Sports caterer serves up a boost in revenues

The company has landed deals with blue-chips such as BSkyB and Lloyds Banking Group and caters for a host of venues including the Jockey Club's racecourses, Chelsea football club and the Wimbledon tennis championships – British tennis star Andy Murray is pictured here in action during last year's championships.

Compass posted underlying revenue growth of 1.5 per cent in the opening quarter of 2010 – its first since the last three months of 2008 – as more cyclical sports and corporate business improved and trading comparisons eased.

The firm saw "steady" trading from its raft of public sector deals in health, defence and education, as well as boosting margins through cost-cutting.

Compass operates in 55 countries and employs 360,000 people. It has around a third of the FTSE 100 Index as clients, serves up around four billion meals a year and sells 4.5 cold drinks each second.

The group expects revenues for the first half to be "broadly flat" after a 1.7 per cent decline in the first quarter of its financial year, although it predicts "modest growth" for the second half.

Sales in the UK and Ireland were around six per cent below the previous year – its worst performing region – while Compass also flagged up stuttering first-half sales in continental Europe. But the group also expects two per cent growth in North America and a one per cent sales climb from its rest of the world business after strong performances in Australia, Japan and Brazil during the first half.

Shares in Compass were up one per cent following the update. Cazenove analyst Tim Barrett said: "In our opinion the trading trends are likely to get progressively better as the US labour market improves."