Spotless, the nation's biggest facilities management, cleaning and catering contractor, is number three in the Australian resources sector behind global giants Compass and Sodexo.

"Because miners had such a bullish decade, once you won township management the miners just rolled the contracts," Mr Dixon said. "Given miners are looking at cost savings and there's pressure on margins, they are testing the market."

The average contract size to manage and service remote mining communities is $20 million.

Spotless has just picked up three mines from a competitor in Queensland.

"Normally, in a services business you retain about 90 per cent of your contracts. They tend not to churn but they do if the pricing is out. We are getting the chance to price and we think we have a pricing advantage," Mr Dixon said.

After a dramatic turnaround during just 18 months in the hands of private equity firm Pacific Equity Partners, Spotless returned to ASX boards in a $1 billion float in May.

During PEP's ownership, Spotless went through a major cost-cutting drive, shedding about 800 management and administration roles and culling more than $100 million worth of poor contracts.

Margins, which were a perennial disappointment before the PEP takeover in 2012, have expanded from 5 per cent and now are broadly in line with international peers at about 9 per cent.

"Spotless has done its turnaround and is now looking for growth," Spotless chairman Margaret Jackson said.

Speaking at the Spotless annual general meeting in Melbourne on Monday, she said there will be four pillars in Spotless's growth strategy. She pointed to growth in the $40 billion services market, increased market share, a trend of increased outsourcing to services providers such as Spotless, and expansion opportunities.

Ms Jackson said reduced government funding for universities is pressuring them to be more efficient and leading to more outsourcing. She also expects to win work from state governments after the next elections and from public-private partnerships.

Spotless services 14 PPPs with about $100 million in revenue. Revenue from PPPs is expected to double when work on the new Royal Adelaide Hospital and four other contracts commences over the next two to three years

Mr Dixon said Spotless had built on its initial facilities management contract at Royal Adelaide and had now been contracted on 19 services. He said it is a similar story at the Sunshine Coast Public University Hospital. "I don't think the market has got its head around how good these contracts are," he said.

PEP still owns about a third of Spotless, but Ms Jackson said she was not worried about an overhang of stock: "I'm not concerned about it at all. At some point there will be an opportunity for PEP to sell down and an opportunity for Australian institutions to invest."

Due to the pace of the turnaround, the hefty cost-cutting and scepticism about private-equity floats, many local fund managers spurned the IPO, which was well supported by offshore investors.

Spotless on Monday reaffirmed its 2014-15 earnings guidance for revenue of $2.69 billion and earnings before interest and tax of $227 million.

The company intends to pay out a dividend of between 65 per cent and 75 per cent of after-tax profits in 2014-15.