Diploma PLC (DPLM) — Company Research

Last Updated: 31 August 2026

Diploma PLC is a FTSE 100 value-add distributor that buys niche businesses supplying essential technical products — seals, fasteners, wiring and interconnect, laboratory and medtech consumables — and grows them inside a decentralised group. It reports in sterling to a 30 September year end and publishes results twice a year. Financial year 2026 has been an exceptional one: organic growth of 15 per cent in the first half, an adjusted operating margin that has moved from 22.5 per cent to a guided 26.5 per cent, and two separate guidance upgrades in six months. This report sets out the audited five-year record, the segment and geographic mix, the balance sheet and cash flow, the valuation arithmetic and the scheduled dates ahead. No analyst ratings, no price targets.

1. Company Snapshot

Field	Value
Company	Diploma PLC
Ticker / Exchange	DPLM, London Stock Exchange main market, premium listing
Sector / Industry	Industrials — value-add specialist distribution across three sectors: Controls, Seals and Life Sciences
Headquarters	10-11 Charterhouse Square, London EC1M 6EE, United Kingdom
Founded / Listed	Founded 1931; listed on the London Stock Exchange since 1960
CEO / Leadership	Johnny Thomson, Chief Executive Officer since February 2019; Wilson Ng, Chief Financial Officer (acting from 14 August 2025, appointed permanently on 17 December 2025)
Employees	Approximately 3,500, as stated in the Q3 trading update of 16 July 2026 (approximately 3,400 at the FY2025 results)
Financial year end	30 September. Diploma reports half-yearly, with interim results in May and full-year results in November
Revenue (FY2025, year to 30 Sep 2025)	£1,524.5m, up 11.8 per cent on FY2024 (organic growth 11 per cent, net acquisitions 3 per cent, offset by an adverse currency translation)
Revenue (trailing twelve months to 31 Mar 2026)	£1,647.1m
Profit for the year (FY2025)	£185.5m; statutory basic EPS 137.9p; adjusted EPS 176.0p
Share price	7,330p at the close on 28 August 2026
Market capitalisation	Approximately £9.83bn (28 August 2026)
Shares in issue	Approximately 134.1m ordinary 5p shares
Dividend	FY2025 total 62.3p per share, up 5 per cent; FY2026 interim 19.1p paid 12 June 2026. Twenty-five consecutive years of dividend growth
Index membership	FTSE 100 constituent

No share split, consolidation or equity placing has taken place in FY2025 or FY2026, and there is no pending merger, delisting or change of listing category. The one board change of note was at the finance function: Chris Davies resigned as Chief Financial Officer with immediate effect on 14 August 2025 citing a lapse of judgement over personal conduct at a company event, unrelated to financial performance and with guidance left unchanged. Wilson Ng, previously Group Financial Controller, stepped up on the same day and was confirmed in the role on 17 December 2025.

2. Bull Case and Bear Case

Bull Case

• The compounding machine is still working: revenue has grown from £787.4m in FY2021 to £1,524.5m in FY2025, a compound annual growth rate of roughly 18 per cent, while adjusted operating margin rose from 18.9 per cent to 22.5 per cent over the same period. Growth and margin have improved together, not traded off against each other.
• Margin expansion is running well ahead of plan: the first half of FY2026 delivered a 24.5 per cent adjusted operating margin, up 300 basis points year on year, and the July 2026 trading update lifted full-year margin guidance to approximately 26.5 per cent from 22.5 per cent as recently as November 2025.
• Guidance has been upgraded twice in six months: full-year organic growth guidance moved from 6 per cent at the FY2025 results, to 12 per cent at the May 2026 interims, to 14 per cent at the July 2026 Q3 update, with adjusted operating profit growth of approximately 42 per cent implied.
• The balance sheet has capacity: leverage was 0.8 times at 31 March 2026 against a board policy limit of 2.0 times and a banking covenant of 3.5 times, despite fifteen acquisitions in the preceding twelve months for around £310m at an average of about eight times earnings before interest and tax.
• Returns on capital are rising, not diluting: return on adjusted trading capital employed reached 20.9 per cent in FY2025 and 22.7 per cent in the first half of FY2026, up 360 basis points year on year — unusual for a group deploying this much acquisition capital.

