Soaring demand for reliable, flexible and cheap fibre-optic lasers easily offset a softening Chinese microelectronics market for Gooch & Housego (GHH). That trend, which underpins management's plans to diversify the business away from more cyclical areas, yielded double-digit revenue and profit growth in the year to September.
The shift away from more economically sensitive industrial sectors required a 14 per cent increase in research and development spending to £6.4m. Other investments included the hiring of experienced business development staff in aerospace and defence - a move that boss Mark Webster says dramatically improved the group's ability to leverage its technology. Similar measures will be applied to the other identified growth business, life sciences, in the year ahead.