Welcome to our 2024 Annual Report
For decades, our unique business model has supported our organic growth and industry-leading margins.
As we set out to capture the opportunities we see from new structural drivers of growth, we are guided by our Vision. Our aim is to build for the future while preserving our unique strengths. We will do this by staying true to our Purpose and our Values and working together across Spirax Group to deliver growth.
We call this Evolving for Tomorrow’s World.
How Spirax Group is 'engineering your everyday'
Across our three Businesses, we bring together leading expertise in thermal energy (steam and electric) and fluid technology solutions. That means we design, engineer, manufacture and sell products and solutions that are essential to the efficient, safe and sustainable operation of our industrial customers’ critical processes.
We work with leading food, drinks and pet food manufacturers and with the companies producing life saving medicines and vaccines. We work with farmers, dairy producers and brewers. And, we serve a broad range of critical sectors such as Power Generation, Oil & Gas, Chemicals, Transport, Semiconductor and Aerospace & Defence, through OEM partners or direct to the customer.
That’s why it is very likely that our solutions sit behind the engineered processes of the things that you eat, drink, travel on, rely on, or use every day.
From the food on your table, the tyres on your car, your mobile phone, medicines and how you heat your home, the work of Spirax Group plays an essential role in daily life.
As the world evolves, so are we. As we get closer to our customers, we not only understand their needs today, but we anticipate their needs of tomorrow. We are evolving to meet those needs through our Together for Growth Strategy.
It is said that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but did you realise Spirax Group, and the industrial processes we support, helps put it on your table?
Steam Thermal Solutions help customers to harness the power of steam to dry and roast both tea and coffee and it is used to pasteurise milk, making it safe to drink. Bread is baked in commercial convection ovens that use heating technology from Electric Thermal Solutions. Orange juice cartons are sustainably filled using Watson-Marlow Fluid Technology Solutions’ pumps which preserve precious resources.
Even the energy used to toast your bread is generated with the help of Spirax Group.
Creating a more efficient, safer and sustainable breakfast table is just one example of the meaningful work we do together every day.
Wake up with a morning coffee brought to you by Steam Thermal Solutions (STS)
Instant coffee is produced using water heated by steam. The hot water is combined with ground coffee to create the rich flavour enjoyed by millions daily.
Our systems support this process by removing condensate from the steam system which heats the water. By returning the condensate to the boiler house, Spirax Sarco condensate recovery solutions ensure the process is both efficient and effective.
A slice of toast brought to you by Electric Thermal Solutions (ETS)
Bread and other baked goods, including pastries and croissants, are cooked using heating technology from ETS. Chromalox’s tubular heating elements are used in commercial convection heat ovens.
Their exceptional heat transfer capabilities, and ability to be sized and formed based on customer requirements, offers flexibility and versatility, as well as reliability in cooking processes.
The perfect hit of vitamin C brought to you by Watson-Marlow Fluid Technology Solutions (WMFTS)
Orange juice is transported to and poured into cartons using our peristaltic pumping technology from WMFTS.
As a high-viscose fluid, orange juice concentrate is challenging to transfer. Our hygienic Certa Pumps are ‘low shear’, produce minimal turbulence and agitation and prevent aeration or foaming, preserving product quality.
2024 at a glance
Revenue £m
£1,665.2m
Statutory operating profit £m
£304.6m
Adjusted operating profit* £m
£333.9m
All-workplace injury rate ^
2.31
Statutory earnings per share p
259.6p
Adjusted earnings per share* p
286.3p
Chair's Statement
Our strategic goal is to drive long term, compounding growth for the benefit of all our stakeholders."
Chair
Read Chair's StatementGroup Chief Executive Officer's Review
.ashx?w=500&rev=fc5b55475d1c4b8daa0b943c863dc95d&hash=69358FC3CC6F40B118359FF6DE32DBCB)
All three of our Businesses delivered organic sales growth and margins in line with our expectations."
Group Chief Executive Officer
Read Group CEO's ReviewGroup Chief Financial Officer's Review
On an organic basis sales were 4% higher, driven by growth in all three Businesses: STS (1%), ETS (10%) and WMFTS (3%)."
Chief Financial Officer
Read CFO's ReviewOperating Review
Against a challenging macroeconomic backdrop we focused on the operational priorities within our control. As a result, all three of our Businesses delivered organic sales growth and margins in line with our expectations.
We’re leading the way by combining steam technologies with our Electric Thermal Solutions Business to decarbonise the production of steam in customers’ facilities.
"Against a challenging macroeconomic backdrop, STS continued to focus on target, higher growth sectors and increasing MRO and solution-sales from our large installed base.”