Bear Case

• Growth has become narrow and Controls-led: Controls grew organically at 26 per cent in the first half of FY2026 with a 33.5 per cent margin, while Seals managed 2 per cent organic growth and Life Sciences 4 per cent. Two of the three sectors, roughly 42 per cent of revenue, are close to flat in real terms.
• The rating is demanding: approximately 52 times trailing statutory earnings and roughly 36 times trailing adjusted earnings, against a share price that has roughly tracked from a 4,970p low in March 2026 to a 7,765p high in August 2026. That leaves limited room for an execution stumble.
• Acquisition dependency: guidance assumes acquisitions contribute six percentage points of reported growth. Sustaining that requires a continuous pipeline of businesses available at around eight times earnings before interest and tax, and Diploma's own principal risks list overpayment, post-acquisition underperformance and cultural misalignment.
• Concentration in the United States with sterling reporting: the USA generated £802.6m of FY2025 revenue by origin, some 52.6 per cent of the group, and roughly 80 per cent of revenue comes from businesses located outside the UK. Currency translation reduced FY2025 revenue by £33.7m and adjusted operating profit by £9.0m against FY2024.

3. Revenue Segments

Segment	% of revenue	What it is
Controls	54.9 per cent of FY2025 revenue (£836.4m); 58.2 per cent of H1 FY2026 revenue (£495.3m)	Precision wiring, interconnect, fasteners and specialist components for aerospace, defence, data centres, energy, infrastructure and medical applications. Organic growth of 20 per cent in FY2025 and 26 per cent in H1 FY2026, with adjusted operating margin of 30.0 per cent in FY2025 rising to 33.5 per cent in H1 FY2026. This is the engine of the group.
Seals	29.9 per cent of FY2025 revenue (£456.0m); 26.4 per cent of H1 FY2026 revenue (£224.9m)	Sealing and fluid-power products, largely aftermarket, serving construction, agriculture, energy and water end markets. Organic growth of 2 per cent in both FY2025 and H1 FY2026, with adjusted operating margin of 19.3 per cent in FY2025 and 18.9 per cent in H1 FY2026. The most cyclically exposed sector.
Life Sciences	15.2 per cent of FY2025 revenue (£232.1m); 15.4 per cent of H1 FY2026 revenue (£130.9m)	Medical technology, in-vitro diagnostics and scientific consumables and instrumentation supplied to healthcare providers and laboratories. Organic growth of 6 per cent in FY2025 and 4 per cent in H1 FY2026; adjusted operating margin of 19.5 per cent in FY2025, down 160 basis points, and 19.8 per cent in H1 FY2026.

Geographically, Diploma disclosed FY2025 revenue by origin as USA £802.6m (52.6 per cent), UK £279.8m (18.4 per cent), rest of Europe £247.5m (16.2 per cent) and rest of world £194.6m (12.8 per cent). Roughly 80 per cent of group revenue is generated by businesses located outside the United Kingdom, which is why sterling strength shows up directly in reported growth.

4. Business Model and Moat

How it makes money. Diploma does not manufacture at scale. It distributes essential, low-value, high-consequence products — the seal that stops a hydraulic ram leaking, the connector that must not fail in an aircraft, the consumable a diagnostics laboratory runs through daily — and wraps them in technical service: specification support, kitting, just-in-time delivery, local stockholding. The product is a small line item on the customer's bill of materials but a large problem if it fails or arrives late, which is what supports adjusted operating margins the company describes as sustainably above 20 per cent, and up to 33.5 per cent in Controls.

How it grows. Buy and build. Diploma has completed 57 acquisitions since 2019 for around £1.6bn of total investment, and management states these have generated returns above 20 per cent. Deals are typically bolt-ons acquired at around eight to nine times earnings before interest and tax, then folded into an existing sector platform. Fifteen deals were completed in the twelve months to March 2026 for approximately £310m, culminating in CDM, a Philadelphia-based interconnect and cable-assembly business with around 80m dollars of revenue serving defence customers, completed on 25 June 2026 for 170m dollars.

Why it is capital light. Capital expenditure was £13.1m net in FY2025, roughly 1 per cent of revenue, against the 2 per cent management says it typically expects. Free cash flow conversion has run at 100 per cent or better in three of the last four years, reaching 105 per cent in FY2025. That combination — high margin, low capital intensity, strong conversion — is what funds the acquisition programme without persistent equity issuance.

How management measures itself. Return on adjusted trading capital employed is the primary discipline metric, and it has improved in each of the last four years: 17.4 per cent in FY2021, 17.3 per cent in FY2022, 18.1 per cent in FY2023, 19.1 per cent in FY2024 and 20.9 per cent in FY2025, reaching 22.7 per cent in the first half of FY2026. Capital allocation policy is leverage below 2.0 times, disciplined bolt-on acquisitions, and a progressive dividend growing at around 5 per cent a year.

5. Financial Health

The annual table below is taken directly from the audited five-year record on page 168 of the Diploma PLC Annual Report and Accounts 2025, cross-checked against the FY2025 preliminary results announcement of 18 November 2025. Revenue is in millions of pounds sterling; earnings and dividends are in pence per share. Long-term debt is total borrowings at the year-end balance sheet date, excluding lease liabilities, consistent with the company's own net debt definition.

Fiscal Year	Revenue (£m)	YoY %	GAAP EPS	Adjusted EPS	Dividend/share	Long-term debt (YE)
FY2021 (to 30 Sep 2021)	787.4	+46.3%	56.1p	85.2p	42.6p	£206.2m
FY2022 (to 30 Sep 2022)	1,012.8	+28.6%	76.1p	107.5p	53.8p	£370.6m
FY2023 (to 30 Sep 2023)	1,200.3	+18.5%	90.8p	126.5p	56.5p	£317.1m
FY2024 (to 30 Sep 2024)	1,363.4	+13.6%	96.5p	145.8p	59.3p	£479.8m
FY2025 (to 30 Sep 2025)	1,524.5	+11.8%	137.9p	176.0p	62.3p	£381.1m

Adjusted operating profit over the same five years ran £148.7m, £191.2m, £237.0m, £285.0m and £342.7m, with adjusted operating margin of 18.9 per cent, 18.9 per cent, 19.7 per cent, 20.9 per cent and 22.5 per cent. Company-defined free cash flow ran £108.8m, £120.4m, £163.8m, £197.9m and £247.2m. Net debt was £254.7m at 30 September 2023, £419.6m at 30 September 2024 and £299.4m at 30 September 2025, the last representing leverage of 0.8 times.

Because Diploma reports half-yearly rather than quarterly, the table below shows half-year periods. H2 FY2025 is not published as a standalone period and is derived as the FY2025 full-year figure less the reported H1 FY2025 figure; it is marked accordingly.

Quarter / Half	Revenue	Adjusted EPS	GAAP EPS
H1 FY2026 (six months to 31 Mar 2026, reported 19 May 2026)	£851.1m	109.2p	74.7p
H2 FY2025 (six months to 30 Sep 2025, derived†)	£796.0m	95.8p	66.4p
H1 FY2025 (six months to 31 Mar 2025)	£728.5m	80.2p	71.5p
FY2025 total (year to 30 Sep 2025)	£1,524.5m	176.0p	137.9p

† Diploma does not publish a standalone second-half statement. The H2 FY2025 row is arithmetically derived as the audited full-year figure less the reported first-half figure and is shown for shape only, not as a company-reported number.

Cash flow and balance sheet detail, from the FY2025 Annual Report and the H1 FY2026 interim report. In FY2025, net cash from operating activities was £370.5m against £279.7m in FY2024, net capital expenditure was £13.1m, depreciation and amortisation of tangible and right-of-use assets was £30.5m, cash and cash equivalents at the year end were £81.7m and total borrowings £381.1m. In the six months to 31 March 2026, net cash from operating activities was £111.0m against £94.7m a year earlier, net capital expenditure was £1.3m, depreciation and amortisation was £16.5m, cash and cash equivalents were £68.7m and borrowings were £412.6m in total, comprising £1.2m current and £411.4m non-current, with lease liabilities of a further £88.8m. Net debt excluding leases stood at £343.9m, or 0.8 times. Goodwill rose to £605.4m from £563.5m at the September year end, reflecting the acquisition programme, and total equity was £1,056.7m.

