Compass Group doesn’t look to be in much danger of losing direction; its needle is pointing firmly at North America and growth is steady as she goes.
The world’s largest catering group has a long record of delivering strong and consistent improvements in its organic revenues, boosted by regular acquisitions, but one of the side-effects is that its shares carry a pretty high rating.
Founded in 1941 as Factory Canteens, the company was owned for several decades by Grand Metropolitan, the former conglomerate, before management spun it out in 1987 to form Compass Group and listed it on the London Stock Exchange a year later.
The latter-day Compass is a member of the FTSE 100 with a market value of just under £32 billion. It