Despite the difficult prevailing economic environment, supply chain manager Super Group on Tuesday said it had achieved excellent growth in earnings for the six months ended December 2012, mainly as a result of new business generation across its three divisions.

The group’s headline earnings per share (Heps) for the six months increased by 19.4% to 95.3c, compared with Heps of 79.8c the year before.

Further, Super Group’s revenue for the six months was up 16% to R5.4-billion, with growth chiefly attributable to a significant increase in volumes for its Supply Chain South Africa, SG Fleet and Dealerships businesses.

Operating profit also trended upward, increasing by 28% to R517-million, while the group continued to improve its operating margin to 9.5% from 8.7% in the comparable period the year before.   

Super Group closed the period with a net cash position of R481-million, up 12.1% on the R429-million cash held at June 30, 2012.

Meanwhile, the group stated that a number of industries throughout South Africa, experienced unprecedented strike action and labour unrest during the period under review.

Disruptions to Super Group's Supply Chain business as a result of the road transport sector strike in September resulted in a 5% reduction in divisional revenue and profit for the period.

“This was the only division not to have improved its margins,” the group noted.

Further, the company pointed out that key indicators showed that South African consumer spending remained under pressure and, together with above inflationary cost increases, added to the highly competitive trading environment.

The group’s Dealerships division performed well, increasing comparative new vehicle sales by 11.3% on the prior reporting period on the back of an 8.3% increase in new car sales, as reported by the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa.

In addition, the group acquired the controlling shareholding in Digistics, a procurement and food distribution business.

Such acquisitions, coupled with an increase in working capital, increased total assets by 16.8% to R9.34-million, compared with R7.99-million as at June 30, 2012.

During the period under review, the company also repurchased 3.57-million shares, totalling 1.13% of the issued share capital.

Looking ahead, the group said that, despite a highly competitive trading environment, it was confident it would continue to progress its growth strategy both organically and acquisitively.

The Supply Chain South Africa division would continue to focus on niche opportunities within the food service, retail and pharmaceutical sectors, Super Group stated.

Further, the African Logistics business was assessing a number of opportunities in the territories in which it operated and was implementing strategies to improve operating efficiencies in the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

FleetAfrica had a healthy new business pipeline and was expected to continue winning new contracts. 

The SG Fleet business was expected to perform well in 2013, owing to a good order book, the roll-out of a number of major new contracts and strong new business prospects across all three territories in which it operated.