By Michael Susin


Compass Group PLC said Wednesday that it is upgrading its guidance for fiscal 2022 after first-half pretax profit rose, and that it plans a share buyback program.

The U.K. catering contractor said pretax profit for the six months to March 31 was 632 million pounds ($778.4 million) compared with GBP133 million for the same period the year before.

Underlying operating profit--which strips out exceptional and other one-off items--rose to GBP673 million from GBP287 million, with a margin of 5.5%.

Revenue increased to GBP11.5 billion from GBP8.44 billion.

Compass said it will start a share buyback program worth up to GBP500 million this year.

The company said it has upgraded its FY 2022 guidance for organic revenue growth to around 30% from a range of 20% to 25%, while underlying operating margin guidance remains unchanged and is expected to be above 6%.


Write to Michael Susin at michael.susin@wsj.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

05-11-22 0243ET