Halma PLC on Thursday said its progress in the first half of its financial year to date has been in line with expectations, despite a challenging operating environment.

The safety equipment maker noted strong demand for products and services, with order intake ‘strongly’ ahead of both revenue in the year to date and order intake for the same period last year.

Based on this, Halma expects to report ‘good’ organic constant currency revenue growth across all sectors in the first half of the year and a return on sales in line with levels typically seen in first halves of the years before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Halma noted that the depreciation of sterling is having a ‘positive’ currency translation effect on the company’s results in pound terms, and it expects this to continue into the second half of the year.

It also is benefiting from recent acquisitions.

In April, Halma bought Ontario-headquartered Deep Trekker Inc for C$60 million, around £36 million. Deep Trekker is a manufacturer of remotely operated underwater robots used for inspection, surveying, analysis and maintenance.

The acquisition became part of Halma’s Environmental & Analysis sector and the company said it is ‘the largest inorganic contribution.’

Looking ahead, Halma left its revenue growth guidance for the full-year unchanged at ‘good single-digit percentage organic constant currency revenue growth’.

It also said it has a ‘promising’ acquisition pipeline.

‘We continue to actively manage our portfolio of global businesses to ensure that it continues to deliver strong growth and returns over the long term and is aligned with our purpose of growing a safer, cleaner, healthier future for everyone, every day,’ Halma said.

Halma will release its results for the half year ending September 30 on November 17.

Shares in Halma were up 0.6% to 2,120.00 pence each in London early Thursday.

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