Divisional reviewsBusiness servicesServices South Africa

There has been excellent organic growth across all businesses, specifically with the early stages of a rebound in travel, and an increase in office, school and university occupancies.

The Security and Aviation Services cluster performed exceptionally well despite the sharp increase in fuel costs. Bidvest Protea Coin delivered healthy trading profit growth as sales recovered well in the last quarter with numerous new contracts secured and a strong pipeline for the forthcoming year. BidTrack’s delivered its 12th consecutive year of double-digit growth while BidAir Cargo was impacted by the loss of pandemic and perishable cargo, and a general reduction in volumes due to macro-economic impacts. UDS had a strong year securing exciting multi-disciplinary contracts.

Allied Services continues to capitalise on the gradual return in demand from the corporate environment and maximized opportunities within small- to medium-sized enterprises. There has also been increased penetration in the residential market and all the cluster’s businesses have adapted well to market changes. Aquazania, Execuflora, the HAS Group and TopTurf all delivered very good growth in profitability, while the Laundry Group’s revenue and trading profit was satisfactory.

The Travel cluster and airport lounges delivered strong results as both domestic and global travel returned, albeit still below pre-pandemic levels. This turnaround in the travel-related businesses was pleasing and exceeded expectations, with strong momentum shown towards the end of the financial year. Rennies BCD Travel, CWT, Travel Connections, BushBreaks & More and Cruises International all experienced pleasing results. Catering and lounges delivered a superb performance.

Looking forward

While travel, hospitality and related businesses are seeing good signs of growth, flight capacity and visa availability remain concerning bottlenecks for the full recovery of the industry.

There is still some uncertainty around the impact of hybrid working policies in the corporate sector, however there is a noticeable increase in requests for proposals and tenders from different industries.

Contract and margin retention remains a priority and the overall divisional sales pipeline is healthy.

A further improvement is expected in the tourism related businesses, our Allied and Catering cluster with the increase in office and educational occupancy environments, as well as our security business growth in protecting national assets, which will contribute to future divisional profitability.