Market report: Leaner canteens point Compass south
Summary
The drop comes after the group, which provides meals in more than 50 countries, said its full-year underlying profit had risen but warned on the impact of a restructuring charge prompted by a weaker outlook within its European operations. Compass said it would take a £160m hit over 2019 and 2020, and a non-cash charge of £140m, as it repositions itself “against the backdrop of a deteriorating macro environment in Europe”. It is to cut around 3,000 roles as part of a programme to make £300m of savings over the next two years. The number of job cuts in Britain would be in the “low hundreds”, he added, some of which will be achieved by not filling new positions. Hargreaves Lansdown’s Nicholas Hyett called it an “unusually eventful set of numbers” for the group, adding: “the cost of getting Compass into better shape to weather any coming storm is unexpectedly high”.