Bid Corporation Ltd., a South African company, added that it was keeping its Greater China business after Beijing loosened some of the strictest COVID rules in the entire globe. Bernard Berson, the chief executive officer of the food services company, revealed in an interview that Bidcorp had examined unsolicited offers for its Chinese business when the country was under lockdown.
"I think people assumed that our business was dead and that we're loss making and that we'd want to get rid of it," he said. In January, China opened its borders, removing the last remaining piece of the zero-COVID-19 policy that had isolated its 1.4 billion citizens from the rest of the globe.
"Had China stayed locked up and had they stuck to a 5 year COVID zero policy, locked off from the rest of the world, that might have changed the dynamics but that wasn't the situation we had to deal with," Berson said. "So we're very happy with our Greater China business."
An increase in half-year headline earnings per share of 45.5% was previously announced by Bidcorp due to increased demand in the hospitality, tourist, and leisure industries. It claimed that group trading profit increased by 43.9% to 4.9 billion rand and that net sales jumped by 28.1% to 91.8 billion rand ($5 billion).
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, Bidcorp stated its Greater China business had a difficult first half. But, with activity levels picking up, it anticipates a better second-half trading performance.