Spirax-Sarco Engineering (SPX) saw organic sales drop 4 per cent in the first three months of 2020, with an 8 per cent dip in April reflecting the pressures of the Covid-19 pandemic. Operating profit for those four months was behind that of a year earlier, but cost control kept margins above 21 per cent. Demand from ‘maintenance, repair and overhaul’ (MRO) activity and small improvement projects – typically accounting for 85 per cent of total revenue – experienced only a “mild decline” versus 2019.
But the group is guiding to a tougher second and third quarter before conditions pick up in the final three months of the year. Organic revenue from the larger steam specialities business is expected to fall in line with global industrial production, currently forecasted at a 10.6 per cent and 7.6 per cent decline in the second and third quarters, respectively.
