Focus on organic growth and efficiencies delivers another strong performance
- Organic revenue growth of 4.1%, driven by good levels of new business wins and high retention rates
- Delivered 10 basis points of margin improvement, significant efficiencies partly reinvested in the business
Increasing momentum in all regions
- Strong organic revenue growth in North America with acceleration in the second half and high levels of new business and retention
- Conditions in Europe & Japan continued to improve, with 20 basis points margin progression and a healthy sales pipeline
- Accelerating growth in emerging markets, driven by the ongoing structural shift to outsourcing, moderated by slowdown in Australia
Ongoing delivery underpins shareholder returns and confidence in outlook
- Proposed full year dividend increase of 10.5% to 26.5 pence; £1 billion of cash returned to shareholders during the year; ongoing £500 million share buyback
- Compass remains well placed to capitalise on exciting structural growth opportunities in our markets globally
Richard Cousins, Group Chief Executive, said:
"Compass has had another good year, with strong growth in North America and Fast Growing & Emerging and further improvement in Europe & Japan. This, combined with our ongoing focus on efficiencies, has enabled us to continue to improve margins. We generated good levels of cash flow, which has allowed us to reinvest in the business and reward shareholders through a proposed increase in the dividend alongside our ongoing £500 million share buyback. We also optimised our balance sheet and returned a further £1 billion to shareholders through a special dividend announced in May.
Our strategy is clear. Food is and will remain our core competence and is backed with some strong support service businesses. All our markets have exciting opportunities and as a result we are investing more resources around the world to deliver strong growth. At the same time we remain disciplined with regards to margins. I remain positive about our potential for continuing progress in the years ahead."
