Business
Half Year Trading Update and Notice of Results
Half Year Trading Update and Notice of Results.
About this update from Judges Scientific Plc
[{"type":"text","content":"\n\nJudges Scientific Plc\n(\"Judges Scientific\", \"the Company\" or \"the Group\")\nHalf Year Trading Update and Notice of Interim Results\nJudges Scientific (AIM: JDG), the group focused on acquiring and developing companies in the scientific instrument sector, provides the following update regarding the Group's trading performance for the six-month period ended 30 June 2024.\nTrading in the first half of the financial year, as indicated in the AGM update, has been subdued against a backdrop of difficult market conditions and versus record prior year comparatives. The challenging environment has caused mixed trading across our Group.\nWe have continued to execute our strategy, completing two small acquisitions during the half: PE Fiberoptics acquired Luciol Instruments SA and Geotek acquired Rockwash Geodata Limited.\nReferences to \"Organic\" information in this update exclude any contribution from Henniker Scientific Limited, Bossa Nova Vision LLC and the two more recent acquisitions. Geotek is now included in the Organic results. \nOrder intake \nAcross the Group, Organic order intake was down 4% when compared against the strong H1 2023, which was up 14% against H1 2022.\nThe challenging and variable environment can be seen in Organic orders, with great contrasts between our major trading regions, the most notable variations being China/Hong Kong, down 65%, and North America also down 9%, contrasted by a 34% increase in the Rest of the World and 2% improvement in Europe.\nOrder book\nThe Organic order book was maintained at 17.2 weeks from its year end position (31 December 2023: 17.0 weeks; 30 June 2023: 22.4 weeks).\nRevenue\nOrganic revenue in the first half was down 3% compared with H1 2023, with the region most affected being China/Hong Kong where revenues reduced by 9%. The 3% drop in Organic revenue illustrated the effect of generally subdued order intake, a few instances of a sharp reduction in demand and a small number of significant projects being delayed to H2 or 2025.\nGeotek's performance was lower than H1 2023, which had included some residual income from its 2022 coring expedition. The extension of existing and entry into new digitalisation contracts occurred too late to impact the H1 results meaningfully.\nFirst Half Performance\nThe decrease in Organic r...