Bidvest owns a bit of almost everything, from the McCarthy car dealerships to hygiene services overseas, and for several years it has kept adding to the pile. Its 2026 annual report now says the pile stays the size it is: no material acquisitions are planned for the 2027 financial year.
Chair Bonang Mohale's letter calls that "a deliberate and, we believe, appropriate stance", given how uncertain the world looks and how much more the group thinks it can earn from what it has already bought. Those purchases took Bidvest into testing and inspection, widened its car business and pushed its hygiene operations further abroad. The report expects more from them as they grow.
The 14% it wants back
The measure Bidvest is chasing is return on invested capital: for every R100 tied up in the businesses, how much profit comes back in a year. Right now that is about R13.40, the same as at the half-year, and chief executive Mpumi Madisa wants it in the 14% range. Getting there, she said, needs stronger growth from the businesses themselves, especially the recently bought ones.
The year to June showed why. Revenue rose 2.9%, to R130.3 billion, but only about half of that growth came from the existing businesses, with acquisitions supplying the rest. Trading profit, what the operations earn before interest and tax, did better, up 8.4%, and the cash left over after running costs and investment grew by more than a quarter.
Selling pieces to clear debt
That cash went into paying down debt. Net debt fell by R4 billion, leaving it at 1.9 times a year's operating earnings, down from 2.2 times. Business Day reports the group wants that closer to 1.5 times, the bottom of its own target range.
Shortly after year-end Bidvest also sold a 13.25% slice of Adcock Ingram, the medicines maker, together with part of another investment, for R1.8 billion. The money paid off its 2026 Eurobond, a bond it had sold to foreign investors, and Bidvest still holds a controlling 51% of Adcock.
Its financial services businesses are next out the door. An agreement to sell Bidvest Life is waiting only for the Reserve Bank's approval, and Bidvest Bank is on the market again after an earlier deal with Nigeria's Access Bank lapsed, Business Day reports. The board has decided what 2027 is for, and it is the year the businesses Bidvest already bought have to show they were worth the money.
