DAVY VIEW

Spectris has agreed to buy Piezocryst Sensors GmbH for £122m from AVL. This is hot on the heels of the completion of the recent SciAps and Micromeritics deals. It appears to have paid 16x CY24 EV/EBITDA in a non-competitive process, which looks on the high side to us. It does have mid-20% operating margins, and future revenue growth could come from entering non-auto end markets. A delayed completion into January 2025 would be helpful for the YE24 net debt profile. We maintain our ‘Underperform’ rating.