In fact, the period was also the most active year for M&A in the company’s history, thanks to a $140m (£97m) deal in February to buy Pennsylvania-based CenTrak, a manufacturer of location-monitoring software in hospitals.
But perhaps the most impressive element of Halma’s strategy is that it has successfully integrated its subsidiaries while continually upping its dividend. When shareholders are paid the 7.83p final payout on 17 August, it will be the 37th successive full-year dividend increase of at least 5 per cent, a record that chief executive Andrew Williams believes is unrivalled by any London-listed company. Although Bloomberg data goes back only as far as the 1988-89 financial year, we can see from the chart below just how consistent the company has been at growing shareholder returns.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the premium valuation attached to such reliable performance means that new buyers are unlikely to be lured by the current forward yield of 1.5 per cent. But investors who have stuck with the shares for at least a couple of years at almost any point in the past three decades will have been richly rewarded. Longer holders have done exceptionally well. For example, an investor who had bought shares in the group 16 years ago and reinvested all dividend payments would have made their money back almost 16 times.
