Major South African bank back on sale

Bidvest has revealed that it has formally relaunched the process to sell Bidvest Bank after the company’s deal with Nigerian lender, Access Bank, collapsed. 

This deal was terminated due to Access Bank failing to secure the required approvals prior to the long stop date. 

“The sale process has been relaunched, and we remain confident in our ability to successfully execute this disposal and will accelerate transaction timeframes,” Bidvest said in its interim results for the six months ended 31 December 2025. 

The sale of Bidvest Bank is part of a larger strategy from Bidvest to dispose of its financial services segment. This includes the disposal of FinGlobal, Bidvest Life, and Bidvest Bank. 

In April 2025, Bidvest sold 100% of the share capital of FinGlobal to Momentum for R201 million. 

The sale of Bidvest Life is on track to be concluded, with the company having received a binding offer of R130 million for the business.

These transactions are set to allow Bidvest’s management team to focus on its core operations and pursue bolt-on acquisitions. 

This has proven to be fruitful for the company, with its growing revenue by 4% to R66.7 billion and increasing its trading profit by 7% to R6.7 billion. 

Crucially, the freeing up of management time has resulted in Bidvest’s trading profit margin moving above 10% and a surge in cash generation by 36% to R6.1 billion.

Bidvest said all divisions contributed positively to profit growth, but singled out its hygiene business for particular attention in its message to shareholders. 

The company is a huge diversified South African-based services, trading, and distribution group that opeartes across more than 250 individual businesses. 

Bidvest is primarily primarily focuses on business-to-business solutions, effectively providing the services and products that keep other companies running. 

This includes operations such as facilities management, hygiene and cleaning, security, and travel. 

The company is aiming to build the largest hygiene business in the world, and this strategy is gaining traction. Currently, the hygiene business makes up 55% of its international trading profit. 

Continuing operations headline earnings per share and normalised earnings per share, the preferred metrics of Bidvest’s management team, grew by 5.1% and 5.3%, respectively. 

This enabled the company to declare an interim dividend of 495 cents per share, which is 5.3% higher than the previous year’s interim dividend. 

Bidvest is bullish about the future prospects of the company, saying it remains well-positioned to benefit from improving macroeconomic conditions in South Africa and growth elsewhere in the world. 

“Our macroeconomic view is that, in South Africa, there is reason for optimism. Interest rates are at their lowest in more than two decades, inflation is declining and will remain modest given the newly adopted inflation target of 3%,” Bidvest said. 

“2026 economic growth forecasts have been revised upwards, our sovereign credit was upgraded, and high commodity prices are a welcome tailwind.”

“Structurally, there is also no doubt that progress continues to be made in electricity and rail reforms, while the removal of South Africa from the FATF grey list opens the door for investment flows.”

However, the company said that ultimately these factors are out of its control, with it preferring to focus on operational agility, innovation, and free cash flow generation.