IMI is well into a restructuring programme that will bring forth exciting new products in several of its markets, if the sort of vital valves and actuators that it makes can be described as exciting. The company has the potential to improve its position further as a global leader in those markets. This puts IMI on target to achieve the doubling in profits it is seeking by 2019.
Events have, however, intervened. IMI is exposed to global markets, to German producers of industrial machinery bound for China, to Brazil, where vehicles heading there are supplied by its American business, to oil and gas through its Critical Engineering business, and to the euro.
This last, and the strength of sterling, was a feature of the warning