Maurizio Preziosa
Managing Director, Steam Thermal Solutions
-
£867.9m
Revenue (£)
-
61
Operating units
-
£204.1m
Adjusted operating profit (£)
-
67
Countries with a resident direct sales presence
-
23.5%
Adjusted operating profit margin (%)
-
5,000+
Colleagues
We create electrical process heating and temperature management solutions, including industrial heaters and systems, heat tracing and a range of component technologies. Our electrical process heating and temperature management solutions improve process efficiency through better thermal energy management and control systems.
"As ETS continues to improve operational performance, increasing shipments and reducing lead times, we anticipate further strengthening of our market position and customer relationships."
Andrew Mines
Managing Director, Electric Thermal Solutions
-
£404.6m
Revenue (£)
-
36
Operating units
-
£64.7m
Adjusted operating profit (£)
-
20
Countries with a resident direct sales presence
-
16.0%
Adjusted operating profit margin (%)
-
2,700+
Colleagues
Our pump and fluid path technologies provide industry-leading, sustainable solutions to deliver secure and accurate metering, dosing, transfer and filling for niche industries, including Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology, Food & Beverage Production and Healthcare.
"During 2024, WMFTS saw strong demand growth in our focus sectors of Water & Wastewater, Food & Beverage and Mining and we increased our market share."
Stuart Roby
Managing Director, Watson-Marlow Fluid Technology Solutions
-
£392.7m
Revenue (£)
-
47
Operating units
-
£99.0m
Adjusted operating profit (£)
-
42
Countries with a resident direct sales presence
-
25.2%
Adjusted operating profit margin (%)
-
2,000+
Colleagues
Creating a bold Vision, together
Spirax Group has a well-established Purpose and core Values. In 2024, with a new Group CEO and his leadership team at the helm, we went deep into the organisation to hear from colleagues around the world. We listened to their pride in our Purpose, their passion for solving customer problems, heard about the challenges they faced and asked what support they needed.
These conversations brought many insights, all centred around how we continue to drive long term, compounding growth at industry-leading margins.
Our Vision for the future
Our Vision has five important characteristics that will shape the future of Spirax Group as we evolve for tomorrow’s world.
These are the things that matter the most to us, and to the people around us.
1. A trusted global leader
Being trusted is important to us; it speaks to our core Values, our heritage, our track record and the value we place on all our relationships.
2. Highly connected with customers
Being highly connected with customers means we build close, local relationships in physical and digital realms.
3. Obsessed with our customers' evolving needs
Because we are obsessed with the needs of our customers, we are relentless in seeking deeper insights about their requirements today, as well as for the future.
4. Delivering solutions that serve people
Our solutions help solve real-world problems. We play a role in so many of the critical industries that people, all over the world, rely on for food, medicines, healthcare and many of the consumables used in daily life.
5. Enable the transition to a low-carbon, resource-efficient world
Our solutions to decarbonise industrial thermal energy use help to reduce carbon emissions from industrial manufacturing.
We also want to expand our solutions, which protect precious resources, like water, as well as finding new ways to extend product lifecycles, reducing waste.
Unlocking growth from opportunity…
We are working to position Spirax Group to benefit from global trends that will drive long term, compounding growth for decades to come. Overall, these four global trends underscore our potential for growth, through the structural attractiveness of our existing end markets and through our increased addressable market opportunities. This is how we will sustain and accelerate our long term, compounding growth over decades.
Characterised by an additional 800+ million people, largely across Asia and Africa, with higher spending power driving increased consumption. Impacting sectors such as Food & Beverage, Energy and Power, which represented over a quarter of our sales in 2024.
This increase in consumer demand drives the need for process efficiency and productivity improvements, as well as capacity expansion across our customers’ operations.
800m people
entering the middle class population
Our customers are setting reduction targets for greenhouse gas emissions and water use.
The unique combination of Steam Thermal Solutions and Electric Thermal Solutions, together with our products to reduce customers’ carbon dependency through the electrification of industrial thermal processes, is a powerful differentiator for Spirax Group.
Our full suite of decarbonisation solutions have the potential to address around >5% of global carbon emissions, comparable to that of the international aviation and shipping industries combined emissions^. While our Watson-Marlow Fluid Technology Solutions Business is a key enabler of resource efficiency such as in the Water & Wastewater sector.
>5%
of global carbon emissions addressable through our full suite of decarbonisation solutions
^ 2022 data: www.climatetrace.org
Over the next decade, it is expected that one in six people in the world will be aged 65 or over, almost doubling this global population requiring increased healthcare provision.
