North America and emerging markets boost Compass but UK like-for-like sales drop
Contract caterer Compass Group has seen its global revenues increase by 8% to £16.9b for the year to 30 September 2012.
The group's profit before tax was also up by 7% to £789m.
Compass attributed the figures to a strong performance in North America and the fast growing and emerging markets, driven by good levels of net new business. But trading in Europe was described as "challenging".
Richard Cousins, group chief executive, said: "Compass has continued to perform well. We've seen particularly good trading in North America and the Fast Growing & Emerging markets and the outlook in both regions is encouraging. The fundamentals of our European businesses remain solid and the decisive actions we're taking to improve operational efficiency are progressing well.
"We've continued to generate significant cost efficiencies across the Group, which are enabling us to reinvest for growth and manage the difficult economic conditions in Europe. Overall, the prospects for the business around the world are good and I remain confident that we will continue to drive revenue and margin growth."
Revenue in Europe and Japan totalled £6.2b. Like-for-like sales in the UK fell, while they were flat in many other countries including the Nordic countries and Germany. In the Southern European countries of Italy, Spain and Portugal, the group saw volume declines of around 5%.