6. Valuation Metrics

Raw metrics, August 2026. Not opinions on whether the stock is cheap or expensive.

Metric	Value
Share price	7,330p (close, 28 August 2026)
Market cap	~£9.83bn (7,330p on approximately 134.1m ordinary shares)
Enterprise value	~£10.17bn (market cap ~£9,829m plus total borrowings £412.6m less cash and cash equivalents £68.7m, per the 31 March 2026 balance sheet). Including the £88.8m of IFRS 16 lease liabilities, which Diploma excludes from its own net debt measure, enterprise value would be ~£10.26bn.
Trailing P/E (GAAP)	~52x on trailing twelve-month statutory basic EPS of 141.1p (FY2025 137.9p plus H1 FY2026 74.7p less H1 FY2025 71.5p). On Diploma's adjusted earnings the same trailing period gives 205.0p and a multiple of approximately 36x. The gap is amortisation of acquisition intangibles and acquisition-related charges, which is structural for a serial acquirer rather than one-off.
P/E (forward)	~29x, derived from the company's own guidance rather than any external estimate. The 16 July 2026 trading update guides FY2026 organic revenue growth of 14 per cent plus 6 per cent from acquisitions, implying revenue of approximately £1,829m, at an adjusted operating margin of approximately 26.5 per cent, implying adjusted operating profit of approximately £485m. Applying FY2025's ratio of adjusted earnings to adjusted operating profit gives adjusted EPS of roughly 249p, and 7,330p divided by 249p is approximately 29x.
P/S (TTM)	~6.0x (market cap ~£9,829m divided by trailing twelve-month revenue of £1,647.1m, being FY2025 £1,524.5m plus H1 FY2026 £851.1m less H1 FY2025 £728.5m)
EV/EBITDA (TTM)	~24x. Enterprise value ~£10,173m divided by trailing adjusted EBITDA of approximately £428m, being trailing adjusted operating profit of £394.7m plus approximately £33m of depreciation and amortisation. The wider D&A basis is used here, covering tangible and right-of-use assets (£30.5m in FY2025 and £16.5m in H1 FY2026). On the narrower basis Diploma uses for its own covenant calculation — adjusted operating profit plus £15.0m of depreciation and amortisation of tangible and other intangible assets, less a £2.1m IFRS 16 adjustment, giving FY2025 EBITDA of £355.6m — the equivalent multiple would be approximately 29x.
P/FCF	~26x (market cap ~£9,829m divided by free cash flow of ~£376.5m; free cash flow = trailing operating cash flow £386.8m less net capital expenditure £10.3m, both derived from the FY2025 and H1 FY2026 cash flow statements). On Diploma's own narrower free cash flow definition, which is struck after interest, tax and lease payments and gives £274.1m on a trailing basis, the multiple would be approximately 36x.
Price/book	~9.3x (market cap ~£9,829m divided by total equity of £1,056.7m at 31 March 2026)
52-week high	7,765p, reached 7 August 2026
52-week low	4,970p, reached 17 March 2026
Short interest (% of float)	n/a — no individual net short position above the UK disclosure threshold was identified for Diploma PLC. Verify against the FCA short position register, which since the 2026 regime change publishes anonymised aggregated net short positions daily.
Days to cover	n/a — days to cover is not published under the UK short-selling regime, which has no equivalent of the twice-monthly FINRA settlement data used for US listings.
Dividend yield	~0.9 per cent on the FY2025 total dividend of 62.3p at 7,330p. Dividend cover on adjusted earnings was 2.8 times in FY2025.

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7. What Are They Building

Diploma frames its strategy as sustainable quality compounding, and in practice it has two halves: organic initiatives inside the existing businesses, and a continuous acquisition programme that widens the platform.

