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Capital Markets Trading Update
Bid Corporation Limited
(Incorporated in the Republic of South Africa)
Registration number: 1995/008615/06
Share code: BID ISIN ZAE 000216537
(“Bidcorp” or “the Company” or “Group”)
Capital Markets Trading Update – May 21st 2019
Shareholders are advised that the Bidcorp executive management are meeting
with members of the financial community (including shareholders, financial
analysts and the press) today, May 21st 2019, to update the market on the
trading environment across its international operations.
Bidcorp’s UK logistics activities remain classified as discontinued operations.
The following update deals with the continuing and discontinued operations
separately.
Continuing operations:
Management comments as follows:
Current trading performance and overall market conditions
• Trading to the end of April F2019 continues to be positive (measured in
home currencies). The Easter holidays fell in mid-April versus late March
in F2018. Performance achieved by the Group remains on trend. Our
large UK, European and Australasian businesses continue to perform
well. Angliss China and South Africa remain challenging geographies
however monthly performance is starting to improve against last year.
• Sales have continued to show real growth, with the gross margin
percentage increasing. This has offset higher operating costs impacted
by rising wage costs (due to full employment levels in numerous
economies) and higher fuel and energy expenses. Overall trading
margins are being maintained.
• Economic growth in the UK, Europe and Australasia remains supportive
of the foodservice industry. Food inflation remains relatively benign
across most markets.
• Currency volatility has positively impacted Bidcorp’s rand translated
results. The rand translated results are approximately 4,5% higher than
the constant currency results to the end of April 2019.
• Acquisition opportunities are being limited by unrealistic vendor
valuation expectations at this stage of the cycle, a consequence of which
is that fewer bolt-on acquisitions have been concluded. Focus remains
on extracting the benefits from some of the more recent acquisitions,
most notably in Australia, Iberia and Germany.
• We continue to invest in organic growth through ongoing capex spend,
with the focus on having more but smaller depots closer to the customer
base.
• Further evolution (not revolution) of our ecommerce and CRM platforms
continue to provide competitive advantage across all businesses in the
Group. Our global procurement initiatives are expanding both in Asia and
Europe, the benefits of which reflect in each individual business.
• Bidcorp’s strategy remains focused on growth – organically in current
markets through real sales growth focussed on the correct customer
base; via in-territory bolt-on acquisitions to expand geographic reach and
product ranges; and via strategic acquisitions as the group enters new
markets.
• Management’s expectations for F2019 remain unchanged.
Australasia
• Australia’s trading performance remains at anticipated levels.
Revenue growth has been dampened by the exiting of a residual low
margin contract in the latter part of calendar 2018. The core
foodservice businesses are doing well, and the meat business is
slowly improving. Supply Solutions (Imports) continues to perform
well off the back of further upstream integration, such as cheese
processing. Our focus on liquor continues to prove challenging but
will be a key driver of growth in years to come. Further capex is being
spent on organic expansion in foodservice. Bolt-on acquisition
opportunities remain, however the current focus remains on
performance improvement at Festival Liquor.
• New Zealand continues its solid performance. Revenue gains and
margin improvements are being offset by higher costs, particularly
labour (full employment and no migration) and the costs of recent
increased capacity. All segments of the business continue to develop
profitably with ongoing innovation and product development,
particularly value add and processing. Further capacity expansion is
being planned to accommodate organic growth.
United Kingdom (“UK”)
• Bidfood UK continues to perform well. Consumer confidence is
being dented due to ‘Brexit’ fatigue. Sales volumes continue to grow
in the independent sector as our focus on service levels continues.
National account volume growth is being carefully managed in favour
of improved margins. Business improvement initiatives continue to
deliver margin improvements. Ecommerce implementation continues
to gather traction. Further investment into increased distribution
capacity remains a key focus to cater for anticipated growth. Growth
in ‘own’ brands continues and importing of an exclusive range of
brands is gaining traction. The acquisition of Punjab Kitchen (niche
ready-meals business) in February will add to Bidfood’s
manufacturing / value add products capability. An acquisition of an
independent foodservice businesses is likely to conclude in Q1
F2020.
• Trading in Bidfresh improved in Q3 however market conditions
remain challenging. Our customer base has experienced the decline
in the ‘casual dining’ segment as well as several suppliers going
bankrupt. Seafood has performed well, Produce is getting better but
the Meat division is taking longer than anticipated to reach scale.
Management’s focus is on building the customer base in the Meat
pillar.
Europe
• Overall results from our European businesses remains solid. Good
like-for-like trading profit growth in constant FX has been achieved
by the Netherlands, Belgium, Czech & Slovakia, Poland and Italy.
Large cost increases, particularly labour and fuel, remain however do
appear to be moderating. Our businesses are compensating for
these by driving higher revenues and improved gross margins.
Performance at Iberia and Germany remains below expectation
although business improvement initiatives are starting to deliver
improvements in both operations.
• Netherlands has maintained its good momentum despite a
tightening labour market. Its business simplification journey with
product range rationalisation and IT infrastructure reconfiguration is
starting to benefit the overall cost base, improving net margins.
• Belgium’s performance is positive, delivering higher profitability.
Volume growth in its freetrade and institutional sectors is ongoing.
Depot consolidation between Bestfoods and Langens to achieve
operational efficiencies in its infrastructure continue. Private label
development in the freetrade segment is being pursued. The roll out
of the ‘myBidfood’ ecommerce platform is ongoing.
• Czech & Slovakia continues to deliver a strong performance across
all segments of the business. Economic growth is slowing however
sales and gross margins have continued to grow. These have
mitigated higher labour costs. Timely depot investments in F2018
have positioned the business well in terms of market share gains.
Further infrastructure investment in depots is planned. Production
facilities are operating at high capacities ahead of anticipated
summer demand.
