The best indications are that Compass Group will be back to the sort of 4 per cent to 6 per cent organic growth rates that the caterer has tended to notch up in the past by the financial year starting in October. For now, the downturn in commodities markets that has caused a mild slowdown has been well enough signalled and investors will have to make do with another £1 billion special dividend, three years after the last one, which will arrive in July.
It is not a bad place to be and this column has championed Compass before for the reliability of the way it turns out revenue and margin increases year on year. This time the company, which gets almost all of its