About this Integrated Report
This report has been developed to enable Bidvest stakeholders to make an informed assessment about our ability to create value over time for all stakeholders.
To facilitate such an assessment: We introduce the Group, outlining who we are, where we operate, what we do, and how we create and sustain value; Provide a high-level strategic and governance overview incorporating the Chairman’s statement and review our leadership team and governance practices; Provide an operational summary of our performance and strategy incorporating the Group chief executive’s statement; Identify the material matters that impact on value creation in terms of our operating environment, and the principal risks and opportunities facing the Group; Reflect on our interaction with the six capitals that enable our business and our key stakeholder relationships and review our performance across our operations. This report covers the period from 1 July 2021 to 30 June 2022.
Key stakeholders
This report is directed at our stakeholders who remain critical to the ongoing success of Bidvest. We believe that it is only with robust partnerships formed and developed over years that we can continue delivering growth and acceptable returns for our society at large. This report outlines those key stakeholders that play a part in our strategic planning process and that have an impact on our decision making, and we outline the progress we have made in responding to their concerns. Our key stakeholders include:
Equity and debt investors – Current and potential shareholders, and the broader investment community, together with lending and financing institutions.
Employees and trade unions – As one of the largest private employers in South Africa (SA) and with businesses in Ireland, the United Kingdom (UK) and Australia, Bidvest has a broad base of employees ranging from security and cleaning teams, manufacturing and logistics people, financial and administrative professionals, as well as IT, sales and customer support specialists and experienced leadership and management teams that oversee the day-to-day implementation of business activities.
Communities, including community-based organisations, non-profit and non-governmental organisations – As a microcosm of SA business, Bidvest’s activities extend throughout the country, Ireland and the UK. Our society is therefore broad in characteristic, diverse and extends across a large geographic footprint.
Government, governing and regulatory bodies – Operating across many different sectors and across seven operating divisions, results in interaction with numerous authorities and regulators. These entities, and other public sector partners, provide the laws, regulations and guidelines that the Group implements to ensure strict compliance in terms of its operating practices.
Partners and potential partners – Within certain Group businesses, Bidvest forms partnerships where the source of product and service is best held externally, but which are necessary to ensure delivery of a value added offering. Bidvest values these relationships and actively promotes this working concept in the search for new partners that will ultimately add substance to Bidvest’s overall offering.
Customers – The Group services thousands of customers through its over 250 companies across its operating footprint, and with a focused business-tobusiness (B2B) philosophy. The Group always attempts to ensure compliance to a customer-centric ethos, which is best achieved through the segmentation of the portfolio into logical, decentralised, offerings that enable a much closer focus on the needs and demands of the respective customers.
Suppliers – Companies that provide goods and services to the Group, which include outsourced services.
Reporting frameworks
Our reporting process has been guided by the principles and requirements contained in the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), the IIRC’s International Framework, the GRI’s Sustainability Reporting Standards, the King Code on Corporate Governance 2016TM (King IV), the JSE Listings Requirements (Listing Requirements), the South African Companies Act, No. 71 of 2008 (Companies Act), the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TCFD), the United Nation’s 17 Sustainability Development Goals (SDG) as well as the World Economic Forum’s stakeholder capitalism principles.
The consolidated Annual Financial Statements (AFS), as well as a suite of additional reports, are available online (at www.bidvest.co.za) or can be requested from our company secretary.
Assurance
This report provides information on all those matters that we believe could substantively affect value creation at Bidvest. Integrated thinking is intrinsic to how we manage our business and to our internal strategy development and reporting practices. Our strategy has been developed to ensure that we manage the resources and relationships needed to create value over time. We use a combined assurance model to provide us with comfort obtained from management in conjunction with internal and external assurance providers. PricewaterhouseCoopers Inc. (PWC) audited our FY2022 consolidated AFS and provided an unqualified opinion thereon.
Our Audit and Risk committees provide internal assurance to the board annually on the execution of the combined assurance plan. The Group’s financial, operating, compliance and risk management controls are assessed by the Group’s Internal Audit (IA) function, which is overseen by the Audit and Risk committees.
Approval
The board has applied its collective mind to the preparation and presentation of the information in this report, which has been guided by the IIRC’s International Framework. The board believes that this report addresses all material issues and presents a balanced and fair account of the Group’s performance for the reporting period, as well as an accurate reflection of our commitments. On the recommendation of the Audit and Risk committees, the board approved the Bidvest AFS on 2 September 2022 and the Bidvest Integrated Report on 18 October 2022.
Signed on the board’s behalf:
Chairman
Chief executive
18 October 2022
Disclaimer
Certain statements in this document constitute “forward looking
statements”. Forward-looking statements may be identified
by words such as “believe”, “anticipate”, “expect”, “plan”,
“estimate”, “intend”, “project”, “target”, “predict” and “hope”.
By their nature, forward-looking statements are inherently
predictive, speculative and involve risk and uncertainty
because they relate to events and depend on circumstances
that will occur in the future, involve known and unknown
risks, uncertainties and other facts or factors which may
cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the
Group, or the various sectors in which the Group operates,
to be materially different from any results, performance or
achievement expressed or implied by such forward-looking
statements. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of
future performance and are based on assumptions regarding
the Group’s present and future business strategies and the
environments in which it operates now and in the future. No
assurance can be given that forward-looking statements will
prove to be correct and undue reliance should not be placed
on such statements. Any forward-looking information contained
in this notice has not been reviewed or reported on by the
Company’s external auditors. Forward-looking statements apply
only as of the date on which they are made, and Bidvest does
not undertake other than in terms of the Listings Requirements
of the JSE Limited, to update or revise any statement, whether
as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
