Press Release

Morgan Advanced Materials plc

9 November 2023

Trading Update

Strong financial position, growth outlook unchanged

Morgan Advanced Materials plc, the global manufacturer of advanced carbon and ceramic materials for technically demanding applications, announces today its scheduled trading update for the first nine months to 30 September 2023.

Current Trading

Sales for the nine months to September 2023 were 2.4% higher for the Group, on an organic constant-currency basis, compared with the same period last year. Our recovery from the cyber incident we experienced at the start of the year has progressed as planned.  By business unit, organic constant-currency sales performance for the nine months to September 2023, compared with the same period last year, were as follows:

Outlook

Our outlook for full year organic revenue growth is unchanged at 2-4%. The group has continued to benefit from strong growth in its Semiconductor, Healthcare and Aerospace end-markets, offsetting weakness in European and China industrial markets.  Seals & Bearings performance was influenced in part by phasing of armour orders.

Margins have continued to improve sequentially, despite an adverse movement in FX impacting the second half by circa £3m.

We continue to pursue opportunities to remove cost to ensure we enter 2024 with the right cost structure. Although uncertainty remains around some of our end markets, looking forward we expect continued margin improvement and good growth in H1 2024, especially given the cyber incident in the comparative period. In particular, we expect sustained growth in Semiconductor driven by demand for Silicon Carbide applications in power electronics.

Pete Raby, Chief Executive Officer, said:

"Our business is growing as anticipated, benefitting from our leading, differentiated positions in selected markets and despite the challenging environment, with inflation continuing to be more than offset by pricing.

Our Board remains committed to our financial framework. Investment in capacity for our faster growing segments is accelerating, and we continue to investigate inorganic investments as well as consider opportunities for enhanced returns to shareholders."

The full year results are expected to be released on 14 March 2024.  A Capital Markets Event will be held during Q2 2024, with updates on progress in our faster growing markets, opportunities for efficiency improvement and investment plans.

For further enquiries:

1.        Company-compiled summary of current analysts' forecasts for adjusted operating profit for 2023 is a range of £120.5 million to £125.0 million.