While revenue increased by 9.5% to £2.6m this year, like-for-like sales also grew by +2.8% and underlying profit by +22.7% to £195m. This, the group said, has an ‘encouraging pipeline’ with ‘significant’ new contracts underpinning future growth, including its launch in the South American travel market.
Chief executive Kate Swann said: “SSP has delivered another strong performance in 2018.
“Operating profit was up 22.7% at constant currency, driven by good like-for-like sales growth, substantial new contract openings and further operational improvements.
“SSP has continued to expand its global footprint, materially extending its presence in North America, delivering excellent growth in India and entering the Latin America region with two contracts in Brazil.
“The new business pipeline is encouraging and underpins our confidence in future growth. Our cash flow is robust and in addition to investing £144m into the business this year, our highest to date, we are also returning circa £150m cash to shareholders.
“The new financial year has started in-line with our expectations and while a degree of uncertainty always exists around passenger numbers in the short term, we continue to be well placed to benefit from the structural growth opportunities in our markets.”
The company hopes to grow and develop in the year ahead, bringing new brands and concepts to its clients and customers worldwide.
With its focus on creating ‘long-term sustainable value for (SSP) shareholders’ it has identified five key levers as below:
- Optimising SSP’s offer to benefit from the positive trends in markets
- Growing profitable new space
- Optimising gross margins and leveraging scale benefits
- Running an efficient and effective business
- Optimising investment using best practice and shared resource
Starting the new financial year in line with its expectations, SSP said it is ‘well placed’ to deliver for both its customers and shareholders.
“We delivered a strong financial performance in the year with good like-for-like sales growth, strong net gains and a further improvement in operating margin.
“The new financial year has started in line with our expectations and the pipeline of new contracts is encouraging, although it is always difficult to predict the precise timing of the opening of these new units.
“Looking forward to 2019, with the current level of general economic uncertainty, we anticipate like-for-like revenue growth to remain in the range of 2 - 3% next year.
“The significant structural growth opportunities in our markets and our programme to deliver operational improvements leave us well placed to continue to deliver both for our customers and our shareholders.”