Johannesburg - Industrial conglomerate The Bidvest Group
[JSE:BVT] reported a 37.4% jump in first-half profit on Monday, lifted by the
sale of its stake in Mumbai International Airport.
Bidvest, whose business includes food distribution, auto
retailing and shipping, said diluted headline earnings per share totalled 739.3
cents in the six months to end-December compared with 538c a year earlier.
Headline earnings per share were boosted by R400m proceeds
from the sale of the company’s stake in Mumbai airport, without which earnings
would have increased by just 13.6%.
Bidvest, which makes more than a quarter of its sales
overseas, said sales rose 15.1% to R67.3bn helped partly by favourable currency
swings.
Shares in the company are up more than 11% so far this year,
outpacing 7% gain in the JSE Top 40 - (Tradeable) [JSE:J200] index.