Structural end-market tilt. The clearest strategic shift is towards aerospace, defence, data centres, energy and in-vitro diagnostics — end markets with visible multi-year demand rather than industrial cyclicality. The CDM acquisition, completed on 25 June 2026 for 170m dollars, is the sharpest expression of this: a Philadelphia interconnect and cable-assembly business with roughly 80m dollars of revenue serving defence customers, which takes defence to approximately 6 to 7 per cent of pro forma group revenue and gives Diploma a US interconnect platform it did not previously own.

The acquisition pipeline. Fifteen deals completed in the twelve months to the first half of FY2026 for approximately £310m at an average of about eight times earnings before interest and tax. Recent additions span all three sectors: WDS Components, Swift Aerospace, Spring Solutions, Techsil and Sinus Electronic, FC Lane and Selwyn Electronics in Controls; C and C Packings, Hydraulic Seals Australia and Abbey Seals in Seals; and Modul Nordic in Life Sciences. FY2025 itself saw seven deals for around £93m at approximately eight times, including Viking Tapes, Astro Industries, Alpha Laboratories, Electramed and Haagensen.

Scaling investment. Alongside acquisitions, Diploma is investing in the group infrastructure a £1.5bn-plus revenue business needs: a first graduate programme launched across the US and UK, enterprise resource planning and warehouse management upgrades, a group-wide Sales Excellence initiative launched in FY2025, a new distribution centre in the Czech Republic and a new German facility for Clarendon. Digital investment is furthest advanced in Seals, where the Hercules aftermarket business now takes more than two-thirds of its online ordering share through an enhanced e-commerce platform with AI-enabled search.

What has not changed. Capital allocation policy is unchanged: leverage below 2.0 times, bolt-on acquisitions at disciplined multiples, and a progressive dividend growing at around 5 per cent a year on a twenty-five-year unbroken record. Free cash flow conversion is targeted at around 90 per cent of adjusted operating profit and delivered 105 per cent in FY2025.

8. Competitive Landscape

Peer	Market cap (August 2026)	Key 2025/2026 metric
Bunzl PLC (BNZL, London Stock Exchange)	~£8.97bn	Trailing twelve-month revenue of approximately £11.85bn per market data at 28 August 2026. The other large UK-listed distribution compounder, but roughly seven times Diploma's revenue on a materially lower margin, which is why Diploma commands the higher multiple of the two despite the smaller top line.
RS Group PLC (RS1, London Stock Exchange)	~£3.47bn	Trailing twelve-month revenue of approximately £2.88bn per market data at 28 August 2026. The closest UK-listed comparator by end market — industrial and electronics distribution — but now materially smaller than Diploma by market value despite nearly double the revenue.
Watsco, Inc. (WSO, NYSE)	~$12.82bn	Trailing twelve-month revenue of approximately $7.28bn per market data at 28 August 2026. A US distribution compounder in HVAC with a comparable buy-and-build history; its shares are down from a July 2026 level of roughly $16bn of market value.
Applied Industrial Technologies (AIT, NYSE)	~$11.83bn	Trailing twelve-month revenue of approximately $4.97bn per market data at 28 August 2026. A US industrial distributor with a comparable value-add model in bearings, power transmission and fluid power, competing directly with Diploma's Seals sector in North America.

Diploma at approximately £9.83bn now sits above Bunzl and well above RS Group in market value, on roughly one seventh of Bunzl's revenue and just over half of RS Group's. That gap is the market pricing margin and returns rather than scale: Diploma's 22.5 per cent FY2025 adjusted operating margin and 20.9 per cent return on adjusted trading capital employed are at the top of this peer set. The competitive risk is not that a listed rival takes share — these businesses rarely compete head to head across a whole portfolio — but that the same private assets Diploma wants to buy attract more bidders as private equity and trade buyers chase the same value-add distribution playbook.

9. Insider Activity

Chief Executive Officer Johnny Thomson, in post since February 2019, leads the group alongside Chief Financial Officer Wilson Ng, who was appointed permanently on 17 December 2025 having acted in the role since 14 August 2025. Diploma disclosed a cluster of director and person-discharging-managerial-responsibilities purchases via RNS on 20 July 2026, covering dealings on 16 and 17 July 2026. All three were on-market purchases rather than share awards or option exercises, executed in a price band of £70.48 to £71.83 per share.

