
Well, I guess, you know, let me sort of try and answer it in a couple of ways, Rich. You know, the first thing is, as hopefully I've conveyed to you all, you know, I'm incredibly proud of where we've got the business to in terms of its, you know, performance over the years, through difficult times, and where we are now with the momentum that, that we're showing, and the team, the team do a fantastic job. I think we've got a great team, and as I know sometimes engagement scores sound a bit trite or a bit clichéd and stuff, but it's absolutely fundamental to have an engaged workforce behind where you're trying to take stuff. It's brilliant that we're in that position. It really is. We're delighted about it.
I guess I kind of think I'm handing over a position that has got some... it's got some good momentum, it's a great team, and, you know, I, I'm sure Peter will do a great job with that. I've highlighted, you know, as I see the opportunities, and certainly those, you know, the pipeline and the things that have been won, you know, hopefully, those customers come through with the volumes that they've talked about and the potential. We believe there's, there's structural growth in those markets that will support that, and they are, they're the guys, they're the players in those markets. There's nobody else new coming into them. They're the players. You know, I think, hopefully Peter finds a, an opportunity-rich set, and I'm sure he'll decide which ones he wants to prioritize.
Thank you.
Yeah, just a bit of a follow-up question, actually, on capacity utilization, and Harry touched on it earlier. On a wider basis, could you maybe talk about the capacity utilization by division? Then specific to GMS, could you talk about something like this new investment, what, what amount of capacity does it actually incrementally add, just to give us a sense of, you know, the, the growth runway that that puts there?
Well, that, I mean, that investment we're making at the moment probably does offer the sort of opportunity that Richard's talked about, that we've delivered for, Malaysia. There's also space to, to put follow-on investment in as well.
Then, then it's just, it's after that, it's just a bit of incremental CapEx, depending on how much growth comes through. The same's true of the Kuantan space as well. You know, we've gone to 25 really quickly, so clearly, as you would imagine, we're making sure we can keep going in Kuantan. As we've said, there's still, you know, China's still doing actually really well regardless of that, so there's capacity in China as well. I think it puts GMS in a really, really good global position to have what it needs to continue its growth.
Yeah, I think the other divisions, they, they, they all have the footprint that they need. As, as they grow, it's all about, you know, there's the odd bit of incremental CapEx that's, you know, that would be covered in the sorts of numbers that we talk about, you know, investing at 1.1x, 1.2x, DAR, and then bringing direct labor in, you know, so...
Great. Thank you.
Are we all dried up in the room? Okay. Well, anyway, look, thank you all very much for your attention coming along this morning, and just a special thanks to you guys for all the support for me while I've been here at TT, and I look forward to seeing you in another life sometime soon. All right, thanks a lot, guys.