Good morning, everyone, and welcome to today's conference call, titled Spectris 2023 Half Year Results. My name is Ellen, and I'll be coordinating the call for today. At the end of today's presentation, there'll be an opportunity to ask a question. If you'd like to ask a question, please press Star followed by one on your telephone keypad to join the question queue. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Andrew Heath, CEO, to begin. With our strong top-line growth and focus on operational excellence, we delivered very strong margin improvement and a record operating profit. We remain a highly cash-generative business, further strengthening our already strong balance sheet and providing the group with continued flexibility. Good morning, and welcome to our interim results for 2023. Let me start by saying how delighted I am by our very strong first half results. Derek will take you through the details in a moment, but I'd just first like to emphasize that we delivered exceptional organic growth, continuing the momentum from last year. Operating profit is up 41%. With our strong top-line growth and focus on operational excellence, we delivered very strong margin improvement and a record operating profit. We remain a highly cash-generative business, further strengthening our already strong balance sheet and providing the group with continued flexibility. This performance reflects the conversion of our record order book at the start of the year, but also market share gains and the impact of net pricing. Alongside these results, we've been very busy executing our strategy for sustainable growth, including a number of exciting new product launches, the agreement to acquire MicroStrain, and strong operational improvements, expanding margins. A very strong set of results that de-risks the second half and provides yet another step towards meeting our medium-term targets, again, demonstrating the improved quality and resilience of the group. Turning to the outlook for the full year, our strong first half performance and the strength of our order book means we are upgrading our guidance for the full year. We now expect organic sales growth to be ahead of our previous guidance of 6%-7%. We continue to expect strong margin expansion, with full-year adjusted operating profit being in the range of GBP 250 million-GBP 265 million, delivering double-digit profit growth as we continue to execute our strategy as a leading sustainable compound growth business. These results would not have been possible without great people united behind a common purpose and values. I'd like to thank all of my colleagues right across Spectris for their contribution and the healthy, high-performance culture that we continue to build together. I've loved visiting a number of our sites in the first half and seeing the wonderful things going on across the business. Earlier in the year, I was at our site in Suzhou to see firsthand the fabulous progress they have made in deploying our lean operating model over the past three years. The site has been transformed. I also met with the sales team in China, who have delivered over 25% sales growth over the past 12 months, and likewise, had the pleasure of visiting our recent acquisitions, Dytran and CCRT in the U.S., and learning more about how they are solving customers' challenges through high-performance compute and advanced sensing. Just the other week, I was in Servomex, again, talking to colleagues there, who are using the SBS toolkit to improve operational performance and also others working on some exciting new product innovations. We have a truly diverse, highly skilled, and customer-centric team who collectively are creating a great and engaging place to work. I'll now pass you to Derek, who will take you through the financials in more detail. Thank you, Andrew, and good morning, everyone. Reported sales increased by 23% to GBP 702.5 million. Adjusting for the impact of acquisitions, net of disposals, which increased sales by GBP 8.1 million, and foreign exchange movements, which increased sales by GBP 16.2 million, you see a growth of 19% on a like-for-like basis. Adjusted operating profit increased by 41% to GBP 102.1 million. As expected, our operating margins have improved, increasing by 180 basis points from 12.7% to 14.5%. Adjusted profit before tax was GBP 103.4 million, up 47%. Our tax rate came in at 22%, in line with guidance. Adjusted earnings per share were GBP 0.772, up 55% on the prior year. The interim dividend per share of GBP 0.253 represents a 5% increase over the prior year, and we remain committed to paying a progressive dividend. Adjusted cash conversion was 117%, as we begin to see the benefits of a normalizing supply chain and subsequent release of working capital. At the end of June, the group had a net cash balance of GBP 214.3 million, providing significant flexibility. Finally, on this slide, our Return on Gross Capital Employed continues to improve and is up 290 basis points at 16.7%. This slide provides a graphical view of the main P&L movements that I've just discussed, and therefore I will not go over them again. However, I would like to highlight two points of note. We experienced a strong improvement in gross profit from the incremental GBP 108 million of like-for-like sales. The like-for-like gross margin in the first half increased by 140 basis points to 57.1%, due to a more stable input cost environment and pricing from 2022. We anticipate further progress in the second half. Also, it is worth noting that of the GBP 44.4 million of increased overhead shown on the slide, around 10% relates to increased R&D investment, which we continue to prioritize. Moving to cash, this slide shows how we generated cash in the period and illustrates what we have then done with that cash. Starting by adding back the GBP 19.6 million of depreciation and amortization charged to the adjusted operating profit brings you to GBP 121.7 million of EBITDA. Over the past couple of years, the group has utilized its strong balance sheet to ensure continued customer deliveries. This is now starting to normalize. As such, the working capital position is beginning to unwind, releasing GBP 9.7 million of cash in the first half. We spent GBP 11.7 million on CapEx. This gives us our adjusted cash from operating activities of GBP 119.7 million, which we divide into the adjusted operating profit to get our cash conversion metric of 117%. Transaction-related activities resulted in a GBP 5.4 million cash inflow. We had a net interest inflow of GBP 2.9 million. In the first half, we paid the final dividend of GBP 53.7 million and spent a further GBP 26.7 million on the share buyback. Our cash tax was GBP 30 million. We spent GBP 17.8 million on the design and development of our new SAP S/4HANA ERP system, which is due to go live during the course of 2024. Other movements of GBP 13.5 million brings us to a net decrease in cash for H1 of GBP 13.7 million. This slide is included for completeness, so you can easily see the bridge between our adjusted operating profit and the statutory measures. I will not go through every line, but draw your attention to the following points. There are no asset impairments to report or exceptional restructuring costs in the period. Transaction-related costs were GBP 4 million, and as previously mentioned, we spent GBP 17.8 million on our new ERP system. Amortization of acquisition-related intangibles of GBP 9.8 million brings us down to the statutory operating profit of GBP 70.5 million. We sold the remaining parts of CLS during the first half, which is the majority of the GBP 11 million loss on disposal recognized in the period. We had a net financial income of GBP 8.2 million, bringing you to GBP 68.5 million of statutory profit before tax. Moving on now to our divisions. Spectris Scientific delivered an excellent financial performance in the first half, delivering sales growth of 21% to GBP 334.1 million. Like for like, sales growth was 22%. After taking into account the GBP 6.1 million impact of the CLS disposal and the foreign exchange movements of GBP 4.7 million. Sales growth was strong across all key end markets, with the exception of life sciences, where sales were only slightly above a tough comparative period and reflecting the fact that this market was the first to see the normalization in customer order patterns. Adjusted operating profit increased 30% to GBP 58.6 million, reflecting the strong sales growth and good operational performance. Adjusted operating margin improved to 17.5%. Spectris Dynamics delivered a very good financial performance in the first half, with double-digit