When is a conglomerate not a conglomerate? The answer is when it’s Rosebank Industries. This two-year-old £3.6bn acquisition-hungry company shares traits with several other conglomerate-type industrial companies such as Diploma, Bunzl, Halma and Judges Scientific. Each one is an owner of multiple businesses and is permanently on the lookout for new ones to bring into the fold.

What sets Rosebank apart is that it’s a turnaround specialist, operating more like a private equity house. Its acquisitions, primarily businesses with scope for margin and cash generation improvement, are made with the single purpose of disposing of them at a higher valuation. The others adhere to a buy-and-keep model with the aim of creating larger, more successful groups that will drive their earnings growth.

Their strategy is to add, not sell, high-quality businesses operating in similar or adjacent markets. For example, Bunzl, which sells everyday essentials to business customers, has bolted on around 230 firms in the past two decades. Typically, integration of the businesses acquired is done lightly to ensure talent, culture and capabilities are all preserved.

Scientific instruments maker Judges Scientific and Diploma, which sells small, highly specialised components, allow the original owners of the businesses they acquire to maintain entrepreneurial autonomy. Halma is also remarkably decentralised. Rosebank’s strategy is buy, improve, sell; the aim being to create value for shareholders within three to five years of an acquisition.

It drives margin growth through tactics such as exiting low-margin markets, increasing prices, factory closures, management incentives and capital investment. One shared risk these groups face is overpaying for acquisitions. However, they also benefit from operating in markets for products which are likely to be non-discretionary.

If Rosebank can replicate the success of its forerunner Melrose, shareholders will do very well. Rosebank Industries shares rose after the industrial turnaround specialist, which moved into the FTSE 250 in June, declared its first dividend and said it expected annual results to be ahead of consensus expectations, writes Christopher Akers. The group, run by former Melrose executives, generated an adjusted operating profit of $110mn (£81.4mn) in its first half.

It now expects full-year profit to beat group-compiled consensus of $314mn, after saying in July that profit would exceed consensus of $294mn. Rosebank has made three acquisitions since it listed as a cash shell on Aim in 2024, under the “buy, improve, sell” strategy that the management team has brought over from Melrose. Free cash flow of $88mn (after $25mn of restructuring spend) resulted in net debt of $1.07bn, representing leverage of 2.4 times.

Rosebank shares trade on 18 times forward consensus earnings. That is below the 19 times for the sector, according to Barclays. The lime and minerals group reported a 14 per cent increase in pre-tax profit versus the previous year to £45mn, writes Hugh Moorhead.

Revenues rose by 3 per cent over the same period to £523mn. Price increases more than offset a 3 per cent fall in sales volumes. Performance was stronger in the company’s industrial and environmental business, and weaker in construction, in part due to the slowdown in housebuilding.

Chief executive Max Vermorken said the Iran war had “reduced optimism” in the sector. Cost savings, including from internalising Sigma Roc’s UK haulage operations, helped increase the company’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (ebitda) margin by 200 basis points to 25.1 per cent. Sigma Roc also acquired Dolomitas, a Lithuanian dolomite business, for €110mn (£95mn), the latest purchase in its “buy and build” strategy.

The company trades on only 12 times next year’s earnings even after the double-digit share price increase on results day. FTSE 250 specialist asset manager Ashmore struck a bullish tone about the outlook for emerging...