* Diluted headline EPS at 739.3 pct vs 538 cents
* Sales up 15.1 pct to 67.3 bln rand
* Results boosted sale of Mumbai airport stake
JOHANNESBURG, Feb 27 (Reuters) – South African
industrial conglomerate Bidvest Group Ltd reported a
37.4 percent jump in first-half profit on Monday, lifted by the
sale of its stake in Mumbai International Airport.
Bidvest, whose business include food distribution, auto
retailing and shipping, said diluted headline earnings per share
totalled 739.3 cents in the six months to end-December compared
with 538 cents a year earlier.
Headline EPS, the main profit measure in South Africa, was
boosted by 400 million rand ($52.7 million) procceds from the
sale of the company’s stake in Mumbai airport, without which
earnings would have increased by just 13.6 percent.
Bidvest, which makes more than a quarter of its sales
overseas, said sales rose 15.1 percent to 67.3 billion rand
($8.86 billion) helped partly by favourable currency swings.
Shares in the company are up more than 11 percent so far
this year, outpacing 7 percent gain in the JSE Top-40 index
.
($1 = 7.5926 South African rand)
(Reporting by Tiisetso Motsoeneng; editing by David Dolan)
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