Spirax-Sarco FY revenues driven by volume growth, price hikes

Spirax-Sarco Engineering reported a rise in full-year profit on Thursday, with higher revenues driven by volume growth and price increases to protect margins.

In the year to the end of December 2022, adjusted pre-tax profit rose 11% to £370.6m, coming in ahead of consensus expectations of £362.2m. Revenues were ahead 20% at £.16bn. On a statutory basis, however, pre-tax profit dipped 2% to £308.1m.

The total dividend was lifted 12% to 152p a share.

Spirax said the war in Ukraine, global supply chain issues, a Covid-related economic slowdown in China, rising energy prices and heightened inflationary pressures turned 2022 into "a very challenging year", contributing to a significant weakening in global Industrial Production Growth (IP).

Against this backdrop, all three business outperformed their markets and delivered strong double-digit organic sales growth, it said.

"This follows our group's resilient performance during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, when we outperformed the IP decline, as well as our subsequent double-digit growth in 2021 when the world began recovering from the effects of the pandemic," said chief executive Nicholas Anderson.