Halma sailing steadily through second half

Halma reported steady sailing in the second half, updating the market on its operations on Thursday ahead of its year-end in April.

The FTSE 250 safety, health and environmental technology group said that, based on current trading and forecasts, it expected adjusted profit before tax for the year to 2 April to be in line with market expectations.

Halma's board said the company was continuing to benefit from its market diversity, and resilient growth drivers.

"Halma's four sectors have traded in line with the broad pattern established in the first half of the financial year," the board said in a statement.

"The Infrastructure Safety, Medical and Environmental & Analysis sectors have all made good progress. Process Safety has continued to have weakening demand from its oil and gas related customers, only partially offset by growth in other markets," it added.

Halma's organic constant-currency revenue growth seen in the first half, was continuing in the second half. Its board described performance in the USA as strong, and in the UK, Mainland Europe and Asia Pacific as steady.

"There has been continued weakness in South America, and good growth in Near and Middle East," the board confirmed.

Halma remained committed to increased investment, it said, having made a number of acquisitions during the period.

In October 2015 it announced the purchase of Firetrace USA for $110m (£72.8m), and in December the acquisition of Visiometrics for initial consideration of €18m (£13.1m) and deferred contingent consideration of up to €107m.

This month, the firm announced the acquisition of CenTrak, a providerer of healthcare monitoring products, for $140m.

Halma's board described the group's financial position as strong.

"In January 2016, we completed a US private placement totalling $250m, providing additional capacity to our existing syndicated bank facility of £360m," the board said.

Halma was due to release its results for the year ending 2 April 2016 on 14 June.