Barloworld, the sinking ship
Barloworld in my opinion has long been a ghost of its former self. A company without any strategic direction, and management turning a once profitable business into nothing.
The logistics business was a fantastic example of this. A business that was core to the group, to be reclassified as non-core and then back to core status. A profitable division, that started making unbelievable losses. While management did attribute the losses to COVID and lockdowns within South Africa, I believe that this was not the case.
Lockdown started a couple of days (three to be exact) before the end of their financial year. And there is no way, that three days of trading could have taken a profitable business to make a loss of more than R90 million. The business was destroyed, and the outcome inevitable.
Now, Barloworld is busy selling off its motor retail division. Did they not just build a massive new head office in Pretoria like two years ago?
Selling off assets that are deemed to be non-core is nothing new, and sometimes even necessary for the business to focus on what it is good at. Unfortunately, there is currently no real business strategy in place. No direction. And therefore, not a place that I would invest in.
