Compass Group, the world’s biggest contract caterer, pointed to the return of office workers and sports fans today as its profit for the half-year crossed above £1 billion for the first time.
With the bulk of its business now in North America, the FTSE 100 multinational also announced plans to report its profit in dollars, to minimise the impact on its numbers from currency market volatility.
Compass also said it had no plans to move its share listing to New York.
Dominic Blakemore, its CEO, told The Standard: “We’re happily listed here in the UK and it isn’t a priority for the board to consider other venues. Being UK listed hasn’t prevented us having access to international capital. We raised money quickly and efficiently during the pandemic.”
He said the currency flip reflects “the economic reality of our geographic footprints … when we report in sterling we’re exposed to over 75% currency volatility. If we report in dollars we minimise that to 20%.”
For the six months to March 31, Operating profit rose by over 41% to cross above £1 billion and it announced plans to return £750 million to investors via a share buyback.
The company played a key role in the Coronation, serving 17,000 meals to military personnel and and 35,000 to the Metropolitan police. It also served food and drink at the concert at Windsor castle.
Its meals for the police on duty at last weekend’s event included specially-formulated packed lunches to help officers avoid exhaustion. They included honey and chicken salad pots, coronation chicken sub rolls and specifically developed slow release energy flapjacks.
Blakemore said Compass was looking forward to catering Wimbledon tennis, which looked “very strong from the advance ticket sales.”
The company also feeds the crowds at Chelsea, Tottenham and Brentford football clubs and has a target to win business from a total of 10 members of the Premier League, with what it calls a “frictionless” digital service for fans.
Over the wider business, Blakemore also said most of the its main measures, so-called key performance indicators, were back above levels seen before Covid struck.
“Pretty much every financial KPI is tracking above the pandemic by some distance … Margin is still lagging a little bit, because we are nearly 25% bigger than we were pre-pandemic,” he said, adding:
“Sports and leisure led our volume recovery, we saw very, very strong spending. We’re now seeing a catch-up in office attendance in the UK and particularly London.”
