Halma Regulatory News (HLMA)

27 Oct 2005 07:00

Halma PLC27 October 2005 Halma p.l.c. TRADING UPDATE Halma, the leading safety, health and sensor technology group, issued a tradingupdate today, 27 October 2005. Halma issues trading updates each October andApril, ahead of its interim and full year announcements. Halma's interimresults for the six months to 1 October 2005 will be announced on 6 December2005. Good sales and orders momentum The Group's trading performance in the first half has been in line withexpectations and the Board remains confident of the Group's prospects for thefull year. Sales and orders for the first half were usefully ahead of last year. Althoughcosts continued to be incurred to increase opportunities for the longer term,our product margins remained solid and there was underlying organic profitgrowth. Process Safety and Optics & Specialist businesses performed strongly. Investment increased in Fire & Gas and in Elevator & Door Safety to improvetheir longer-term growth prospects. The recovery of our Water and Resistorsbusinesses is going to plan. Cash flow was in line with our normal trading patterns and we ended the half-year net cash positive. Focussed acquisition and disposal actions are ongoing We sold one of our smaller specialist businesses, SEAC Limited, to SEAC HoldingsLimited for £1.25 million, and we exited the unprofitable Resistor Transitcontracts as indicated earlier in the year. The small net loss and the goodwillwrite-off associated with these actions will be reported separately in theIncome Statement this half year. The acquisitions completed in the first half, Radio-Tech and Netherlocks, areboth trading in line with expectations. Simplified Reporting Sectors to be introduced immediately Commencing with the 2005/6 interim results, Halma will report segmental resultsunder three business sectors: • Infrastructure Sensors (including Fire, Elevator & Door Safety) • Analysis (including Optics, Fluid Technology and Water) • Industrial Safety (including Gas, Process Safety and Resistors) The main reasons for this change are to: • group businesses with similar market growth rates, market drivers and operating characteristics, whilst improving the opportunities for technical and commercial collaboration within the Group; • make ongoing communication of the Group's business and strategy more transparent to stakeholders. A reconciliation of Halma's historic results under the three new business sectors will be published on 28 November 2005 in advance of our half-year results announcement. For further information, please contact: Halma p.l.c. Tel: +44 (0)1494 721111Andrew Williams, Group Chief ExecutiveKevin Thompson, Group Finance Director Hogarth Partnership Limited Tel: +44 (0)20 7357 9477Rachel Hirst/Andrew Jaques A copy of this announcement, together with other information about Halma, may beviewed on its website: www.halma.com This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange