Insider: boss bets his firm's 16-year uptrend has legs

The boss of Porvair (LSE:PRV) has tied £100,000 to the delivery of new targets as he aims to accelerate the growth compounder's momentum following a 10-fold shareholder return in 20 years.

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Hooman Caman Javvi's dealings took place after his unveiling of a new financial framework, including an upgraded 16-18% margin target, left shares off their recent record high.

His most recent £50,000 investment in the filtration, laboratory and environmental technology group was last week at 833p, which compared with a share price of 900p before the capital markets event on 14 October.

He previously spent £50,000 at 890p on 15 October, when Porvair also disclosed dealings worth £35,000 by finance chief James Mills.

The FTSE All-Share company's £400 million valuation weakened even though the event included a slight full-year profit upgrade, driven by organic revenue growth across all three operating divisions of aerospace and industrial, laboratory and metal melt quality.

Deutsche Numis highlighted a price target of 1,050p and said Porvair had mapped out a plan that “meaningfully builds” on the 15% compound earnings growth rate of the previous 15 years. Sixteen years ago, in 2010, the shares traded as low as 57p.

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Porvair's record includes two decades of progressive dividend, having lifted the payout in the most recent financial year by 6% to 6.7p a share for a 20-year total shareholder return of 957%. That compares with 369% in the FTSE All-Share and 349% in the FTSE 100 index.

The company has also deployed £90 million since 2012 through 18 acquisitions with an average deal size of £5 million. These have largely been with founder-led targets, the most recent being September's move for Italian industrial filters business GV Filtri.

Porvair told investors at last month's City presentation that it saw scope to step up the pace of M&A activity within a highly fragmented global market.

About 43% of 2025's revenues came from the supply of mission-critical filtration solutions across aerospace and industrial markets, with another 35% from filters, instruments and consumables for the laboratory-based environmental, life and bioscience sector.

The new medium-term framework targets at least 10% revenue growth, which compares with 8% in the last five years, and an uplift in the margin from 2026's forecast 13% and 2005's 7.2%.

Javvi, who took the helm in early 2025, is targeting earnings per growth in the range of 10-20% per annum. The most recent figure of 42.3p in the 2025 year compared with 3.6p in 2005.

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City firm Berenberg highlighted the breadth of M&A opportunities and said that the new margin targets were encouraging and “where we agree the group should drive more value”.

However, it cautioned that the scalability of the business model remains untested.

The bank said: “The financial framework and targets are ambitious, but in line with our (high) expectations of what we believe Porvair can be.

“That said, while achievement of these new targets would represent significant valuation upside for the shares, execution via material internal changes is unlikely to be linear or straightforward, and we anticipate an element of scepticism in the near term as the group seeks to accelerate delivery.”

Berenberg lifted its price target by 50p to 1,100p, although it expects that an element of delivery is required for the stock to fully realise its rating potential.

Another slice of Pi

Porvair (LSE:PRV) boss Eben Upton has topped up his stake at a price 28% below where shares stood on the day he issued forecast-beating interim results and bullish guidance.

Upton's investment worth £27,000 took place at 539.5p, which compares with the 755p seen on 24 September when results eased concerns about the soaring price of dynamic random-access memory used in single board computers and compute modules.

The founder and chief executive said the record half-year figures reflected the benefit of Raspberry Pi's decision in 2025 to build significant strategic memory inventory.

This allowed it to maintain product availability at a time when smaller competitors had struggled to secure allocation due to a period of significant supply chain disruption.

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Whilst the “exceptional” unit economics achieved in the first half results are likely to moderate, the company said full-year underlying earnings were expected to be ahead of the City consensus.

Broker Peel Hunt said the update showed Raspberry Pi was “going from strength-to-strength” as it highlighted further upside for shares to 1,085p.

However, the wild ride for investors since the company's 2024 flotation at 280p a share has continued due to the recent pressure on tech valuations.

The shares surged from 292p in March to more than 1,000p in June, aided by market speculation about AI enthusiasts using low-cost Raspberry Pi boards to run the agent OpenClaw as an autonomous digital assistant.

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Upton, who raised £1.8 million after selling shares at 966.7p in late June, said in September that the company was well positioned for rapid growth in unit shipments in 2027 and beyond.

He added: “Looking beyond the current memory cycle, I am excited by the progress we are making across the business.

“We continue to expand our product portfolio, deepen customer relationships, strengthen our supply chain, and invest in the structures and capabilities required to support future growth.”