Name	Date	Type	Shares	Price	Value	Plan Type
Katie Bickerstaffe (Senior Independent Director)	16 Jul 2026	On-market purchase	180	£70.48 to £71.83	~£12,800	Discretionary purchase, disclosed by RNS 20 Jul 2026
Wilson Ng (Chief Financial Officer)	16 Jul 2026	On-market purchase	424	£70.48 to £71.83	~£30,200	Discretionary purchase, disclosed by RNS 20 Jul 2026
Mandy Gradden (Non-Executive Director)	17 Jul 2026	On-market purchase	1,000	£70.48 to £71.83	~£71,200	Discretionary purchase, opening holding, disclosed by RNS 20 Jul 2026

Two points of context. First, these are genuine open-market purchases made days after the 16 July 2026 guidance upgrade, which is a more meaningful signal than a scheduled award vesting — but the sums involved are small, taking Bickerstaffe to 2,477 shares, Ng to 5,821 shares and Gradden to an opening 1,000 shares. Second, no director or PDMR disposals were identified in the RNS filings reviewed for 2026, though a complete dealings log would require a full sweep of the company's regulatory news history. Values shown are calculated from the disclosed share counts at the midpoint of the disclosed price band and are approximate.

10. Key Risks

• Acquisition execution and overpayment: Diploma's own principal risks place M and A first. With fifteen deals in twelve months for around £310m, the group is integrating at pace, and the risks disclosed are overpaying, post-acquisition underperformance, loss of key customers or suppliers in an acquired business, and cultural misalignment across a deliberately decentralised structure.
• Goodwill and intangibles carrying value: goodwill reached £605.4m at 31 March 2026 against total equity of £1,056.7m, and is tested annually for impairment against value-in-use models for each of the three sectors. A sustained downturn in Seals or Life Sciences would put pressure on those models, and acquisition-related charges already consumed £59.0m of FY2025 profit before tax.
• Narrow growth base: the FY2026 upgrade cycle is being driven almost entirely by Controls, at 26 per cent organic growth and a 33.5 per cent margin in the first half. Seals grew 2 per cent organically and Life Sciences 4 per cent. If Controls normalises, group organic growth falls a long way before the other two sectors can offset it.
• Currency translation: roughly 80 per cent of revenue comes from businesses outside the UK, with the USA alone at 52.6 per cent of FY2025 revenue by origin, while the group reports in sterling. Currency movements reduced FY2025 revenue by £33.7m and adjusted operating profit by £9.0m relative to FY2024, entirely independent of trading performance.
• Talent, succession and management depth: a decentralised group of this size depends on retaining and developing operating-company leadership, and Diploma lists this as a principal risk. The abrupt resignation of the Chief Financial Officer in August 2025 over a personal-conduct matter, resolved internally within four months, illustrates both the exposure and the bench strength.
• Supply chain and key-supplier concentration: as a distributor, Diploma depends on suppliers continuing to supply. The disclosed risk covers a key supplier revoking a distribution agreement, supplier insolvency, and geopolitical or logistics disruption — all of which hit a distributor faster than a manufacturer.
• Product liability and regulatory exposure: own-brand and mission-critical products failing in service carry liability, particularly in Life Sciences healthcare applications and safety-critical Controls applications, alongside the risk of counterfeit or non-compliant supplier product entering the chain.
• Tariffs and geopolitics: the H1 FY2026 report explicitly flags the continued tariff environment and the Middle East conflict as live watch items. Management states that the group's local-for-local model gives it limited direct tariff exposure, but a broad-based tariff regime affects the industrial end markets Diploma sells into whether or not its own goods cross borders.
• Valuation premium: at roughly 52 times trailing statutory earnings and about 36 times trailing adjusted earnings, after a move from 4,970p in March 2026 to a 7,765p high in August 2026, the rating already reflects the guidance upgrades. A single missed period would be re-rated from a high base.

