There is a philosophical debate to be had over whether Smiths Group is or is not a conglomerate. It prefers to be thought of as a “multi-industry, multi-product” business, which sounds awfully like a conglomerate to me. I’ve also always thought of Smiths as an engineer; the word “technology” is prominent in the full-year figures.
What it is is five divisions that serve different industries and which tended to move in different directions in the past. This was a bit old-fashioned and for years investors have dreamt that one day someone would come along and unlock value by selling the different bits off.
That is not going to happen, not least because the resurgent share price, which propelled the shares back into the FTSE 100