sales and operating profit growth. Sales increased by 23% to GBP 264.5 million. After taking into account GBP 12.8 million sales growth from the acquisition of Dytran and GBP 7.8 million for foreign exchange movements, like-for-like sales grew by 13%. Sales grew across all key end markets, with particularly strong growth in aerospace and defense and academia. An adjusted operating profit of GBP 35.8 million represented an increase of 31%, 20% on a like-for-like basis, with adjusted operating margin 80 basis points higher at 13.5%, with good gross margin progression reflecting the impact of top-line growth and net pricing, offset by cost relating to organizational restructuring. Finally, to help you with your modeling, I have set out on this slide some broad areas for technical guidance. As Andrew has already said, we now expect organic sales growth to be ahead of our previous guidance of 6%-7% and remain on track to deliver strong progress on expanding margins, with adjusted operating profit expected to be in the range of GBP 250 million-GBP 265 million. Working capital is expected to reduce and should be in the middle of our guided range of 11%-15% of sales, and CapEx should be in the region of GBP 40 million-GBP 50 million. SaaS costs will be around GBP 25 million-GBP 30 million, and the effective tax rate is expected to be 22%. The remaining GBP 83 million of the share buyback will be completed by the end of the year. With that, I'll hand you back to Andrew. Thank you, Derek. As you just heard, our results clearly demonstrate how our business model, our framework to deliver sustainable growth, is really working for us. In Spectris Scientific and Dynamics, we are owners of world-class premium precision measurement businesses with leading market positions... We operate in attractive growth markets, underpinned by a number of secular and sustainability trends that are here to stay. We continue to collaborate closely with our customers, solving some of their toughest challenges. We continue to invest for growth, both organically through new product development and via M&A, we're also driving margin improvement through our operational excellence by the deployment of our Spectris Business System and business process transformation projects. That's a really strong self-help story, delivering improved productivity. This is all underpinned by being purpose-led as a leading sustainable business, developing our people and living our values. Let's now turn to our businesses. As you just heard from Derek, Spectris Scientific and Spectris Dynamics delivered exceptional sales growth in the first half, with strong margin expansion and excellent improvement in operating profit, and that really recognizes the compound growth from M&A, as well as the strong organic growth that we achieved. At Scientific, order intake was broadly flat, with strong demand in material sciences and academia, offsetting the normalization of demand in both life science and semiconductor. Orders are up in North America and Europe, with lower semi orders impacting Asia. In Dynamics, orders were only 3% lower against a tough comparative period, and we continue to see strong demand in aerospace and defense, but at the same time, some softening of order intake in automotive since the beginning of the year, and also normalization in machine manufacturing continuing. This resulted in orders being up in North America in the half, but lower in Europe and China due to the auto and machine building exposure, respectively. Just by way of context, the demand pattern we saw from supply chain disruption and longer lead times that brought forward orders through the second half of 2021 and most of last year, has been normalizing since Q4 last year. As supply chains have eased and lead times reduced, customer ordering patterns are returning to normal, and this, in turn, has enabled the conversion of our strong order book into sales and recovery in gross margins. Importantly, though, underlying demand remains robust, with our book-to-bill being close to one and our opportunity pipelines remaining really healthy. As such, we continue to benefit from a record order book, despite delivering more of the backlog than we'd initially anticipated in the first half. As we look ahead, assuming no material changes in the external environment, we anticipate the relationship between orders and sales to be back to a structurally higher level in 2024, with greater visibility than in the past. I'm delighted with the performance of both divisions. With our focus on high-growth segments, where we differentiate through our solutions, I am confident in our ability to continue to outperform our overall end markets. As you'll have heard me say many times before, as a result of the work we have done over the last few years, we are now a higher quality and more resilient business. We are aligned with markets with a strong sustainability focus and attractive growth trajectories, positioned in technology-driven end segments with strong fundamentals. Demand for our products and services is really being amplified by a number of trends, including an aging population, the transition to cleaner energy and mobility solutions, and with a more connected world demanding ever greater need for advanced computing and data. These trends are resulting in expected market growth of 5%-6%, with our differentiated positions providing a strong market share opportunity and supporting our ability to outperform our core markets to deliver through cycle growth of 6%-7%. I'm delighted that in the first half, like-for-like sales exceeded expected market growth rates in all but one of our major end markets. Collaborating with customers, helping them solve their most complex challenges, is a key part of our growth strategy. Our applications-led, high-touch approach drives high levels of customer intimacy, and our customer-back innovation has resulted in a number of new projects and customer orders during the period. In Scientific, we are seeing particularly strong growth in metals, minerals, and mining, driven by strong sustainability trends, especially in green metals and green mining. We have seen strong demand for our X-ray instruments as customers make their extraction and manufacturing processes greener and more sustainable. The energy mobility transition is also fueling demand in battery development, where our Pascal analyzers are used to assess the quality and character of the critical input materials. Demand for our instruments in this division continues to increase in biopharma. For example, a medicines research customer working with life science organizations from around the world recently announced the purchase of its third Creoptix WAVE delta system. This provides them with unsurpassed technology for the characterization of molecular interactions, particularly those between potential drug molecules and their target proteins. We are also seeing strong uptake of our Smart Manager solution. That's a new platform connecting customers' instruments in the field to the cloud, enabling remote monitoring, diagnostic, and service. In Dynamics, as we set out recently at our Capital Markets event in Italy, growth is being fueled by four key trends. Firstly, the move to Virtual Test, where our driver experience simulators are class leading. Our understanding of engineering data is helping to build a software business with more on the way. We're entering new markets like electrical powertrain testing. I've also seen how our smart sensors can improve crop yields in farming to patient comfort in hospital beds as customers drive to automate and make their devices smarter. Sales in both divisions is also being supported by academia, where demand for our products and services aligns with the same trends across our other end markets, and that supports future growth as new technologies and applications are commercialized. These high levels of customer intimacy and understanding really help drive our innovation pipeline, informing our research and product development strategy, such that we can anticipate our customers' needs for the future. I could talk about many of our new products and solutions that we launched in the first half, but here I highlight just two. In Scientific, we launched the NanoSight Pro to measure the size and concentration of nanomaterials for rapidly growing biopharma applications used in the development of vaccines, cell and gene therapies, and drug delivery systems. The NanoSight Pro generates robust, high-quality characterization data up to three times faster than previous versions. In Dynamics, in Virtual Test, we broadened our simulator