This article was last updated on 11/11/2024
Halma’s a group of around 45 small to medium-sized businesses operating in more than 20 countries. Its companies focus on developing life-saving technology products, such as safety equipment for the workplace and medical technologies for patients.
What problems are Halma trying to solve?
Halma tackles a wide range of challenges facing the world. It focuses on three sectors: safety, the environment and healthcare.
In its healthcare sector, Halma addresses the global problem of healthcare staffing. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates there could be 10 million fewer healthcare workers than needed by 2030.
Environmental challenges include pollution generated by shipping. This is caused by the transportation of goods across our oceans; more than 90% of the world’s business is carried out using our oceans. Shipping accounts for about 20% of global emissions pollution.
In its safety sector, Halma recognises the need for a sustainable energy infrastructure. This is crucial to assist in the move to renewable sources of energy but there’s a strain on energy grids to keep up enough supply. The concern increases as the demand for energy increases. This results in problems such as power cuts becoming increasingly more common. Not having enough energy supply can even be the difference between life and death. Hospitals, for instance, need an uninterrupted supply.
How does Halma create an impact?
Halma uses technological innovation to create solutions across its three sectors. Below are some examples of innovative solutions from each sector.
Safety
Fortress designs and manufactures safety equipment to protect employees working in hazardous workplaces. A worker may need to access a piece of machinery to repair a malfunction or for routine maintenance. Fortress ensures a machine, and the area where it’s located is safe. This includes developing controls to prevent unauthorised access in the first place.
Healthcare
SunTech Medical produces non-invasive blood pressure monitoring equipment. Patients can wear this equipment outside of a medical setting. The Oscar 2, for example, takes readings every 20-30 minutes over a 24-hour period. This helps doctors make better decisions about a patient’s healthcare as they’re able to more accurately assess their blood pressure.
Maxtec creates products for sensing, analysing and delivering oxygen. Oxygen analysers track and alert clinicians of changes in oxygen levels. And its oxygen flow metres help control the delivery of precise amounts of oxygen.
Environment
Sensorex produces water quality sensors to ensure the flow of clean and safe water. Their sensors have a range of applications. These include:
- Measuring the chemical quality of water that’s critical to habitats.
- Detect pH and chlorine levels to ensure water’s safe to drink.
- Providing data to treat industrial wastewater. This helps ensure it meets regulations before being discharged into water systems.
Minicam Group specialises in wastewater treatment. Among their products are remotely controlled robots that navigate sewer systems. These can detect damage, blockages and predict leaks. This helps prevent wastewater from overflowing and polluting the environment.
What’s the size of Halma’s impact?
Halma’s companies impact a wide range of societal and environmental challenges and contribute to the aims of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As Halma’s range of products expands it’s increasingly meeting more of the development goals. For example, SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy) and SDG 8 (decent work and economic growth). Broad measures of Halma’s overall impact within each of its sectors include:
Environment
Halma has enabled over 200 million water tests a year and it’s supplied international relief partners with more than five million water quality tests. Halma monitors more than 150,000km of water pipelines for damage, blockages and leaks. Further, its fire suppression systems protect more than 10,000 wind turbines. Halma companies FirePro and Firetrace supply more than 23,000 fire suppression systems to wind turbines.
Safety
Road safety technology produced by Halma helps keep more than 5,000km of road safe. For instance, Navtech Radar’s ClearWay safety system includes automatic incident detection and stopped vehicle detection. It covers hundreds of miles of road and is deployed in several countries including Sweden, Australia and the USA.
Its companies’ fire detection products protect buildings covering more than 6,000km. FirePro, designs, manufactures and distributes automatic fire extinguishing systems. FirePro systems are in operation in more than 110 countries. They protect industries including healthcare, aviation and renewable energy among many others.
Healthcare
Halma monitors more than 500,000 births a year. Doing so helps protect mothers and their babies during childbirth. PeriGen monitors vital information such as foetal heart rate using Artificial Intelligence (AI). This acts as an early warning system for any difficulties in pregnancy and birth. The use of the technology in a central African hospital saw a reduction in babies dying during labour by more than 80%.
Halma’s partnership with WaterAid has enabled more than 10,000 people in India to access clean water. This included the installation of water filter systems in schools and healthcare facilities. Additionally, nearly 2,000 local volunteers have been trained as community water testers.
Halma as a financial investment
Halma’s delivered record revenue and profit for the 20th consecutive year. The year to March 2023 saw a 21% increase in revenue since 2014 from £676 million to over £1.8 billion. Pre-tax profit rose by 14% from £140 million to £361 million over the same period.
Halma continues to invest for growth. It acquired seven companies in its three sectors across North America, Europe and the UK. There was good performance spread across each of these regions and sectors. It also increased investment in technology infrastructure by £7 million to £18 million. And also increased its research and development investment by £17 million.
Halma’s well-positioned to continue to grow as a company. It does this by investing in niche markets with ‘long-term growth drivers’. For example, investing in healthcare services as demand increases as a result of people living longer. Or, supporting infrastructure safety improvements as more people move into cities. Halma looks to invest in and grow its businesses whilst aiming to double its earnings every five years.
Halma’s inclusion in the Impact Plan
The companies that make up Halma are solving a diverse range of global problems, which is why it’s been selected for our Impact Plan. Its technologies have improved and protected the lives of millions of people. Innovations such as artificial lenses for cataract surgery have saved the eyesight of millions of people. Environmental benefits include protecting the planet’s resources by improving aluminium recycling. And developing fire safety technology to help protect wind turbines.
Halma’s underpinned by strong year-on-year financial growth and continues to expand internationally. This is partly driven by acquiring companies aligned with its purpose of growing a safer, cleaner and healthier future for everyone, every day.
The Impact Plan - a pension to help build a better world
Want to use your pension to help build a better world? Our Impact Plan invests in companies actively working to solve the world’s greatest social and environmental problems while helping you save for retirement. Want to learn more about some of the other businesses our Impact Plan’s invested in? Read more about some of the other companies in our Impact plan.
Halma aligns with the Impact Plan theme of Safety & Security.
Halma is helping to advance these United Nations Sustainable Development Goals:
- Goal 3: Good Health and Wellbeing; and
- Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth.
Risk warning
As always with investments, your capital is at risk. The value of your investment can go down as well as up, and you may get back less than you invest. This information should not be regarded as financial advice
