Operator

Welcome to the Smiths Q3 2026 Trading Update Conference Call. The call will be hosted by Julian Fagge, Chief Financial Officer at Smiths. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

I would now like to hand the conference over to Julian Fagge, Chief Financial Officer at Smiths. Please go ahead.

Julian Fagge
CFO & Executive Director

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. Given the current market backdrop and in particular, the conflict in the Middle East, we thought it was appropriate to hold a call to discuss our quarter 3 trading update.

Smiths organic revenue was flat in the quarter, resulting in growth of 0.2% for the first 9 months. This was a resilient performance considering the disruption in global energy market, continued softness in U.S. construction and against a tough comparator in Flex-Tek.

In John Crane, organic revenue grew 3%. We began the quarter with a strong opening order book and operational momentum. However, as a result of the conflict, revenue was negatively impacted by approximately GBP 10 million due to 2 months of disruption. Encouragingly, our order book continued to strengthen, and we delivered a positive book-to-bill.

In Flex-Tek, we performed in line with our expected quarterly phasing. In Construction, performance reflected ongoing U.S. construction market weakness. However, we did see sequential improvement from the second quarter, which we expect to continue into quarter 4, supported by pricing initiatives and targeted customer wins.