• Solid organic growth in Poland has continued, driven by focus on the
freetrade sector. Development of the product range into both Asian
cuisine and liquor is driving sales growth. Increased investment into
customer focused IT initiatives are expected to grow market share.
Further net margin improvement continues to be achieved.
• DAC Italy continues to grow with good penetration of the
independent sector. Business and consumer confidence is holding
up. D&D’s integration into DAC is ongoing. Procurement benefits in
Italian product (sourced/ co-sourced from/ with DAC) continues to
grow.
• Iberia comprises our businesses in Spain and Portugal. Overall
performance in Spain is well below expectations. Improvements to
the business platform through efficiencies in the infrastructure, a new
ERP system and skilled people, are starting to show improvements
however financial performance remains poor. Our business in
Portugal goes from strength to strength. The bolt-on acquisition
Igartza (July 2018), a multi-category distributor in northern Spain, is
performing in line with expectations. Management remain positive
about the growth opportunity in the Iberian market.
• Germany has underperformed however trading losses are
narrowing. Work continues in building its business foundation
including sales structures, IT platforms, human capital and
infrastructure. Additional management, deployed to assist the local
operators, is starting to make a difference. Germany still represents
a very large foodservice opportunity.
• The Baltics, with a focus on Lithuania, is profitable. The new depot
in Kaunas became operational in Q3.
• Further expansion, both in terms of in-country bolt-on acquisitions
and strategic entry into new geographies in Europe, remains
possible, as we are not represented or underrepresented in many
countries.
Emerging markets
• South Africa overall is showing improvement despite weak
economic conditions. Bidfood and the Chipkins Puratos (CP) JV have
achieved pleasing growth through good cost containment and
improved margins. The aftermath of the listeriosis crisis in processed
meats continues to impact the Crown Food Group (CFG) business
however, from April, is largely in the comparative base. The food
inflation trajectory is up which will start to assist Bidfood. The CP JV
is investing in new product offerings with the benefit of the Puratos
influence. The small ingredients distributor acquired by CFG in H1
F2019 is meeting expectations. Overall results in the month of April
were much improved on the comparative month in F2018.
• Greater China’s year to date financial performance remains
significantly below F2018 however month on month is starting to
recover as expected. In mainland China, our geographic distribution
network is reasonably complete. Dairy remains an important
category however diversification of the product range continues.
Operations are expected to commence at the new meat (value add
processing) factory in Q4. Mainland China has reacted well in
recovering from the effects of dairy market supply dislocation,
accordant margin pressures and rising operating and logistics costs.
Hong Kong’s cost inefficiencies remain due to duplicate
warehousing, but these will rectify themselves from the beginning of
Q4. Some further supplier dislocation in dairy is anticipated in Hong
Kong in Q4 however management are well prepared to deal with the
challenge. The working capital cycle remains under scrutiny. The
focus on bolstering the overall management structures continues.
• Singapore continues to deliver steady growth as we develop our
foodservice model. Good traction is being achieved in the core
foodservice market with other areas such as exports, marine and
commodities being scaled back significantly. Our investment into
Malaysia is rolling out nationwide. Our small joint venture in Vietnam
is progressing, albeit a little later than planned.
• Further expansion in Asia depends on finding the correct
opportunities.
• In South America, our focus remains on building a strong platform
in a region with significant growth potential. Brazil has delivered an
improved organic performance. Recent political change has not yet
manifested itself in higher economic growth, yet business confidence
is up. Refinement of the business model continues to enable sales
growth and expansion of their broadline product range. Further capex
is being spent to cater for growth. Bolt-on opportunities are being
pursued however vendor expectations remain unrealistic. Chile is
performing well and has a true national presence off the back of the
significant customer base and two additional depots which were
acquired in October. Integration continues.
• In the Middle East, our businesses have rebounded strongly
benefitting from improved geopolitical stability and the flow through
effects of higher oil prices. The UAE is starting to show some
improvement as tourism and hotel occupancies improve. A
significant agency was won in Q3 which should assist going forward.
Our Saudi operation has performed very well, buoyed by structural
reforms which are translating in higher economic activity. All
businesses are profitable other than the small Jordan operation.
• Turkey continues to improve as the local operations grow. Further
bolt-on opportunities are being sought.
Acquisitive activity
• Bidcorp remains alert to all acquisition opportunities that present
themselves both in current markets and in new territories.
• In the 3 months to March 2019, we made the following bolt-on
acquisition costing (inclusive of acquisition costs) R291 million:
o Bidfood UK acquired Punjab Kitchen, a niche ready meals
business.
Discontinued operations – UK Logistics activities:
• CD business
o We are in advanced negotiations for the disposal of the CD
business (Bestfood Logistics), to a reputable international
buyer. At this stage we cannot provide any further details and
will update the market in due course. We are reasonably
confident at this stage of the sale progressing, but it is still
subject to clearing several hurdles which are considered
normal and usual for a transaction of this nature. We anticipate
closure in Q1 F2020.
o Trading performance in Bestfood Logistics continues to
improve off the back of better service levels and a more
sustainable revenue platform. The rest of the re-awarded KFC
contract is being onboarded and will be complete by June.
• PCL
o The exit of the highly unprofitable transport contracts were
completed at the end of April. The residual fleet is in the
process of being disposed of, which should be complete by
June. The remaining warehousing activities are small and
management are working on an exit plan for these. All costs
of closure will be expensed by year-end.
The full presentation is being webcast and recorded and a playback recording
is available on the group’s website:
http://www.bidcorpgroup.com/presentations.php
The Capital Markets trading update has not been reviewed or reported on by
the company’s independent auditors.
______________________________________________________________
Johannesburg
May 21 2019
Sponsor
The Standard Bank of South Africa Limited
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