Feeding health-conscious and hungry Silicon Valley tech whizzes has helped catering firm Compass dish out a massive £1 billion payout today.
Shares in Compass, which supplies food to companies and events globally including the Wimbledon tennis championships, soared to the top of the FTSE 100 table, up 5% on the news of the payday.
The world’s largest food service company, which employs more than 500,000 people, said its booming US business has been driven by the high-growth technology sector. Chief executive Richard Cousins said: “We have seen strong organic growth; revenue growth of over 4% has been driven by north America, particularly Silicon Valley. There is continued demand for healthy food at a sensible cost and the quality of our food is excellent.”
Clients include Twitter, Google, LinkedIn and Yahoo! and it has just won a contract with Skype.
First-half pre-tax profit to April jumped 3.5% to £608 million, better than City forecasts, and net profits were up 5%. Strong cashflow has allowed the group to increase its interim dividend by 10% and continue its £500 million share buyback as well as the huge £1 billion special dividend.
Cousins said: “We have maintained strong investment in the company, and will continue to do this, alongside sensible M&A, as well as retain our commitment to reward shareholders.”
He said economic conditions had shown “modest” improvements in Europe and Japan.
Newly listed Dutch rival ISS, which has former Compass chief executive Sir Charles Allen as chairman, reported a first-quarter net loss of $6.1 million (£3.6 million) due to listing costs but said it was on track to meet full-year guidance.
