ISS says it has ‘continued to deliver a sound performance in challenging macroeconomic conditions by demonstrating healthy organic growth, operating profit in line with last year and strong cash conversion.’
The company’s revenue, up by 1% to DKK 39.1 billion, was driven by organic growth of 2.2% in the first six months of 2012 while operating profit before other items amounted to DKK 1,904 million in the first six months of 2012 compared with DKK 1,974 million in the same period in 2011.
Operating margin before other items of 4.9% for the first six months of 2012 was in line with expectations, noted the company.
Profit before goodwill impairment/amortisation of customer contracts amounted to DKK 489 million for the first six months compared with DKK 408 million in the same period last year.
“In spite of the challenging macro-economic conditions, particularly in certain Mediterranean countries, ISS is well on track to deliver a solid 2012 result in line with our expectations,” stated Jeff Gravenhorst, ISS Group CEO Jeff Gravenhorst.
“We recently won major new contracts with Barclays Bank and Novartis and we have a strong pipeline of international and national customers, which gives us confidence that the organic growth and margin development in the second half of the year will bring us within our financial outlook,” he added.
ISS’s outlook for 2012 is based on a continued challenging macroeconomic outlook and difficult market conditions in Europe – in particular certain Mediterranean countries. ‘We expect a continued strong growth in emerging markets.
‘ISS experienced a strong positive trend in organic growth in 2011 following the start-up of several large integrated facility services (IFS) contracts leading to organic growth of 6.2% for the Group. The organic growth is negatively impacted by the challenging macroeconomic conditions, however, combined with the start-up of recent multinational IFS contract wins we are aiming at a continuation of the organic growth expectation for 2012 in the 3 to 5% range.’