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| Review of operations – Bidserv continued |
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| Corporate social investment |
Our social investment spend focuses on support for communities from which we draw our staff with the accent on education. Efforts are decentralised, but synergies occur. Several Bidserv units have sponsored the lap-desk concept as a way of assisting under-resourced schools.
This belly-hugging board rests on a pupil’s knees and provides support for books. Each lap-desk is branded in the colours of the Bidserv sponsor, though most of the desk space is taken up with educational aids, including shapes, colours, multiplication tables, maps or the layout of an alpha-numeric keypad.
In one major initiative led by TMS Group Industrial Services we spent approximately R1 million building additional classrooms at under-resourced schools.
CSI rose 65,0% to R9,1 million. |
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| Innovation |
Bidserv has become a proactive solution-provider across all areas of activity.
In office automation, the introduction of the Bizhub by Konica Minolta South Africa has redefined the market for business solutions by combining into one unit the laser printer, colour copier and e-mail platform.
The purchase of TSI by TMS Group Industrial Services has enabled us to integrate lagging, scaffolding and other specialised cleaning items into the biggest product line-up ever to be made available in this market at a time when many large industrial groups are consolidating their purchasing.
Bidtravel Services has entrenched its leadership in the corporate travel business by rolling out its “travel engine” across all operations, creating a virtual travel agent that can be called up at a keystroke. The system has bedded in and enjoys growing market acceptance.
TopTurf’s golf course design and construction unit is setting the pace in a highly specialised field. It has completed an Ernie Els-designed course in Mauritius and is busy on an Annika Sörenstam signature course at Naboomspruit. |
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| New investment |
| Capital expenditure of R290,4 million included R138,8 million on expanded facilities with substantial allocations for plant and equipment and additions to the vehicle fleet. R151,6 million was spent on infrastructure replacement and upgrades. |
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| The future |
The Airports Company South Africa has awarded a ground handling licence to Aviation Services. The licence does not become operative until March 2008. However, we are well positioned to optimise this strategic opportunity. For some time, we have invested in support of baggage handling, ramp handling and passenger and cargo handling facilities while our teams have developed the necessary skills and experience in all these areas. We view airport handling services as an area of promising growth and hope to create new jobs in these activities once the licences come into operation.
Bidserv is confident of continued growth in revenue, profit and jobs. We project 10% real growth off a high base. The national economy continues to achieve strong growth and high levels of fixed investment are anticipated.
These factors underpin the strong demand for our services. Our strategy of taking a bigger basket of value-adding services to our corporate customer-base has proved highly successful and further gains are anticipated.
Master Currency joins Bidserv with full effect from July 1 2007 and will reinforce our offering in an area of strong growth – foreign exchange and travel-related finance.
Bidserv’s training spend and investment in facilities will increase as value-add becomes increasingly important. In addition, we will review the quality of our business mix and may sell some low-margin contracts.
We also project job growth in the 7,0% – 8,0% range. |
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| Prestige Group |
| The market for cleaning services remained buoyant and gains in market share were recorded. Further opportunities for growth are being examined in specialist areas such as food hygiene. Prestige Group’s ISO 9001 accreditation emphasises its qualitative edge and will be an important plus-point when establishing new niche operations. |
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| TMS Group Industrial Services |
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Investment in infrastructure and consolidation continue to pay off. The TMS Group more than doubled its revenue. Major industrial companies and petro-chemical operations look for strong partners capable of meeting their quality requirements. TMS fits the bill and has successfully positioned itself as the sector leader. |
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| Laundry Services |
| Laundry Services has gone through a year of consolidation while achieving pleasing levels of profitability. A major contract was lost when a healthcare group created an in-house laundry facility. We continue to invest in more productive equipment and anticipate further growth as room occupancy levels are moving higher in the hospitality sector and pressure on hospital beds remains high. |
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| Steiner Group |
| Pleasing levels of growth were achieved and are expected to continue. Rochester Midlands Industries was moved into the group as our customer-base provides a growth opportunity for a company with complementary services. The inclusion of Execuflora within the Steiner Group has proved highly successful. The group has widened its footprint by opening operations in Mozambique and Botswana. |
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