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04 Dec 2025
UK-headquartered optics firm posts increases in both sales and profits, despite wider macroeconomic challenges.
G&H (Gooch & Housego) has posted increased profits for its latest financial year, thanks largely to sustained demand for products used in aerospace and defense applications.
At £150.5 million, sales in the 12 months ending September 30 were up nearly 11 per cent on the prior year, with around £7 million of that total contributed by recent acquisitions Phoenix Optical Technologies and defense-focused Global Photonics.
That translated to an adjusted profit of £11.9 million, up from £8.1 million last year, with G&H CEO Charlie Peppiatt noting that the increase came amid “significant macroeconomic and geopolitical disruptions”, in particular supply chains hit by US tariffs and retaliatory measures from China.
“Our teams across the Group have performed exceptionally well in a year characterized by further significant and unpredictable change, ongoing supply chain issues, tariffs, and continued cost inflation,” he wrote in his statement accompanying the latest figures.
Despite those challenges, the strong demand for optics needed for defense-related applications saw the G&H order book swell in value to £142.4 million, up 36 per cent on this time last year.
Industrial de-stocking
G&H’s annual report highlights the very different trends impacting the firm’s three business units, namely industrial, aerospace and defense, and life sciences.
The industrial unit remains the largest in terms of sales revenues, but its latest annual sales figure of £64.3 million was down 5 per cent on the prior year as G&H continued to battle weak demand for industrial lasers used in the semiconductor market, and what it called “protracted de-stocking” in the wider industrial laser sector.
“Despite these challenges, volumes of our fiber-optic modules and assemblies used in both next-generation advanced lithography systems and sub-sea data networks remained robust, with growth in the second half as new programs ramped up to volume production and demand picked up for our long-standing high-reliability fiber couplers and module solutions,” noted Peppiatt in his round-up.
While the CEO also reported some early signs of a pick-up in demand towards the end of the financial year, no sustained recovery from the broader industrial laser and semiconductor markets is expected until the second half of 2026.
G&H’s life sciences department generated £33.7 million in the latest year, virtually identical to last year’s total, and impacted by problems ramping the production of Pockels cell components for medical lasers caused by the US-imposed tariffs.
On the plus side demand for the firm’s products used in diagnostic applications has risen, with Peppiatt noting uses for cancer care and organ transplants.
Sighting systems
In stark contrast, G&H’s aerospace and defense unit posted sales of £52.4 million, up 52 per cent year-on-year as a number of new projects moved into volume production.
“Our imaging and sighting systems business for armored vehicles and UAVs continues to progress well with a number of multi-year new program wins during FY2025, where the conflict in Ukraine is fuelling increased demand and greater urgency of supply,” Peppiatt observed.
“This was particularly evident from the second half revenue growth from deliveries of precision optics and advanced sighting systems into both air and land military platform programs.”
In the commercial aerospace realm demand for components used in ring laser gyroscopes is said to remain particularly strong, with productivity improvements and additional capacity helping to meet that increased demand.
Looking ahead, Peppiatt said that although G&H had improved its own operations and productivity - partly through out-sourcing production to contract manufacturing partners in Asia - he remained cautious about supply chain uncertainties, compounded by an inflationary environment for wages, raw materials and energy.
“Whilst price increases and the majority of tariff on-costs have been passed onto customers in FY2025 addressing most of these cost increases, cost inflation continues to impact the business and the ability to fully offset all cost base inflation through pricing actions is becoming more difficult in certain areas,” he pointed out.
Nevertheless, in the key aerospace and defense market, the company looks particularly well placed to benefit from what the CEO expects to be an “unprecedented surge of demand lasting several years across the UK, Europe, and North America .
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