Food service unit helps lift profit

BIDVEST Group, the country’s second-biggest company by revenue, reported a 5 percent increase in half-year profit yesterday, helped by a strong performance at its food service unit and favourable currency swings. Bidvest, a conglomerate spanning automobile showrooms, shipping and catering, said diluted headline earnings per share (EPS) were 877 cents for the six months to December, compared with 835c a year earlier. Bidvest, which makes more than half its sales overseas, said revenue increased 16.5 percent to R104.4 billion. Bidvest has fared well as its defensive food service unit offset its more cyclical automotive and freight division. It said last week that it was preparing to make a R6bn offer for shares it did not own in drug maker Adcock Ingram in a new attempt to build a big presence in the pharmaceutical market. “While this offer will remove uncertainty around Bidvest’s intention to acquire the remaining Adcock ordinary shares, Adcock shareholders also benefit from a premium to the share trading level over recent months,” Brian Joffe, Bidvest’s founder and chief executive, said. Bidvest Group had “no aspiration” to buy all of Adcock Ingram, he said yesterday, as the share price of its target continued to trade above its planned offer price. “We have no aspiration to acquire 100 percent of Adcock.” Shares in Adcock, in which Bidvest owns 34.5 percent, climbed 0.38 percent higher to close at R52.70 yesterday. Meanwhile, Bidvest shares dropped by 2.39 percent to close at R314. – Reuters