This is fuelling innovation in the Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology (Biopharm) sector to develop and produce new treatments. Biopharm and Healthcare, accounted for 18% of our sales in 2024 and through WMFTS, we are already a world leading provider of products and solutions to the Biopharm sector.
65 years
Age of 1 in 6 people by 2035
Changing lifestyles are driving consumer choices around technology, sustainability and health. Technology is playing an increasingly important role in everyday life and our Industrial Equipment Heating Division in ETS, is a leading provider of critical thermal electric solutions to the Semiconductor sector.
Both STS and WMFTS have built a presence in the complex production chain of Electric Vehicle batteries. WMFTS is also building a presence in the Future Foods sector which includes working with start-ups developing cell-based protein as a sustainable food source to tackle food scarcity challenges, with technologies that are highly adjacent to those used in the Biopharm sector.
9.7bn
Projected global population by 2050*
* Data source: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2024). World Population Prospects 2024, Online Edition
…expanding our annual addressable market
The impact of these mega trends on our ability to accelerate long-term growth is evidenced through a 60% increase in our annual addressable market, increasing this to £17.3bn.
-
Electrification of steam generation
Solutions we refer to as TargetZero add £2.4 billion to our annual addressable market. This opportunity is sized on today's installed base of fuel-fired boilers in our target sectors and regions and an assumption of adoption over multiple years constrained by factors such as customer appetite to invest, availability of green electricity and grid transmission capacity.
-
Decarbonisation of thermal energy, beyond steam
Solutions we refer to as PoweringZero from ETS add a further £4.2 billion to our annual addressable market as we continue to deploy our Low Voltage and Medium Voltage solutions in target sectors and regions to support the electrification of critical industrial processes that currently rely on the direct burning of fossil fuels today.
Like our TargetZero solutions, this number assumes adoption over multiple years with take up constrained by the same factors as identified for the electrification of steam generation.
-
Future expansion of our addressable market
We expect our annual addressable market to expand further linked to IP-related growth, pricing, recoveries in the Biopharm and Semicon sectors and new target high growth sectors.
Our business model
Evolving from strong foundations...
Solving customer problems has long been at the heart of our differentiated ‘Customer Solutions’ business model. Our unique business model has supported our organic growth and industry leading margins for decades.
Our customer solutions model.ashx?w=640&rev=b5b8f8dc2a9c4382ae26e0f56bac2c58&hash=72DFB8F06EE2AA8785DD637891B7FB9D)
...to create customer partnerships
We are evolving from a focus on customer solutions (where we understand customer needs) to a focus on customer partnerships (where we anticipate customer needs). This will enable us to continue delivering critical thermal energy and fluid technology solutions that enhance the safety, efficiency and sustainability of our customers’ processes that produce the everyday items we all rely on, from food to pharmaceuticals.
Our customer partnerships modelDelivering on our ambition
Across the Group we are united in our ambition to deliver long term, compounding organic revenue growth.
We will achieve this by working together across our three Businesses and together in partnership with our customers, to evolve to meet the needs of tomorrow’s world, capturing the significant opportunity we see ahead of us and delivering on our ambition. We have enshrined this approach in our Together for Growth Strategy.
Evolving to leverage our strengths and scale
Preserving local presence while building a simpler and more customer-focused future.
Evolving for tomorrow’s world means protecting our strengths, such as our local sales presence, while simplifying our structure to leverage our scale.
It also means getting closer to our customers, to understand their needs today, as well as to anticipate their needs tomorrow. Developing more agility in our ability to respond quickly to their changing requirements through our products and solutions.
Evolving to deliver more customer value
Using data and insights to drive our obsession with customers’ changing needs.
We will do this by becoming even more connected to customers, augmenting the physical ‘walk the plant’ capabilities of our 2,150 direct sales engineers (DSEs) with connected and AI-enabled digital products that enable us to ‘walk the data’.
It’s these insights that drive our ability to be customer obsessed. By being able to better anticipate customer needs, we become more agile in our ability to respond.
Evolving to enable a low-carbon, resource-efficient world
Well positioned and ready to lead in energy transition through decarbonisation.
As a global leader in industrial thermal energy solutions, there is huge value to be unlocked from our combined expertise. That is our unique proposition. To help our customers reach their net zero goals through electrifying the generation of steam and replacing the direct burning of fossil fuels through direct electric technology.
Downloads
-
2024 Annual Report
-
Evolving for tomorrow's world
Download -
Strategic Report
Download -
Governance Report
Download -
Financial Statements
Download
