PARIS (dpa-AFX) - French food services and facilities management company Sodexo S.A. (SDXAY.PK) reported Thursday that its first-half group net profit dropped 2.3 percent to 364 million euros from last year's 372 million euros.
Earnings per share dropped 0.4 percent to 2.50 euros from 2.51 euros last year.
Underlying net profit was 413 million euros, compared to 397 million euros last year. Underlying earnings per share were 2.84 euros, compared to 2.67 euros a year ago.
Operating profit grew 4.2 percent from last year to 578 million euros.
Revenues for the first half climbed 7.3 percent to 11.05 billion euros from last year's 10.29 billion euros. Revenues grew 6.8 percent at constant currency rates, and 3.1 percent organically.
Looking ahead, the company said it maintains guidance both in top line organic growth and underlying operating profit margin.
For the Second Half, the company projects continued growth in developing economies, although the comparable base is high, some contracts being exited and improvement in North America remaining challenging. Therefore, the Group maintains its objective of organic revenue growth of between 2 and 3 percent.
The action plans are being executed with a clear focus on growth and on margin protection to ensure that the underlying operating margin for the year should be between 5.5 percent and 5.7 percent, excluding the currency impact.
Further, the company aims to achieve organic growth of more than 3 percent from fiscal 2020. Margin improvement will come with the right levels of growth, the objective being a return to an underlying operating margin sustainably over 6 percent.
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