French catering and food services group Sodexo on Friday hiked the full-year revenue target for its Benefits and Rewards services unit for the second time, citing better-than-expected third-quarter growth.
Caterers are benefiting from the cost-of-living crisis as employers look for ways to support staff without hiking wages.
"Pluxee third quarter growth is stronger than expected with growing underlying demand, amplified by strong face value increases and higher interest rates", CEO Sophie Bellon said in a statement.
Recently rebranded as Pluxee, the voucher unit is to be spun off and publicly listed in 2024. It plans to hire about 1,000 people for its technology and data operations to tap into the growing employee benefits market.
Sodexo expects Pluxee's organic revenue growth to exceed 20% and underlying operating profit margin to be above 32% in the 2023 fiscal year to the end of August.
The group had in April raised its forecast for the business, targeting organic growth close to 20% and an operating profit margin near 32%.
Sodexo also refined the group's full-year outlook, expecting underlying operating profit margin of 5.5%, compared to "close to" 5.5% previously.
Total group revenue was 6.03 billion euros ($6.55 billion) in the third quarter, slightly ahead of the 6.02 billion euros expected by analysts polled by the company.
($1 = 0.9201 euros)
(Reporting by Diana Mandiá in Gdansk; Editing by Milla Nissi)
