Carclo makes precision plastic parts for diagnostics and drug-delivery companies, and cables and machined parts for aircraft. Since 2022 it has shut sites and dropped low-margin work, so revenue fell from £143m in FY23 to £114m in FY26 while underlying operating profit more than doubled to £12.6m. In July 2026 it set growth targets to 2030, but revenue early in FY27 was still slightly behind the prior year.
Moulded cuvettes and aircraft cables
Carclo is a global precision engineering group with two divisions. Carclo Technical Plastics (CTP) had £98m of FY26 revenue. Its Design & Engineering unit designs products and tooling with customers. Its Manufacturing Solutions unit then makes the injection-moulded parts in volume. The parts include cuvettes (small sample containers), microfluidic cartridges and pipettes for in-vitro diagnostics, and components for injection pens and inhalers. Carclo says it supplies 6 of the top 10 diagnostics makers worldwide.
Speciality had £16m of revenue. Aerospace makes cable assemblies and machined parts for aircraft and defence systems, including streamline bracing wire and helicopter flight-control cables. The work is at Bruntons in Musselburgh, Scotland, and Jacottet in Chartres, France. Light & Motion is a small optics business serving lighting markets. Carclo says that once a part is qualified on an aircraft platform it is typically supplied for that platform's life, often decades. It also says switching suppliers is costly and risky for diagnostics customers. Production runs in Pennsylvania (US), Mitcham (UK), Brno (Czechia), China and India. 1 Jul 2026 21 Nov 2025
Diagnostics demand fell and the US was too big
The company says it faced serious financial and operational problems three years before FY26. Frank Doorenbosch became CEO in October 2022. In the first half of FY24, demand fell as diagnostics customers adjusted after COVID. Revenue dropped 7% to £67m and underlying operating profit fell to £2.2m. Net debt stood at £34m at March 2023.
Management cut costs in the US. It closed the Derry, New Hampshire site in October 2023, at a one-off cost of £0.8m. In February 2024 it announced the closure of Tucson and the move of its work to Pennsylvania. The shares closed March 2024 at 7.4p. 30 Nov 2023 25 Oct 2023 14 Feb 2024 18 Jul 2024
Smaller, more profitable, refinanced
In FY25 Carclo finished exiting short-run US product lines and closed Tucson. Revenue fell 8.6% to £121m, but underlying operating profit rose to £9.8m. Net debt fell from £29.5m to £19.2m. The accident rate fell from 2.3 to 0.6 per 100,000 hours worked.
In April 2025 Carclo refinanced with BZ Commercial Finance: a £27m term loan and a £9m revolving facility, at a margin about 1.75 points higher than before. It also paid £5.1m into its UK pension scheme and agreed £3.5m a year of contributions. The latest valuation showed a £64.5m deficit on the scheme's technical basis, down from £82.8m in 2021. Management called it a reset of its financial foundation.
There was a stumble. The FY25 audit ran late, so the shares were suspended on 1 August 2025 and restored on 1 September. The auditor, Forvis Mazars, resigned in September, and HaysMac was proposed as replacement. The shares reached 72.6p in October 2025. 29 Aug 2025 24 Apr 2025 1 Aug 2025 1 Sep 2025 17 Sep 2025 30 Apr 2025
“This refinancing represents a transformative reset of our financial foundation.” 24 Apr 2025
Targets hit, revenue still shrinking
FY26 results on 1 July 2026 showed return on sales of 11.0% and return on capital employed of 29.1%. Both beat the 10% and 25% targets, which the company says it set in 2022. The H1 FY26 report said 2023, and the November 2023 interim results cited a 15% through-cycle return on capital goal. The 10% and 25% figures appear in the announcements from September 2024.
Revenue fell 5.8% to £114m. Design & Engineering dropped to £9.7m from £13.6m as the multi-year programme to rebuild moulds and automation ended. In September 2025 management had expected D&E to partly recover in the second half. Currency also hurt. Cash from operations fell to £12.0m from £19.1m. Net debt rose to £23.9m, largely because of the £5.1m pension payment. Statutory profit for the year was £2.7m. The shares fell from 72.6p in October 2025 to 44.2p in March 2026 and 34.0p in June 2026. The company has not said why. 1 Jul 2026 21 Nov 2025 26 Sep 2025 23 Apr 2026 30 Nov 2023 5 Sep 2024
Margin came from pruning, not growth
Two causes explain the record. First, diagnostics demand is lumpy: the post-COVID drop in FY24 and a weak respiratory season in 2026 both cut testing volumes and customer orders. Second, the profit gain came from restructuring: closing US sites, dropping short-run work, specialising each factory and adding a quarterly polymer and energy price pass-through to customers. It did not come from selling more. Revenue fell in each of FY24, FY25 and FY26. Margin work is largely done; growth is untested. 1 Jul 2026 30 Nov 2023 29 Aug 2025
A CEO who set targets and met them
Doorenbosch has led since October 2022. On the US restructuring, the record matches the promises. Management said in April 2024 it would complete it within six months, and the FY25 report says Tucson closed on time and within budget. US underlying EBIT margin reached 11.3% in the first half of FY26, against 5.0% a year earlier. It missed on D&E recovery and on the audit timetable.
Ian Tichias became CFO on 1 April 2025, replacing Eric Hutchinson, who retired. Steve Lents joined as VP Global Sales in April 2026. In September 2025 Doorenbosch bought 50,000 shares at 59p, and a person linked to non-executive Natalia Kozmina bought shares in April 2026. First Equity, a shareholder, cut its stake from 8.4% to 2.6% between January 2024 and May 2025. 1 Jul 2026 13 Feb 2025 30 Sep 2025 29 Apr 2026 23 Jan 2024 14 Feb 2024 26 Apr 2024
Margins strong, volumes soft
On 9 September 2026 Carclo said underlying profit and return on sales were in line with expectations. Revenue was slightly behind last year, with volumes recovering in the second quarter. Net debt at end-July was above the March figure because of lease extensions and working-capital timing, and the company expects the outflow to reverse by the end of the second quarter. Aerospace has had three straight years of record orders. Some diagnostics customers have cut inventory, which management calls temporary. The latest close was 40.0p on 19 October 2026. 9 Sep 2026 1 Jul 2026
Precision 2030: growth from a standing start
On 1 July 2026 Carclo launched Precision 2030. Its targets are organic revenue growth of more than 8% a year across the plan period, net debt of less than 0.5x by 2030, and at least 10% return on sales and 25% return on capital on new work. Net debt was 1.3x underlying EBITDA in FY26. Growth is to come from drug delivery, wearables, pharma packaging and aerospace, including defence. The company expects pharma packaging and closures, led by Brno, to contribute materially by FY29.
For FY27 it expects trading to be weighted to the second half, with positive organic revenue growth for the year. The September update left that unchanged. Interim results are due in November 2026. The open questions are whether diagnostics volumes recover and whether new programmes arrive on time. Another is whether debt falls while pension contributions continue. 1 Jul 2026 9 Sep 2026 23 Apr 2026
Written by AI from Carclo's own announcements since Oct 2023 · every paragraph links to its sources