offering with the launch of the COMPACT Full Spectrum Simulator, as we showcased at our recent investor event. The FSS simulates highly accurate motion, vibration, and sound effects in a small footprint, and that enables human-in-the-loop testing for automotive customers. The vital connection between objective simulation data and subjective human perception allows for early virtual testing and closely replicates the experience of driving a real car before a physical prototype is built. Going forward, we'll maintain R&D investment around 8% of revenue. We continue to invest in M&A as an important element of our strategy to compound growth, enabling us to further enhance our advantage positions, strengthening and expanding our portfolio to add further value for our customers. In the first half, M&A contributed 2.5% to our top-line growth. We have an active pipeline of potential acquisitions, ranging from early-stage technologies to bolt-on acquisitions of varying sizes, right through to larger-scale opportunities. With financing costs having recently increased for many market participants, and with our strong balance sheet, we are well-placed to take advantage of these opportunities. In June, we announced an agreement to acquire MicroStrain Sensing Systems into Dynamics, which has a long-established position in precision sensing. When the deal completes, which we expect to do in the third quarter, the acquisition will strengthen our overall sensing offering, helping to further penetrate the rapidly growing automation and smart manufacturing markets, while increasing our North American presence. It will also enable MicroStrain to benefit from leveraging Dynamics' global sales and service network. A key part of our strategy and our journey to delivering 20%+ operating margins is our strong self-help story, built around our focus on a lean mindset and business transformation projects. We have made really good progress with the restructuring of Spectris Dynamics in the first half into three customer-aligned units: Virtual Test, Physical Test, and In-Process Measurement, absorbing the associated costs during the half. We continue to drive operational excellence to improve productivity and strengthen our competitiveness through the Spectris Business System. Following the supply chain challenges experienced last year, and also the significant growth in customer demand, our primary focus during the first half has been to continue to improve capacity utilization and improve flow, to convert our strong order book into sales, whilst also reducing costs and lead times. I'm really delighted with our progress and the continuous improvement being delivered through SBS. We delivered a reduction in overheads of 30 basis points during the first half, which not only supports delivery of continued strong margin expansion for the remainder of this year, but also for our future medium-term operating margin targets. We're also making good progress with the implementation of our new ERP installation, which is on track to go live across 2024. You know, sustainability remains at the heart of our purpose, to deliver value beyond measure for all our stakeholders, with progress in the first half summarized on this slide. We are building a distinct, healthy, high-performance culture that is underpinning our results. I'm really delighted that we continue to see increased levels of engagement right across the group, with our recent annual Gallup survey showing positive results in all areas and continuing the upward three-year trend. We're also making really strong progress towards meeting our net zero targets. We continued investment in renewable energy sources, more efficient lighting, and insulation, and we're also accelerating the use of EcoVadis across the group to increase the sustainability focus of our supply chain. Looking at our impact on society, in April, we worked with Young Professionals to deliver our second STEM work experience event, attended by over 700 school students from a range of backgrounds. We remain a proud sponsor of International Women in Engineering Day, which took place in June. This year, the day was celebrated with The Spectris Foundation, Young Professionals, and TechGirlz, involving over 275 young women from across the U.K. and the U.S., exploring different career paths in technology and engineering. In support of our colleagues who have family and friends in Turkey and Syria, following the devastating earthquake in February, we made a donation of GBP 100,000 to CARE International as part of the Disasters Emergency Committee Appeal. In summary, we've had an excellent first half, which is testament to the brilliant work of my colleagues, our business model, and our culture. The strong financial performance and further progress on strategic execution represents yet another step on our journey towards delivering our medium-term targets. As well as a compelling compound growth story, we have a number of initiatives to further strengthen and enhance the business. We are a more resilient, higher quality business today, and while we remain very alive to changes in the macroeconomic environment, our successful strategy and strong balance sheet provides us with a really good platform for sustainable growth. I am confident in the combination of our strong market positions and the long-term growth drivers, enabling us to outperform our end markets. Thank you for listening today, and now Derek and I will be very happy to take your questions. Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. We just pause for a moment to collect the question queue. Our first question comes from Rory Smith from UBS. Rory, your line is now open. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. It's Rory from UBS. I've, I've got three. First of all, you've described life sciences as being the first end market to see normalization in ordering patterns, and that you're starting to see that normalization in, in other end markets as well. I was wondering if you could put some, some numbers to that in terms of book-to-bill by end market segment, please? I assume we're only going to take questions one at a time. Let me just start by addressing sort of your normalization in life sciences. I mean, this, this pattern started really back over 12 months ago. You know, we, you know, we, like lots of other companies facing off to life science and pharma, saw a big demand not only just through COVID, but that sort of immediate post-COVID bounce. That really ended about 18 months ago in life sciences, and the markets are really normalized over the subsequent 12 months and sort of pretty much then flattened since then. But what we haven't seen that some of our peers did do is that, you know, was the fact that, you know, they're seeing quite a bit of destocking. As we've repeatedly said, we do not sort of provide sort of stock into the system, into the, into the distribution channels. We're typically selling direct to customers for discrete projects. So we neither saw the sort of big upswing in sort of consumables and stocking that happened sort of during COVID and immediately afterwards. You know, rather, you know, we've, you know, we've seen a much more sort of, you know, just a usual demand pattern from a, direct ordering that's then normalized. If you look at the other markets, I think, you know, machine building, machine manufacturing was the next market for us to sort of normalize, which sort of started about 12 months ago. There you have to sort of look at, sort of the market, order growth we saw in Dynamics through the first half of last year, where we saw about 30% order growth, in Dynamics overall. Well, that was in, machine, you know, machine manufacturing, and all of that was within China. I think some of that was driven by the fact we were putting prices up at the time, and therefore, there was a bit of maybe sort of earlier ordering as a consequence of customers trying to avoid some of the price increases that were going through. I think that sort of market subsequently normalized. The flip side of that is that we've seen very strong resurgence in primary materials over the last nine months, and also in aerospace and defense and academia, as we talked about. you know, as a consequence of those markets coming up, pretty much that's allowed us to sustain a very strong order intake, and given the tough comps, a book-to-bill around one. as I said, just on the presentation earlier, I think the other thing to look at is the fact that if you look at our sort of what we call our sort of major qualified marketing leads, plus our sort of AB opportunities that we see in terms of the sales pipeline, those trends remain very healthy. The number of opportunities remains very strong. The one thing we are just seeing, I'd say, is that, you know, it's taking a little bit longer in some of the end markets for customers to actually convert their interest into actual orders. Overall, you know, we're very pleased that the underlying demand is very robust and the book-to-bill remaining around about one. That's very clear. Thank you. My second question, I'll limit myself just to two. Given Red Lion and Servomex made as much profit as Dynamics in the first half, can you just give some more color on what drove margins there and whether you see those as sustainable? Thanks. Yes. Well, I mean, as we said all, you know, over and on, I mean, Red Lion and Servomex are both quality businesses. You know, the question there has always been around, you know, their scale. What we've been able to achieve, really, in, in both businesses over the last, sort of 18 months, is a strong improvement in their operational performance. We changed management at, beginning of last year in both businesses, and we've been very pleased with just how, you know, the operational improvements have been implemented are now coming through in the results. That's certainly helping to underpin the performance in, in both Red Lion and Servomex. I think the other factor that's sort of really driving, it was an exceptional performance for the other division in the first half, was Red Lion's ability to convert its order book. Coming into the new year with electronics and particularly semiconductor supply chains easing quite quickly, Red Lion were able to deliver quite a bit of their order backlog, certainly much faster than we anticipated. Of course, that's then, you know, they've done a great job in terms of executing that all the way through the business. As you'd expect, you know, that's delivered a very strong, drop-through for the operating leverage, executing that backlog. Then there's a, there's a sort of a slight exceptional, there in the first half for Red Lion. That's very clear. Thank you. Thanks for taking my questions. No, pleasure. Thank you, Rory. Thank you. Our next question comes from Jonathan Hurn from Barclays. Jonathan, your line is now open. Please go ahead. Hey, guys. Good morning. Just a few questions for me. Can I just, again, come back to, to life sciences, and maybe if you could just talk about the order intake there, Q2 versus Q1? I'm just trying to sort of gauge where we are sequentially and just the feel of if are we still seeing quite a big step down, or do you feel that sort of life science orders are, are pretty much at the trough? That was the first one. Good morning, Jonathan. Thanks for your question. In life sciences, pretty much, Q2 over Q1 is, is pretty flat. You know, as I said, we really saw that normalization, you know, start to happen about 18 months ago. It was the first market to normalize, and then sort of stabilized really over the last six to nine months. Okay. Great. Thank you. The second one was, was just on pricing. Did you see any price rises or push through any price rises in the first half? Just linked to that, can you just tell us about or talk about the sort of pricing in the order book? What kind of growth are we seeing there? Is it kind of roundabout mid-single digits or, or similar levels, please? Yeah. On pricing, just to sort of, take your first part of your question, I mean, we, we, we haven't implemented any new pricing in the first half of this year. Our last pricing round was done in the start of Q4 last year. As we said, back at the full year and our Q1 trading update, you know, we were expecting that pricing to start to come through in the first half, which it, which it clearly has done. The Q1 trading update, we talked about expecting to see sort of price over volume, you know, that ratio invert from last year. I mean, we achieved 60% volume, 40% pricing last year. We actually achieved the same ratio in the first half. We previously thought on guidance that we, you know, that would invert over the last six months. It hasn't done that. That's mainly the consequence of us delivering, really, you know, strongly in, in the first half, and being able to execute more of the backlog of supply chain eased, and therefore, you know, that supported a higher level of volume throughput in the first half. As we go into the second half, you know, we certainly would expect that ratio to invert over the next six months. Okay. The pricing in the order book, roughly, any thoughts? Well, I mean, we've, you know, we've got, say, the pricing round that we implemented at the beginning of October last year, that will come through more fully in the second half than in the first half, where we'd only really expect to get sort of about a quarter's worth of that, pricing benefit, happening, you know, in the first half, because we, we came into the, into the year with about six months order backlog. Very clear. Then maybe just one last one for Derek. Just in terms of that guidance range, obviously, GBP 250 million-GBP 265 million of EBITDA. Could you just give us or talk us through how we get, or you could get to that sort of GBP 265 million, just the assumptions that kind of underpin that upper level of the range, please? Good morning, Jonathan. I mean, I think to an extent, if we, if we look at where some of the analyst assumptions are at the moment, they're very wide. We came into this morning, I think, some analysts at GBP 224, some analysts at GBP 274. We were trying to kind of be helpful, and there's a range of options between some more bullish views on sales growth and more bullish views on the sort of cost control versus the more negative views. I mean, mathematically, clearly, if you're nearer the top end on sales growth and you see all the margin drop through, you get to GBP 265, and if you're somebody who's taking a slightly more negative view, perhaps of the final part of the year, you get, you get to GBP 250. you know, it, it's, it's a range for, for a reason. It's only the end of July. you know, clearly, we're, we're very confident with our range, and as always, hope to do well. We thought it was helpful to give a, a slightly tighter range of, of GBP 250-GBP 265 than, than some of the, some of the analyst ranges that are out there at the moment. Okay. Very clear. Thank you very much, guys. Thank you. Our next question comes from George Featherstone from Bank of America. George, your line is now open. Please go ahead. Hey, morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions. First one, just be a follow-up on the last one there, Derek. Low end of the operating profit guidance implies slightly less profit to be delivered in H2 than you did last year. Given you've got improved pricing versus cost, improved gross margins and improvements in the broad cost base, that number seems quite conservative. I just wanted to know how we should think about that, and are there any particular headwinds that we need to take into account for the second half of the year? Yeah, I mean, I think, George, once you get into ones and twos of millions for a full-year number, it's quite, it's quite difficult to kind of land exactly and sort of see specific numbers. I think the way I, the way I would look at it is we, we expect the market to look at our range and probably land somewhere in the middle of it, which is an upgrade to expectations. When we take into account that there was GBP 5 million of restructuring in the first half, that's actually a bigger upgrade than, than the screen might suggest. I think, you know, where, where, where we land, clearly, we are still very confident of seeing our full-year growth being ahead of our previous guidance. We're very confident of our margin expansion, and you're right, that if all of those come through, we end up near the middle or the higher end of the range. At the same time, we're also well aware of a world that has FX uncertainty-... and other macro uncertainties that could give us challenges in that sense. I think, you know, it doesn't change any of our view as to where we've got to, but we're just trying to be helpful, giving, giving that range. Dare I say it, just make sure people kind of keep grounded in reality as they look at the incredibly strong first half, and just think about where we're going to come out in the second half. Okay, very clear, understood. Then just a quick one on the order book. Obviously, you talk about it still being at a sort of very high level. In terms of the cover, I take it that's now normalized a bit. I mean, I think you're talking six months at the start of the year, maybe four to five months now in, in line with the kind of medium-term expectation. Is the implicit outlook then that book-to-bill stays at kind of one time from here, or do you expect it to drop further in the second half? George, I mean, I mean, in terms of the order book visibility, I mean, we were at Q1 trading update. I mean, we went from-- we came into the year with six months visibility. At the end of Q1, it was about five. Clearly, we've got, you know, we are look-- as we look forward, we're delivering more and more sales. There's, you know, inevitably, you know, that weighs on it slightly, but, you know, as we stand at the half year, then we're just a shade under five. Pretty much our visibility has remained flat at the end, you know, Q2 over Q1, which is very good. We talked about, you know, previously, that we'd expect visibility to normalize to a range between four and five, so we're still at the upper end of that range, which is positive. As I said earlier, you know, we fully expect, based on the fact we now face off to, you know, a more concentrated set of markets with strong fundamentals as a consequence of the sort of reshaping we've done as a business over the past few years, that we'll end up at a sort of structurally higher level with greater visibility. You know, that four to five range is higher than Spectris has been historically. I think if you're looking, if you want to go back sort of four, five, six years, where it's more like three to four months of visibility. As I say, you know, our guidance range, we, we anticipate sort of falling somewhere between four to five months, and currently, we're sitting at the top end of that. There's no reason to think then that your book-to-bill sort of materially deteriorates from here, then, if you're going from just under five months to four to five months? If we, we, we expect it to normalize somewhere in that four to five month range. It clearly depends on, you know, what's the order intake going to be over the next six months will determine where that's, you know, as we, you know, where we'll exit Q3 and ultimately at the end of the year. As I said earlier, in terms of sort of our opportunity pipeline, it remains very robust and very healthy. You know, the number of sort of strong, A opportunities, we call them, you know, is as, is as good as it's been over the last sort of 12-24 months. It's just taking a bit longer for customers to convert their interest into absolute orders. You know, we're working hard with our sales team to, to convert them, but it's clearly a trend that we've seen over the last six months. It's just a little bit more nervousness out there. It really just depends, you know, exactly just how customers view the year, their outlook, and their propensity to, you know, spend money. Understood. All right. Thank you very much. My pleasure. Thank you, George. Thank you. Our next question comes from Mark Davies-Jones from Stifel. Mark, your line is now open. Please go ahead with your question. Thank you. Morning, Andrew, morning, Derek. Could I ask about China, please? I saw the Asian orders were down more than other regions. I'm assuming that's just because of the end markets, that you're more heavily weighted in there. Is there anything going on in terms of export controls or issues of that nature, which is weighing on the, the China trend? Morning, Mark. China, I mean, still remains a very strong market for us. I think, you know, it was 17% of our sales in the first half, it was 18% for the full year last year, so it's broadly the same. We certainly saw as China reopened or lifted all its sort of COVID restrictions, post-Chinese New Year, we saw a bit of a bounce, certainly in the Spectris Scientific, around orders come through, but then that sort of quickly sort of softened again. Spectris Dynamics have seen sort of a more softer position in China over the last six months, mainly as a consequence of its exposure to the machine building, which I talked about, against a very tough call from the previous periods last year, but then also automotive in China wasn't as strong. You know, so China, I think, you know, we're a bit disappointed, I think, from where we thought it might be post-reopening, but I think, you know, we alongside lots of other people, so I don't think there's anything unusual in terms of what we've seen there. Then in terms of sort of export controls, yes, it is a tougher environment in the sort of semiconductor space. It's really only impacting us in that space. It's a little bit in Dynamics around some of the test and measurement, where we have some sort of dual-use technologies. You know, I would sort of cap it in the sort of GBP 10 million-GBP 20 million, sort of, you know, revenue range is sort of our sort of potential exposure there, so relatively small in the scheme of things. As we've sort of shown or seen and demonstrated in China in the past, you know, where we've, where we've had restrictions come in, we saw it with the tariffs sort of three, four years ago, where, you know, with tariffs going up, it's, you know, some parts of the market meant that we was becoming, you know, we were uncompetitive in that space. We were able to pivot our sales force to go and look at other opportunities in China. I think we all need to recognize that China is a very big market. There's lots of opportunities, and we sort of continue to maintain a, a focus on driving growth and expanding in China. It's certainly not decoupling from China. For us, it's very much. managing the growth and de-risking that growth, and looking for other opportunities where we can, you know, achieve, you know, achieve orders and sales. Okay, great. Just very quickly, while I got you, the, the academia piece of your end market seems to be strong. Is that just sort of late cycle flow through from the other end markets, or is there something more specific driving that? I, I, I think it's two things. It's one, it's sort of, it is that sort of late cycle growth, you know, coming off the back of the other markets. You know, what, you know, the areas that we are focused in, so, you know, a lot of the cleaner, healthier, more productive areas that we're focused on, the market's focused are on around energy transition, around electrification, factory technologies, drug development, certainly sort of large molecules, gene therapies, and, you know, the new mRNA drugs that are sort of coming out of the back of the pandemic. You know, all of those trends that we're seeing driving growth from our sort of OEM customers is also fueling demand for research, which we sort of get a natural sort of compounding effect, which also is a good sort of forward indicator for future demand as well. In fact, you know, a lot of this research ultimately then flows through into the commercial world, where, you know, where we've sold instruments, test measurement equipment, that space ultimately then goes on as the commercialization phase. It's, you know, it's an early marketing tool and a, you know, a guide to sort of, you know, further growth for us. It's, you know, it's good to see the sort of academia R&D space, you know, recovering so strongly. Excellent. Thank you very much. Thank you. Good question. Thank you. Our next question comes from Lush Mahendrarajah from JP Morgan. Lush, your line is now open. Please go ahead. Oh, thank you. Thank you both, and thanks for taking my, my questions. The first is just on sort of the auto sector and sort of the orders there and, and sort of the softening. I mean, could you give us a bit more color on, on where you're seeing that softening? Is it across the board? Is it sort of simulation, is it the EV side, or just, just to get help to get a breakdown of the areas that you're seeing that softening? Morning, Lush. I think, I mean, I would say sort of the softening we've seen is general, really. It's nothing sort of specific around electrification or virtual tests. I think, you know, the, the demand is there from an underlying perspective. The number of opportunities that we are working on with our customers remains very strong. I think of all areas, this is just one where it is taking longer to convert because customers are just being a bit more cautious given their view of the macro. I think you have to recognize within auto, that, I mean, you know, the supply chain shortage, they were able to price for that, and were able to get good margins, good cash generation, but they are all spending a lot of money on the whole transition to electric vehicles and autonomous technologies. You know, that is soaking up quite a lot of CapEx, which is good for us, but it does mean if, you know, as they're sort of looking into a sort of softer macro environment, with supply chains recovering, you know, are they gonna get the demand for the same demand for vehicles that they, they were originally anticipated coming into the year? We're just seeing, you know, I think, a bit more of a conservative position. Whether, you know, that will resolve itself through the second half or not, we will see, you know, as, as, as our auto OEM customers and the supply chain takes a view on, you know, how 2024 will turn out. Okay. Thanks, super helpful. Sort of a similar question, is this just on Dynamics and I guess the, the sort of drop-off in Q2 relative to Scientific, which, which held up a lot better. Is there anything to think about within that in terms of, you know, a bigger pull forward in, in Q1 between two divisions, or, or is that just sort of some of these end markets being a bit softer in Dynamics than, than, than Scientific? I think, I think for Dynamics, I mean, I think the, the, the key thing to recognize that the, our order intake in Q1 and Q2 last year in Dynamics was incredibly strong. I mean, orders were up 30%, as I said, in Dynamics. Q1, they were up 20% in Scientific the same period last year in the first half. We did see a, you know, a peak surge in demand, through the first half of last year. I'd say some of that was just the fact that sort of Dynamics markets were a bit later cycle than scientific, also the fact that, you know, we did put prices up in the end of Q1 in Dynamics last year, which drove quite a lot of sort of earlier placing of orders, potentially during Q1 of the first half than otherwise would have been, you know, expected. I think, you know, overall, you know, order intake in scientific was up 1%, on a reported basis, was only down 2% in Dynamics, sorry, about 5% in Dynamics. You know, I-- to me, there's nothing to worry about there. I think it's just the fact that, you know, we're up against a much tougher comp in Dynamics and, you know, some of the end markets are just, you know, slightly, you know, in a different phase than we're seeing in Scientific. Okay. Very helpful. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from Calum Battersby, from Berenberg. Callum, your line is now open. Please go ahead. Great. Morning, guys. Thank you for taking my questions. I think three from me, please, but they're kind of in overlapping areas. Firstly, can we talk a bit about the overhead and headcount in the first half? The last couple of halves, obviously, seen a slight disconnect between the level of revenue growth and the headcount within the business. Are you able to say if this reflects a reluctance to hire into an uncertain macro or the benefits of the Spectris Business System or something else? Then related, is the expectation that H2, the headcount grows further from here, or do you expect it stays broadly where it is? Thanks. Morning, Calum. Thanks for your question. I think the answer is very simple, really. I mean, we are very disciplined around our cost control. You know, we're keeping a very strong eye on where we're seeing volume growth versus price and growth, and where we therefore need to sort of, you know, invest and recruit, you know, sales, marketing, effort to sort of, you know, expand the growth versus actually just, you know, we're getting the benefit from price. In the first half, I mean, we're very pleased, as I said, in the presentation with our progress on SBS. That is maturing really well within the business. It's becoming part of our DNA and how we go about, you know, running our business, both in terms of just our sort of lean operating model and then driving, you know, Kaizen's continuous improvements event to take out waste, improve flow, reduce working capital, improve quality and customer satisfaction. In the first half, you know, overhead's down 30 basis points. Really pleased with the progress. In the second half, I mean, we are, again, you know, same message really, you know, disciplined on cost control. You know, we recruit where we need to recruit, but generally speaking, you know, we're not on a major recruitment drive. You know, we've, we've expanded headcount where we need to over the last 12, 18, 24 months to meet the growth, but we've done, you know, we've done that in a very considered manner. At the same time, you know, we're also making some restructuring moves where again, it makes sense. In Dynamics, we had EUR 5 million of restructuring in the first half, really off the back of the organization announcement we talked about in Italy at the Capital Markets Day, and also simplifying some of the sales, our sort of regional sales offices, and looking at sort of sales force efficiency across the Dynamics organization. That's helping to drive productivity. You know, won't see that come through, really, you know, as it comes through in the first half, we've taken the charge. You'll start to see some of it at the back end of this, this, second half, but we'll come through sort of fully next year. You know, we're, we're, you know, we're focused on, you know, continuing to drive productivity and efficiency and using the SBS toolkit to help us achieve that. That's really clear. Thanks, Andrew. I suppose related, could you please update us on progress around the implementation of the new ERP system? Are you able to say when we'll see the various stages of completion on this, and then when we might start seeing the phasing of the guided margin benefits coming through? Yeah. We're making great progress, Calum, on the, on the, the system. We're beyond the Site Acceptance Test. I won't get too technical here, but the system is up and working, and it, and it's operating. We're now entering the detailed user acceptance testing phase, where we basically load up all of our data into the system and, you know, let the real people who are gonna have to live and use it, start operating it and go through their testing phases, which will be for the remainder of this year. I think the, the, the main rollout will be during the course of next year, and we'll start to, start to see the benefits coming through in 2025. That's, that's the broad, the broad plan, and it kind of drops in different phases in different parts of the group over the next kind of 18 months. Very helpful. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from Andrew Douglas from Jefferies. Andrew, your line is now open. Please proceed with your question. Good morning, gents. Three quick questions from me, please. Just going back to automotive in China, please, can you give us a rough breakdown of your customer concentration? Are you Tesla, are you domestic China, or are you kind of Western Europe OEMs who operate in China? I'm just trying to figure out where your exposure is, because actually, it's quite an interesting moving, you know, dynamic there, from an OEM perspective. The second one is... Well, I just want to do it one by one, or we have to write them down, all down. Yeah. Morning, Andy. Thanks for your question. In terms of auto, generally, this is a general comment as well, but it also describes China as well. I mean, we, we serve the whole market. We don't, you know, we're not concentrated around any particular large customers. We serve, you know, all the traditional OEMs, you know, the Western OEMs, but we also serve, you know, the new entrants, the early startups, across China, but also across, you know, Europe and into North America as well. And I think you have to just remember, you know, it's 80% of our sales into automotive is into the research and development, so it's very much new platform-driven in terms of demand. We continue to see, you know, a very large number of new platforms being developed, you know, mostly the largest it's been for decades. You know, that overall is helping to, you know, keep the demand up. The fact that we are, as you, as you're well aware, you know, looking, you know, not just at sort of some of the traditional test and measurement activities, but particularly around electrification, around Virtual Test, around simulation, but then progressively, as we get into sort of Hardware-in-the-Loop and some of the software applications around that as well, as vehicles become more software-defined, you know, that is providing us with more and more opportunities. For us, it's, you know, overall, the opportunity set there remains very strong. It just comes down to, say, you know a bit of customer cautiousness at the moment around just, you know, they've got the demand, they've got the interest. It's just placing the orders, it's just, it's just taking a bit longer. Yeah, understood. If, if you look at the margin profile of the group, if we assume that central costs stay where they are, if you were to get rid of the two other businesses, it looks like of your 180 basis points improvement in margin, it's about 65-ish, maybe 70, from Scientific and Dynamics, which given the fact you've got Spectris Business System and you've got pricing, maybe looks a little bit on the miserable side. You know, if the, if the other margins have gone from what, 11-20. Where do you guys need to work harder over the next 12 months or 24 months or even longer, on the margin side to kinda get where you need to get to for that 20%? Feels like Dynamics has got a bit of catch up, and Scientific has got some point too as well. Is that fair? Yeah. Hi, Andy. I mean, I love the way you phrased your question. I think a couple of things to remember. If you look at the gross margin that Dynamics experienced in the second half of last year, that was where a lot of the, the challenge in margin happened last year. When we think about the Dynamics margin progression that we anticipated this year, a lot of that is second half loaded as the gross margin recovers and our cost control continues to kick in. I think some people have probably got that slightly out, maybe have, have averaged it in their numbers. Yeah. When you look at the Dynamics margin, it's actually done what we anticipated it to do in the first half. It's then masked a little bit in the first half by restructuring costs that we're now taking above the line. That's a charge that's gone through Dynamics. As Andrew said, it's, it's EUR 5 million, the numbers are slightly confusing. It's EUR 5 million, GBP 4 million, and at the group level, there's also GBP 1 million at the central cost as well. We have this five number twice. In the first half, there is GBP 5 million of restructuring costs, four in Dynamics, one at the group, in pound terms, EUR 5 million in Dynamics alone. I think there's an element of timing. The second half gross margin coming through, second half benefiting from that restructuring coming through, those would all, those would all benefit. I think the other thing that we need to be really focused on, and, and are, is making sure that our exit run rate of cost going into 2024 is, is positioned correctly, which it will be. And, you know, we'll continue to see the benefits from SBS. The other big kicker on the, on the margin improvement is the, is the ERP, which, as I said, starts to go live over the course of the next 18 months and will help us in, in 2025. I, I don't think there's anything in this, in this set of numbers that knocks us off course from the 20% guidance that we gave at the Capital Markets Day. In fact, it's, in our mind, it's a proof point that it's, it's all coming through. Yep, cool. Okay. Then just with, with regards to M&A, clearly tons of cash, and maybe some more coming in if you were to get rid of other. You got the pipeline. How's the pipeline looking? Is it getting better in terms of quality and, and number? Are you guys having to think maybe slightly differently, given, given, you know, you've got a lot of cash and you need to kind of spend it, or is it just kind of steady as she goes, and if things happen, things happen? Andy, yeah, we've got, we've again, as we said earlier, we've got an active and healthy pipeline on M&A. I think it's fair to say that, you know, a number of the assets that are under sort of PE ownership, you know, the financial sponsors, you know, that, that side of the market has been much slower over the last 12 months as, as a consequence of the cost of capital going up significantly. A number of processes that they were looking to run have either been sort of delayed or stopped for the time being. That sort of, you know, we, we, we continue to track assets, but the opportunity to potentially participate has reduced. However, you know, we have put a lot of focus on continuing to nurture and cultivate other potential targets, you know, we are talking to trade buyers, as you saw with the likes of Parker Hannifin and MicroStrain, also privately, you know, held assets as well, where we continue to work on building a relationship and cultivating our position. You know, we have an active and, and, and healthy pipeline of opportunities. You know, the question is, as always, it's just that, you know, it's, it's not always in our ability to actually transact, you know, we're certainly very, you know, we're participating strongly. Lovely. Thank you. Pleasure. Thank you. Our next question comes from Harry Phillips, from Peel Hunt. Harry, your line is now open. Please go ahead. Good morning, everyone. Again, sorry, a couple of questions from myself. Really just carrying on that M&A theme from Andy. This is likely to be the fifth year of net cash, and no one's obviously going to berate you for that. I, I sort of, I think I know the answer to the question in a way, but just how much sort of pressure ranks, time at board meetings is taken up with, with that sort of balance between sort of prudence and, and sort of efficiency around the balance sheet? Then just changing tack totally, in, in terms of the R&D sort of gets up to 8% and, and in conjunction with the customer focus and, and as, as a theme, which is clearly being very successful, just how, how much of that R&D, I'm not suggesting it's customer sort of funded, but how much of that growth in R&D is sort of customer aligned, and therefore the sort of risk profile on it may be more reduced than pure R&D might be? Yeah, Harry. Hey, it's Derek. Let me take, let me take the first one. I mean, in terms of time at the board, we spend a huge amount of time considering capital allocation and doing what's in the best interest for, for our shareholders, as you might expect. We, we have a very clear capital allocation policy, where we are generating cash through selling businesses where we don't think we're the right owner. We'll, we'll, we'll do that, and I think we've shown that a good track record in doing that over the last couple of years. That's one side of the equation. The other side of the equation is then sources and uses of that, of that capital. I think, you know, we are looking at M&A opportunities, whilst at the same time maintaining our discipline, whilst at the same time continuing to, you know, complete the share buyback. I think you kind of look at all of those things in the round. Sometimes it's timing, you know, if opportunities present themselves, sometimes it's a question of, of, of holding the nerve and being patient. We will continue to follow the capital allocation policy. We will continue to pay a progressive dividend, and we'll continue to keep you updated as and when. That's very kind. Thank you. I'll take, I'll take your second question, Harry. In, in terms of sort of your customer focus point, or a bit more around the alignment of R&D, I'll, I'll, I'll answer the second part of your question first, which is. I mean, we, we typically spend around about 10% of our, our, of our R&D budget on sort of, how to say, pure, pure sort of or technology development or advanced research. So, you know, clearly, we are always looking at, you know, how we develop our IP, where do we see potential sort of, you know, breakthrough technologies, where we can push the technology, you know, what are the other, you know, the next set of opportunities in sort of premium precision measurement that maybe, you know, our customers, you know, are either asking for or, you know, we can anticipate, you know, through our own scientists and engineers. And then, you know, 60% + is, of what we spend is then really on sort of new product development, new service development, and that's all very much aligned around the themes that we talk around, around cleaner, healthier, more productive. Whether that's in sort of pharma, life sciences, but also it's semiconductors, where, you know, we continue to see, developments in, in, in drug development, discovery, plus, you know, the next generation nodes in semi, and, you know, how are we then developing our product tool, you know, products, our instruments, our measuring equipment to meet those future needs. You know, because we have a direct sales model and we talk to our customers regularly, we're collaborating on current projects, you know, that allows us to anticipate their future needs and, and, you know, and intercept those into the future. You know, certainly in sort of pharma, life sciences, you know, that whole reshoring is also helping drive demand. You know, I, you know, I think we, you know, we, we, we do have a high touch model, which allows us to get that level of customer focus, that centricity, that intimacy with our customers, so we can really anticipate it. We spend over 60% of our R&D budget overall on sort of, I would say, applied specific product development and service development, to meet, you know, known customer requirements. You know, it's, it's, you know, relatively low risk, in, in, you know, from a R&D perspective. Brilliant. Thanks very much indeed. No, thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from Bruno Gjani, from BNP Paribas Exane. Bruno, your line is now open. Please go ahead. Thank you for taking the question. I just wanted to come back on order trends, and I was just wondering, I want to gather your thoughts around how much of the order slowdown do you think can be attributed to just supply chain effects, and how much is demand that is underlying demand coming down? As to my mind, if lead times come down, it's not surprising that orders come down in lockstep. Of course, the difference is that this time, these orders turn over at a quicker rate. So actually, the impact to the P&L may be more limited than we see. Could you perhaps provide some color or share just what your gut feel is in regards to the drivers of this order normalization? Is this mostly a supply chain dynamic, or is this actually more evenly balanced between underlying demand coming down and supply chains loosening? Yeah. Bruno, I, I think I, I get your question. I mean, well, fundamentally, it's a, it's, it's really the supply chain dynamics that are, you know, I think that have driven the order shape. If you look at, you go back and look at 2021, the first half of last year, I mean, we were seeing, you know, phenomenal order growth, you know, 20%-30%+ growth in orders, you know, quarter-on-quarter compared to the prior period. You know, that was as a consequence of, you know, some sort of post-pandemic bounce still, you know, go back to 2021, but then obviously, supply chains got tighter, and then we had, you know, the invasion of Ukraine, uncertainty. You know, customers were, you know, wanting to make sure that they were getting their orders in early. At the same time, you know, lead times were going out and supply chain was constrained. We got, you know, quite a, you know, quite a build between, you know, our book-to-bill grew, as you know, quite strongly during that period. As the, really from, I'd say, Q4 last year, we sort of started to see it, you know, as the supply chains ease, some of that, the concerns have come off, maybe a bit of the sort of the macro. You know, we've, we've, we've absolutely seen the lead times coming down, and therefore, customers don't need to place their orders as early as they were. You know, they're waiting, so that has just sort of brought the book-to-bill back to a more natural level. You have to remember, we've, we've, we've had a positive book- to- bill for almost 36 months. Mm-hmm. You know, right at the end of this reporting period. At some point, that was going to normalize, which, which has happened. For me, it's, it's much more around sort of just normalization of that, of that order profile as a consequence of supply chain. As I said, you know, our sort of marketing leads are, A, opportunities, B, opportunities. The numbers that we're chasing remains very healthy and very strong. You know, you know, really, so to me, it all points really to that sort of normalization of just the supply chain ordering patterns. Got it. Just around H2 over H1 as it relates to sales, I guess, given the position of the backlog today or the trend, how should we think about that H2, H1 split in sales? Conscious historically, it's usually been 44, 56 in terms of the split. I think on consensus numbers, H2 accounts for percentage of sales. Of course, there's an FX happening sequentially. I guess, if we adjust for FX to around 53%, just keen to get your thoughts around how we should think about H2 as it relates to its share of sales for the full year. Yeah, I mean, Bruno, it, it will be more balanced than we've normally seen. We're not going to give out a specific percentage because obviously you'll then be able to grow stuff and get a sales number. As you, as you know, we're guiding clearly on the operating profit. We'll have to let people decide kind of what their view is in terms of where the sales profit and the corresponding margin will be. Absolutely, you know, we have de-risked this year by seeing extra performance in the first half than normal. You shouldn't expect the sales split to be quite as second half weighted as we would normally see. Got it. Equally, I guess, on, on consensus numbers, the step up sequentially is high single digit, which would be a very sort of H2 over H1 growth rate, which would be very low if we compare it to historical norms or averages. I guess that, that, that speaks to your point on de-risking, so I will leave it there. Just on the profitability, just so I understand it correctly, the restructuring costs taken in H1, should we expect no further restructuring costs in H2? Just going back to the Scientific margin in H1, I guess the operating leverage looks a little bit lighter than, say, Dynamics or once we account for the restructuring costs taken and, and, and also the other division. Is there anything that perhaps weigh down on the marginal or the drop through in H1 that we should be aware of? Yeah. There, there may be, there may be bits and pieces of restructuring in the second half, Bruno, but nothing, nothing material. Again, if we do have anything, we'll take it, we'll take it apart. I mean, in terms of the drop through, we continue to invest in our underlying R&D. We, we invest in our people, we're sort of set up to, to, to, to, to grow. Obviously, we've seen significant growth come through in the first half. We will maintain a very sharp eye on that, though, in the second half. As a proportion, we'll see a little bit more drop through. If you just look at the maps of where the revenue expectation may be, and the profit expectation, you can see that there's an improvement in the, in the drop-through of the second half compared to the first half. I would draw everyone's attention to our range. That 250-265 is a range for a reason. As I said earlier, you know, we're very confident that we will deliver on the margin expansion, deliver on the sales growth, and if you put that through, then you end up near the top of the range. There's also, as I said earlier, we are only in July, and therefore, you know, there's still a fair way to go, and we'll, we'll give you a lot more update on table when we do in future. Got it. Thank you for the color. Much appreciated. Right. Thanks, Bruno. Thank you. No further questions on the line. I'll now hand back to Andrew for any closing comments. Well, thank you very much. Clearly, a lot of the questions today have been around sort of, normalization of the market and just sort of our views on market outlook. Hopefully, we've been clear as to, you know, what's driving all of that. You know, by way of ending, what I'd just like to say is, you know, we, we have got good momentum in the business, and I'm absolutely delighted to see the progress that we're making on executing our strategy for sustainable growth. Without a shadow of a doubt, the strong financial performance in the first half does really reflect continued very strong, execution of our strategy and also the brilliant contribution of my colleagues across the group. I think I also would like to say, I mean, our first half results are a testament that in Spectris Dynamics and Spectris Scientific, we have two great premium, precision measurement businesses that are both on attractive growth trajectories, and they're more aligned than ever to markets with a strong secular trends and sustainability focus. As we talked about, our demand, demand for our solutions is being amplified by new products, but also services as we address these trends. Having repositioned Spectris over the past three years, we are now a higher quality, more customer-focused, and resilient business. Looking forward, we're confident in our ability to outperform our target end markets as a consequence. As we do so, we are also continuing to drive operational excellence to reduce emissions, improve productivity and efficiency, all in line with our ambition to be a leading sustainable compound growth business. Thanks very much for listening, and look forward to catching up with you again soon. Thank you very much. Thank you. This now completes today's conference call. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you very much for joining. Have a lovely rest of your day.