London, May 4, 2026, 16:28 BST
- IMI shares slipped 2.01% to 2,736 pence ahead of the market’s closure for London’s May bank holiday.
- The engineering group reported it has snapped up another 104,734 shares for cancellation, according to its latest buyback notice.
- IMI’s first-quarter trading update lands May 12—giving investors a little more than a week to prepare.
IMI plc dropped 2.01% to finish at 2,736 pence on May 1, its last session before the UK market holiday. As the FTSE 100 edged down 0.14%, attention stayed on the Birmingham engineer’s £500 million buyback and the first-quarter update lined up for next week.
London markets were closed Monday for the Early May Bank Holiday, so IMI’s last active price came from Friday. The London Stock Exchange had flagged May 4 as both a non-trading and non-settlement day, according to its official calendar.
The next company checkpoint isn’t far off. According to IMI’s financial calendar, both its annual general meeting and its first-quarter 2026 trading update will land on May 12. Investors will be watching that date, looking for signs that automation demand and aftermarket business are still driving the group.
IMI disclosed in a May 1 filing that it snapped up 104,734 ordinary shares for cancellation on April 30, using J.P. Morgan Securities as broker, paying an average 2,788.3815 pence per share. Cutting the share count by cancelling stock can boost earnings per share—assuming profits stay steady.
According to a separate voting-rights filing, IMI listed its issued share capital at 254,304,955 ordinary shares as of April 30. Of those, 12,648,836 sit in treasury, leaving the company with 241,656,119 total voting rights. After settling and cancelling the latest buyback, that number is set to dip to 241,444,385, the notice said.
The buybacks are just one piece of the broader capital return strategy IMI laid out in March. Back then, the company set a target for mid-single-digit organic revenue growth by 2026 and rolled out plans for a £500 million share repurchase. Organic revenue, which excludes acquisitions, disposals, and currency swings, offers a clearer snapshot of the company’s core sales.
Back in March, Chief Executive Roy Twite said IMI’s strategy was “creating significant value for shareholders,” projecting adjusted basic earnings per share between 136p and 142p for 2026. That’s earnings per share—profit divided by share count. Investegate
Automation, energy, and healthcare remain at the core of the investment pitch. IMI flagged that roughly 45% of its revenue is tied to higher-margin aftermarket business—think service and replacement after the first sale. For 2025, Reuters noted, the company reported an adjusted annual pretax profit of £442 million.
Peers help frame the move. Rotork, calling itself a provider of mission-critical flow-control and instrumentation systems, and Spirax Group, which focuses on thermal energy and fluid technology, operate in sectors overlapping IMI’s process and fluid-control markets. That puts cash returns, margins, and order trends at all three under the investor microscope when sizing up UK engineering.
The buyback won’t patch up softer demand should conditions sour. In March, IMI projected solid growth ahead for Automation, but saw only limited gains in Life Technology and expected Transport to be mostly flat. Margin gains might get eaten up by higher cybersecurity costs after a Q1 incident. The outlook also hinged on wrapping up the Truflo Marine sale by mid-2026.
