Company news in brief

Bidvest seeks more hygiene sector dealsBidvest is on the look-out for more acquisitions in the hygiene business to build on its purchase of British-based hygiene service provider PHS Group announced in December.Bidvest, whose businesses include freight, automotive and aviation services, is betting on growth drivers such as urbanisation, demand for better hygiene and safety standards as well as a growing and ageing population to boost hygiene market growth.Bidvest's purchase of PHS Group for around R9.1 billion marked a move to expand beyond its South African home market.Bidvest reported a 3.9% drop in normalised headline earnings per share (NHEPS) for the six-months to Dec. 31 to 610.9 cents compared with 635.7 cents in 2018 after new international accounting standards and a write-off of money owed by South African Airways.Excluding the effects of the IFRS 16 accounting change, normalised HEPS rose 0.1%, Bidvest said in a statement.Trading profit increased 19.8% to R4 billion, while revenue grew 9.2% as a result of the consolidation of drugmaker Adcock Ingram. – Nampa/ReutersLindt promises sweet dividend, growthSwiss chocolate maker Lindt & Spruengli yesterday proposed a sweeter payout to shareholders, increasing its dividend by 75% to mark its 175th anniversary.Chocolate makers are facing sluggish growth, particularly in saturated US and European markets, as consumers often opt for healthier snacks these days, but Lindt has fared better than peers thanks to its upmarket positioning."For the coming years, Lindt & Spruengli confirms its existing mid- to long-term organic sales growth target of 5-7% per year," the maker of Lindor chocolate balls and gold foil-wrapped Easter bunnies said in a statement yesterday.Net profit increased by 5.1% to 511.9 million Swiss francs (US$534.57 million) last year and profitability also improved, the company said, proposing to pay out a dividend of 1 750 francs per registered share for 2019.Lindt is also relying on the expansion of its retail network of Lindt-branded stores to drive growth. It now has around 500 shops and cafes worldwide and said it wanted to pursue its global expansion this year. – Nampa/ReutersVisa flags hit to Q2 revenueVisa Inc warned on Monday that its second-quarter revenue growth would be slower than its previous forecast, becoming the latest payments services provider to be affected by the coronavirus outbreak.The company said it expects current-quarter revenue growth to be between 2.5 and 3.5 percentage points lower than its previous forecast of low double digit growth, when compared with the first quarter.Rival Mastercard Inc and payments processor PayPal Holdings Inc have warned of slowing first-quarter revenue growth due to the outbreak.Visa said the epidemic has impacted travel to and from Asia, and has driven a sharp slowdown at its cross-border business, a key source of revenue for the world's largest payments network.The company said slowing cross-border growth rates do not yet fully reflect the virus spreading outside of Asia. "We anticipate that this deteriorating trend has not bottomed out yet." – Nampa/ReutersGoogle's self-driving sister gets investorsWaymo, the self-driving unit of Alphabet Inc, said on Monday it had raised US$2.25 billion in its first external investment round and expects to add more outside investors.The company also disclosed its self-driving trucking business will be called Waymo Via.Founded 11 years ago as a small project inside Google, Waymo is now widely considered the leader in developing self-driving technology. But Waymo and its principal rivals are still years away from building large-scale businesses around that technology, analysts believe.The outside investors will help Waymo be more disciplined, Alphabet chief financial officer Ruth Porat told the Morgan Stanley investor conference on Monday.Last September, investment bank Morgan Stanley slashed its projected valuation of Waymo to US$105 billion from its earlier estimate of US$175 billion, saying the commercialisation of self-driving vehicles and technology was taking longer than expected. – Nampa/ReutersXerox, HP takeover battle heats upUS printer maker Xerox Holdings Corp took its US$35 billion bid for HP Inc to the US personal computer maker's shareholders on Monday, with a formal tender offer and a rebuttal to HP's account of why they could not negotiate a deal.HP adopted a "poison pill" last month to neutralize Xerox's tender offer. Unless the companies can reach a compromise, it will be Xerox's bid to replace HP's board of directors at the latter's annual shareholder meeting in the next few weeks, rather than the tender offer, that will determine the outcome of the takeover battle.The printing industry is in decline as companies and consumers turn to digital documents to save money and help the environment. This has put pressure on companies in the sector to consolidate and reverse revenue decline through acquisitions that can boost market share.However, after almost a year of on and off talks, HP and Xerox have been unable to avoid a confrontation.HP accuses Xerox of refusing to provide it with enough information that would allow it to make an offer for Xerox. Xerox has said HP does not want to pursue a combination and that its bid for HP is the best way to combine the two companies and deliver a premium to HP shareholders. – Nampa/Reuters

Company news in brief

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Republikein 2026-02-04

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Company news in brief

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