Update: Judges Scientific

Judges issued their H1 2025 results. Note that they pre-announced H1 2025 results in July and the results were consistent with their pre-announcements. You can read my update on the H1 2025 preannouncement here. Note that there was also recently a good podcast covering Judges Scientific which you can find here.

Thesis Review

• Proven Record. Over the last 10 years, Judges has deployed 100% of FCF into M&A at a 24% ROIC. Moreover, the core business excluding goodwill has a 39% ROIC and has grown organically by 5%+. Judges is still at a scale where <£5m deals move the needle meaning they can replicate 20%+ ROIC on M&A for the foreseeable future.
• Exceptional Management. Judges' CEO is disciplined, has skin in the game (9.2% ownership) and has surrounded himself with a strong team including two ex-Halma executives, that are committed to an entrepreneurial, decentralized, buy and build model that can scale.
• Attractive Valuation. Judges is facing significant headwinds given 50% of revenue comes from universities and 25% from the US where university spending halted in late-Q1. Off of arguably depressed earnings, Judges trades at roughly 21x P/E and 23x FCF after shares have fallen 43% from their Sept 2024 peak.

In the next section, I'll go over go-forward return expectations and some brief comments on the results. Most of this was already covered in my prior post following the trading update so this is just a short refresher.