WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2007-12-02 Time: 00:00:00 Posted By: Jan
[Has anyone done a study of the rich and super-rich whites from SA who moved most of their money out of the country in the last 20 years? What are they up to and how well are they doing out there? Here’s a name I’ve not heard of in a very long time – Brian Joffe. Jan]
BIDVEST CEO Brian Joffe was paid R16m last year and has shares worth R426m plus options “in the money” to the tune of R22,1m.
Yet it is doubtful that shareholders in the R40,3bn enterprise that he created from scratch would begrudge him a cent or one share. The company straddling 19 countries has grown earnings at 25% pa compound over the past 19 years.
Bidvest is unashamedly a conglomerate comprising 270 companies large and small organised into nine divisions.
CEO Brian Joffe writes in the annual report: “Our 2005 strategic objective of doubling the size of Bidvest in five years remains on track.”
Bidvest companies do everything from changing the paper in the office loo to cleaning the windows, loading ships, to feeding thousands of school children… to flogging erasors, pens, electrical plugs, Alfas and Fiats.
The Bidvest name is as well known to the business community as its R95,7bn revenues would suggest.
It is not as well known among the common people, so the company is spending what looks like an inordinate amount of money promoting its name and corporate image. The fanciful hope seems to be that by putting a Bidvest logo on every truck and every office and flighting TV ad’s with modern dancers, people might buy more of its products.
The name of the game has been to buy underperforming, unfashionable assets, to turn them around and eventually to get them pumping profits and cash.
Its one failure is that, unlike the world’s best conglomerates, Bidvest has not been successful in being the number one player in many of its markets.
Still the team has been amazingly successful. It helps that we have had five years of exceptional growth in SA and in Bidvest’s other theatres. Inspired acquisitions, such as that of McCarthy, have also provided acceleration.
The company has reached a stage in its development where only the biggest acquisitions can enhance the growth profile. Fortunately, because of vibrant economic growth most growth last year was organic.
The Bidvest annual report is a hard covered book running to 211 pages and it does a brave job organising its extensive and farflung activities into something comprehensible for a shareholder.
The task for management looks bewildering but Bidvest is decentralised and its divisional structure appears to ensure that the empire is under control.
Gearing is around 35% and that is deliberately conservative, says new CFO David Cleasby to permit acquisitions in the future.
As the McCarthy deal showed, Bidvest makes money by buying cheap. Cleasby complains that the predatory activities of private equity investors have reduced the number of undervalued investment prospects. But he is not discouraged. The sub-prime meltdown and anxiety in the ranks of private equity players might work in Bidvest’s favour.
The share trades on a PE of 12,5, which is a good deal lower than the average for the market. GE, the greatest conglomerate in the world, has a PE of 19,2, so Bidvest has plenty of room to grow. At R122, the Bidvest share is 5,7 times net asset value of R21,35, which tends to confound the notion that conglomerates trade at a discount to asset value.
Source: http://www.moneyweb.co.za/mw/view/mw/en/page90?oid=173792&sn=Detail