Bidvest is seeking deals outside its South African home market and could borrow as much as $1bn for acquisitions after it spun off its food-services unit last year, its CEO Lindsay Ralphs said. Ralphs is plotting Bidvest’s next phase of growth after the company spun off Bid Corp, which is about 40% larger by market capitalisation at R80bn. Now operating a mix of mostly South African businesses ranging from cleaning, security and freight-services to car rental and plumbing supplies, Bidvest saw its scope for local acquisitions as limited, the CEO said. There were a "couple of processes taking place" related to potential acquisitions, with expansion in the UK a possibility, Ralphs said in an interview at Bloomberg’s Johannesburg office on Tuesday. Any deal would be in an industry in which Bidvest already operated and the company would want to be a major competitor in any new market, he said. "It probably reduces down to three, four or five significant industries that are simple and so...
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