11. Recent Developments

• 14 Aug 2025 — Chief Financial Officer resigns with immediate effect. Chris Davies stepped down citing a lapse of judgement regarding personal conduct at a company event, unrelated to financial performance. Wilson Ng, Group Financial Controller, was appointed Acting CFO the same day and FY2025 guidance was left unchanged.
• 18 Nov 2025 — FY2025 preliminary results. Revenue of £1,524.5m, up 11.8 per cent with organic growth of 11 per cent; adjusted operating profit £342.7m, up 20 per cent, at a 22.5 per cent margin; adjusted EPS 176.0p, up 21 per cent; total dividend 62.3p, up 5 per cent; net debt £299.4m at 0.8 times leverage. Initial FY2026 guidance was organic growth of 6 per cent at a margin of approximately 22.5 per cent.
• 17 Dec 2025 — Wilson Ng confirmed as permanent Group Chief Financial Officer following an internal and external selection process.
• 14 Jan 2026 — Annual General Meeting held at the Great Chamber, The Charterhouse, Charterhouse Square, London.
• 19 May 2026 — H1 FY2026 interim results and first guidance upgrade. Revenue of £851.1m, up 17 per cent with 15 per cent organic; adjusted operating profit £208.9m, up 33 per cent, at a 24.5 per cent margin, up 300 basis points; adjusted EPS 109.2p, up 36 per cent; interim dividend 19.1p, up 5 per cent; leverage 0.8 times; return on adjusted trading capital employed 22.7 per cent. Full-year organic growth guidance was raised from 6 per cent to 12 per cent and margin guidance to approximately 25 per cent.
• 28 May 2026 — Interim dividend ex-dividend date, with a record date of 29 May 2026.
• 12 Jun 2026 — Interim dividend of 19.1p per share paid.
• 25 Jun 2026 — CDM acquisition completed. Diploma acquired the Philadelphia-based interconnect and cable-assembly business, with around 80m dollars of revenue and a defence customer base, for 170m dollars, establishing a US interconnect platform and lifting defence to approximately 6 to 7 per cent of pro forma group revenue.
• 16 Jul 2026 — Q3 trading update and second guidance upgrade. For the nine months to 30 June 2026, organic growth of 15 per cent was reported. Full-year guidance was raised again to organic growth of 14 per cent, acquisitions contributing 6 per cent, and adjusted operating margin of approximately 26.5 per cent, implying adjusted operating profit growth of approximately 42 per cent. The update also confirmed the next scheduled disclosure as full-year results on 17 November 2026.
• 20 Jul 2026 — Director and PDMR dealings disclosed. On-market purchases by Senior Independent Director Katie Bickerstaffe, Chief Financial Officer Wilson Ng and Non-Executive Director Mandy Gradden, dealt on 16 and 17 July 2026 in a price band of £70.48 to £71.83.

12. Key Dates and Catalysts

• 17 Nov 2026 — FY2026 full-year results for the year ending 30 September 2026. This date was confirmed explicitly in the Q3 trading update of 16 July 2026 and is the single most important scheduled event, since it tests the 14 per cent organic and 26.5 per cent margin guidance.
• Expected Nov 2026 — declaration of the FY2026 final dividend alongside those results. The FY2025 final was 44.1p, taking the FY2025 total to 62.3p.
• Expected Jan 2027 — Annual General Meeting. The 2026 AGM was held on 14 January 2026, following the same pattern of roughly two months after full-year results.
• Expected Feb 2027 — payment of the FY2026 final dividend, following the FY2025 timetable. No ex-dividend or payment date has been announced.
• Expected May 2027 — H1 FY2027 interim results for the six months to 31 March 2027. The FY2026 interims were published on 19 May 2026.
• TBC — capital markets day. None was identified as scheduled for FY2026 or FY2027.

Between the scheduled dates, the variables that will actually move the outcome are the pace of bolt-on acquisitions, whether Controls sustains its organic run rate as defence and data centre demand matures, and whether Seals inflects out of its low-single-digit growth. Diploma does not issue quarterly financial statements, so the July trading update is the only interim read between May and November. For macro releases, see the ChartsView Economic Calendar, and to discuss this name with other readers visit the ChartsView Forum.

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