Sustainability and discipline

Our clear and consistent focus on our growth strategy has enabled us to meet economic and operational challenges head on and come away a better and stronger business.

I am delighted to report another year in which we have delivered further progress in operating profit and strong free cash flow generation. We have achieved this against a backdrop of continuing economic uncertainty, high food cost inflation and the tragic events earlier this year in Japan. I am immensely proud of the hard work and commitment to achieving these goals shown by my colleagues around the Group.

Our strategy is unchanged. Our core focus remains on delivering shareholder value from the significant structural opportunity in foodservice around the world and in building our capability in support services. We are now well into the growth phase of our journey, a phase in which our core aim is sustainable and disciplined growth. And we are making good progress, building on the strong foundations we have put in place, and retaining our emphasis on operational excellence in our pursuit of growth.

The economic backdrop is still very volatile and is likely to remain so for some time. Our flexible cost base and the significant cost benefits of outsourcing give us confidence that amidst the challenges of this economic environment there are also opportunities for us. Our Management and Performance programme, MAP, is fully embedded across the Group and continues to drive efficiencies and act as a framework around which to share best practices between our teams.

Whilst organic growth remains our priority, over the last two years we have increased our focus on small, infill acquisitions and these are now making a meaningful contribution to growth. The combination of a solid top line and the continued delivery of significant efficiency gains has delivered strong profit growth and cash flow generation and has enabled us to increase our investment in the exciting opportunities we see around the world. The acquisitions which we have made this year have taken us further into the emerging markets as well as strengthening our offer in support services.

This year we have more than doubled our presence in Turkey with the acquisition of the remaining 50% of our former joint venture business, SOFRA. Since the year end we have also acquired Obasan, a leading foodservice business in Turkey. In India, we have developed a significant national presence in both food and support services with the recent acquisitions of Vipul, UHS and Indus. We have continued to build our capability in support services in North America with a number of acquisitions across Canada and the United States. And our commitment to building scale in Europe and Japan can be seen in the number of acquisitions, which total over ten this year, that we have made in the region, including the Dutch business of Elior, as well as VSG and Cygnet in the UK.

I am delighted to welcome all of our acquired businesses into the Group and I look forward to more value creating acquisitions as we utilise the strength of our balance sheet to drive our growth plan forward.