Smiths Group (LSE:SMIN) approaches final results on Tuesday 26 September in a rich vein of form, having reported eight straight quarters of growth and upped financial guidance several times.
On top of that, the FTSE 100-listed engineer strengthened its presence in the North American heating and cooling market with an US$82 million acquisition last month, just after its 31 July year-end.
But its shares are only 4% higher than at the start of 2022.
We have not heard an update on trading since May's third-quarter statement, where boss Paul Keel reported a slight slowing in growth to 13.4% for the nine months to April from the 13.5% in its record first half.
But Keel hauled up guidance for organic revenue for the full year, targeting "around 10%" growth with "moderate margin improvement", adding to guidance in January to 7% and in March to 8%.
Smith's divisions, by size, are John Crane, Smiths Detection, Flex-Tek and Smiths Interconnect, which provide different means of accessing four main end markets: energy, general industry, safety & security and aerospace.
The first half saw Flex-Tech growing fastest at 17%, followed by improvements for both John Crane at 14.6% and Detection at 14% while the smallest, Interconnect, slowed from the previous record year to 3.3%.