{"id":814874,"date":"2025-03-03T08:38:42","date_gmt":"2025-03-03T06:38:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=814874"},"modified":"2025-03-03T08:41:52","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T06:41:52","slug":"major-bank-in-south-africa-discontinued","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/814874\/major-bank-in-south-africa-discontinued\/","title":{"rendered":"Major bank in South Africa ‘discontinued’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Bidvest Group has placed Bidvest Bank as a discontinued operation in its latest financial results ahead of the bank’s sale to Nigerian giant Access Bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In its results for the six months ended 31 December 2024, the group said that its Financial Services segment was dismantled, and a formal process was started to dispose of Bidvest Bank and FinGlobal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the group’s first results with the operations excised from the finances, showing the beneficial impact of the discontinuation and sale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bidvest Bank is a full-service bank offering customers foreign exchange, fleet, business and personal financial solutions, while FinGlobal mainly focuses on emigration services. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The remaining Financial Services short-term insurance businesses were transferred to the group’s Automotive segment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In December 2024, Nigeria’s largest lender by assets, Access Bank, agreed to acquire 100% of the share capital of Bidvest Bank for R2.8 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Access Bank is a full-service commercial bank with 60 million customers globally and a network of over 700 branches in 23 countries across three continents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The acquisition is expected to close in the second half of 2025, subject to regulatory approvals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the acquisition is concluded Bidvest Bank will be merged with the Access Bank\u2019s existing South African subsidiary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Momentum Strategic Investments also agreed to acquire 100% of the share capital of FinGlobal in December 2024. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bidvest Group has also received binding offers from existing life insurers for 100% of Bidvest Life’s share capital and claims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“As announced in December 2024, we are pleased with the respective signed offers that make both financial and strategic sense whilst also providing continued employment for employees,” said the group. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bidvest said that the relevant requirements of IFRS 5 mean that Bidvest Bank, FinGlobal and Bidvest Life were all classified as discontinued operations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to financial accounting, discontinued operations are reported separately from continuing operations on the income statement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bidvest said that the comparative consolidated income statements, consolidated statement of cash flows and financial reporting were restated to show the discontinued operation separately from continuing operations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, the disposal group is measured and presented at the lower carrying amount and fair value, with a lower cost to sell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Financials<\/h2>\n\n\n
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Bidvest said its results for the period were decent despite the expected headwinds in bulk commodity movements and renewable energy products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group was also affected by Adcock Ingram’s unexpectedly poor performance, which the group owns a majority share in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The majority of the Bidvest business generated substantial and consistent profits, with four of the group’s six divisions reporting trading profit growth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The majority of Bidvest businesses generated substantial and consistent profits, with four of the six divisions reporting trading profit growth,” said the group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This performance was driven by continued demand for everyday essential products and services supplied by the Group across most sectors of the economy.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“New business growth, additional tank capacity and bolt-on acquisitions helped to mitigate the impact of price-sensitive customers and weaker than anticipated discretionary consumer spend.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Group revenue increased by 5.7% to R64.5 billion, while a slightly lower overall gross profit margin of 27.6% was achieved, mainly due to a large divisional mix shift. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four of the six divisions reported good trading profit growth, with the group’s Freight and Commercial Products and Adcock taking a hit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Freight Business was hit by no maize export volumes handled and the cycling of the elevated renewable energy sales base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adcock Ingram was hurt by low consumer spending, reduced inventory holdings and factory under-recoveries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group’s basic earnings per share (EPS) increased by 5.8% from 960.8 cents to 1,016.1 cents on the back of a 1.3% contraction in continuing operations EPS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was also boosted by a huge increase in profit after tax from discontinued operations as depreciation and amortisation were suspended in terms of IFRS and healthy trading profit from all three entities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Group HEPS increased by 2.8% to 1,015.5 cents, with a net impairment recognised on the disposal group held-for-sale in the prior period moderating growth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group also slightly increased its return to shareholders, increasing its interim dividend by 1% to 470 cents per share.<\/p>\n\n\n

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(Souce: Bidvest)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Bidvest Group has reported an increase in basic earnings, which were boosted by its discontinued operations, including Bidvest Bank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":812779,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[961],"tags":[21353,13311,4473,7190,21882],"class_list":["post-814874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","tag-access-bank","tag-adcock-ingram","tag-bidvest","tag-bidvest-bank","tag-finglobal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=814874"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":814894,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814874\/revisions\/814894"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=814874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=814874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}