WHEN executives at the UK catering firm Compass were invited to bid for the lucrative contract to provide food at the revamped O2 concert arena in Greenwich, they had a secret weapon.

The O2’s owner, Anschutz Entertainment, which also controls the Los Angeles Galaxy soccer team, wanted to bring some Stateside pizzazz to the former Millennium Dome.

Compass knew how. It drafted in its people from Levy Restaurants, a Chicago business acquired in 2000.

Levy does catering at US sports stadiums, and supplies about a third of the venues for professional teams in the big four sports: baseball, basketball, ice hockey and American football. Its input proved just the ticket, and Compass won the contract.

The O2 experience underlines the importance of Compass’s American operations to the group’s fortunes and illustrates how far it has come since it was sued by rival firms two years ago for alleged criminal conspiracy to win contracts.

Even now, almost a year after the O2 venue opened, managers from Levy shuttle back and forth to Greenwich to make sure things are running correctly.

Under Compass group chief executive Richard Cousins such cooperation across divisions is increasingly common, and the American businesses are proving increasingly influential in dictating strategy across the wider group as a whole.

Andrew Lansing, chief executive of Levy Restaurants, said the O2 example has been a useful exercise for his team.

“The O2 was a great testing ground for us to bring together Levy and Compass UK. It got people very excited to do more things together. Combined, we can be a powerful force.”

Compass’s American operations are already pretty powerful. The division has revenues of £4.2 billion, representing 40% of group turnover. According to Nation’s Restaurant News, a trade magazine, this makes Compass the leading food-service business in America, ahead of McDonald’s.

The British company’s various subdivisions provide the catering at events ranging from the Oscars to the Kentucky Derby, and run staff restaurants at the likes of Oracle, eBay, Yahoo and Cisco, not to mention providing catering for many universities, investment banks, government departments and the military.

Cousins has worked hard to draw a line under the unhappy recent history of the group, which reached its nadir in October 2006 when it settled two lawsuits alleging Compass had bribed officials to win food-service contracts with the UN.

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