20th Nov 2018 08:51
LONDON (Alliance News) - Catering company Compass Group on Tuesday reported an increase in revenue but its profit was hampered by adverse currency movements.
Compass shares were trading 4.5% higher at 1,659.50 pence each.
For the year ended September 30, the FTSE 100-listed firm's revenue increased 1.7% to GBP22.96 billion from GBP22.57 billion. On an adjusted basis - excluding the impact of currency changes - the increase was 5.5% to GBP23.24 billion from GBP21.84 billion.
Pretax profit fell 2.6% to GBP1.52 billion from GBP1.56 billion. Adjusting for currency movements, pretax profit grew 7.3% to GBP1.63 billion from GBP1.52 billion.
Compass increased its payout to shareholders by 12.5% to 37.7 pence per share from 33.5p a year ago.
Chief Executive Officer Dominic Blakemore said: "Compass had another very strong year. Revenue growth was healthy, driven by excellent growth in North America, an acceleration in Europe and good progress in Rest of World."
North America saw sales up 7.8% to GBP13.79 billion , Europe increased by 2.1% to GBP5.78 billion and RoW was up 2.9% to GBP3.67 billion.
Looking ahead, Compass said its future expectations are "positive".
"The pipeline of new contracts is strong and our focus on organic growth, efficiencies and cash gives us confidence in achieving another year of progress. We expect organic growth to be in the middle of our 4% to 6% range with modest margin progression," Blakemore added.
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