Compass Group PLC (CMPGF) Q1 2026 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Welcome to conference group 2026 first quarter training update conference call hosted by Dominic Blakemore, group chief executive officer. All is being recorded. Ask a question, please press star 1 on your touchstone keypad. I will now turn the call over to Dominic Blakemore for his opening remarks. Please go ahead. Thank you. Welcome to our Q1 trading updates. As usual, Petros is alongside me. We've had a strong start to the year, delivering organic revenue growth above 7%. Growth moderated as expected from the exceptional Q4 run rate, but the overall momentum remained very positive and strongly within our multi-year growth algorithm. Both regions and all sectors performed well, with sports and leisure and business and industry the fastest growing. For the fifth year running now, net new business remains in our 4% to 5% range, supported by sustained strong client retention of over 96%. Outsourcing trends remain robust, with new business wins up 10% year-on-year to $4 billion, nearly half of which came from the B&I sector. We completed the acquisition of Vermont in December and are now progressing with the integration. Together with synergies from the other acquisitions and operating leverage across the business, we're confident in delivering good margin progress this year. We've also announced our intention to change the currency of our share price from sterling to US dollars from the 1st of April. Turning to guidance, our expectations for 2026 are positive and unchanged. We anticipate underlying operating profit growth of around 10% on a constant currency basis, Driven by organic revenue growth around 7%, 2% profit growth from M&A and ongoing margin progression. Before I hand back over to the operator for Q&A, I'd like to address the trends we're seeing in AI acros...