You wouldn’t describe Halma as humble: the FTSE 100 constituent says the 45 firms that it encompasses are “heroes”, and it styles itself as “a global group of life-saving technology companies focused on growing a safer, cleaner and healthier future”.
Halma has certainly been heroic for investors. The engineering conglomerate — whose products span gas detectors and water purifiers, blood pressure monitors and smart motorway sensors, and robots maintaining offshore wind farms — is on track for a 20th consecutive year of profit growth in 2023. Shareholders have shared in the success via dividends that have risen by 5 per cent or more for the past 43 years. Analysts at Berenberg bank describe Halma as “the best kind of predictable”.
Yet wider sector concerns have