Our business

About Barloworld Creating sustainable value Our business strategy How we create value Key features of our performance against strategy in 2021 Our business model The role of the Barloworld Business System in creating value Our external operating environment Risks and opportunities Our stakeholder relationships

Progress against strategy

progress against strategy

Barloworld is an industrial processing, distribution and services company with two primary areas of focus: Industrial Equipment and Services and Consumer Industries (food and ingredient solutions).

Our strategy is based on a clear and ambitious outcome, which is to double the group’s intrinsic value every four years. This means that we need to be forward-looking in how we approach our business. The group is actively pivoting its portfolio towards defensive, relatively asset light and cash generative industrial sectors, based on a business-to-business operating model.

As we strengthen our position in our chosen verticals, our strategic focus will remain using our strategic levers:

Fix and optimise

In line with our focus on optimally deploying capital within the group, we exited our Motor Retail business during the period under review and are in the process of selling our Logistics businesses. We have also indicated we will exit our Car Rental and Leasing business in the medium term. Our focus will remain on reviewing and improving businesses with low operating performance and on implementing the identified disposal actions intended to simplify the group’s portfolio.

Active shareholder operating model

The role of our Corporate Centre remains one of an active shareholder operating model. This is a key component of our ‘managing for value’ model and centres on:

setting strategy and driving transactions through a centralised mergers and acquisitions (M&A) function
a centralised management team and the deployment of leadership and talent to the best suited opportunities within the group
monitoring, measuring and rewarding performance that contributes to the achievement of the group’s strategic priorities
allocating organisational resources to support performance and deliver on strategy
responsible corporate citizenship and ethical and effective leadership that ensure socio-economic and environmental outcomes that meet stakeholder expectations.

Acquisitive growth and portfolio changes

We successfully executed two significant acquisitions in 2020, Equipment Mongolia and Ingrain. The integration of these acquisitions into the group is progressing well and both businesses are delivering ahead of our initial expectations. