Bodycote Update & The 50 Largest Commercial Heat Treats

Next week “The Monty Heat Treat News” will be publishing our list of the “50 Largest North American Commercial Heat Treats-2024”. This years list will feature a USA commercial heat treater we have not mentioned before along with a number of changes.
 
We won’t keep you in suspense, the largest by a wide margin with be “Bodycote” who for years has dominated this list by a wide margin. As a prelude to the publication of this list we mention this (abbreviated) Trading Summary from the company for the period from January 1, 2024 to May 30th, 2024. The full report can be found at https://www.bodycote.com/
 
“Bodycote Trading Summary; We have enjoyed a good start to the year with constant currency revenue growth of 3.9% excluding surcharges (2.7% excluding Lake City acquired in January 2024). This demonstrates the strength of our Specialist Technologies businesses and the resilience provided by our diverse customer base, against a mixed market backdrop and some challenging prior-year comparators. Our expectations for the full year remain unchanged.
 
Group revenue was £268m in the period (2023: £281m), with underlying growth offset by surcharges which halved to around £14m as energy prices fell, and a foreign exchange headwind of £10m year-on-year. Organic constant currency growth of 2.7% (excluding surcharges) was driven by Specialist Technologies (+10.5%), while Classical Heat Treatment revenue was marginally lower (-1.0%). Within Specialist Technologies there was notable strength in Surface Technology and Hot Isostatic Pressing (HIP), which captured growth opportunities while delivering strong operational performance.
 
By end market, on an organic constant currency basis, strength in Aerospace & Defense continued (revenue +16.2% excluding surcharges), with both commercial aerospace and defense sectors growing well. Automotive revenue was slightly lower (-1.8%) reflecting a subdued market environment and the high growth in the corresponding prior year period. General Industrial revenue was also slightly lower (-1.8%), with a varied picture across sub-sectors including continuing good growth in energy (+14.0%) offset by weakness in industrial machinery and related markets. While these industrial-focused markets declined year-on-year, revenue has improved sequentially versus the levels seen at the end of 2023. Medical-related business benefited from the Lake City acquisition which has been successfully integrated and is performing well, generating £3m revenue since its acquisition in late January 2024. As a result of the strong performance in aerospace, growth was considerably higher in our ADE division than in the AGI division. https://www.bodycote.com/press-releases/press-release-2024/trading-update-30th-may-2024/
 
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