(Reuters) – Catering giant Compass Group LON: (LON) resumed Tuesday dividend payments, projected fiscal 2022 profit margin at over 6% and reported a better-than-expected year profit due to economic reopenings.

World’s largest caterer, COVID-19 had forced it to suspend dividends for April 2020. The company said that they would be paying an annual dividend of 14 pence.

Dominic Blakemore, Chief Executive Officer said that “with ongoing mobilization costs and inflationary stress,” further improvements will be weighted towards second half of year to return to an underlying margin around 7% by the year’s end.

Compass has experienced a rebound in food catering as students return from schools and athletes fill up arenas. This is also a result of the increased attendance at music events and larger crowds attending sporting events. In order to reduce costs, more people are outsourcing their catering services for the first times. This has also helped new businesses.

The underlying operating profit rose 55.4%, to $811 million ($1.09billion) for the year to Sept. 30, while the underlying revenue recovered by 88% to the levels of 2019.

According to company consensus, analysts had on average expected an underlying operating profit in excess of 797 millions pounds.

Compass is a service provider for office staff, students and seniors living in retirement homes. They also cater to event visitors from 45 countries. Compass expects fiscal 2022 organic growth of 20%-25%.

After French food service and catering group Sodexo (PA) stated last month that it expected sales to increase in 2022, and would resume paying dividends after posting higher-than-expected results for the previous year.

Compass said that the uncertainty surrounding labour shortages, inflation, and the pandemic was continuing to affect its business.

($1 = 0.7470 pounds)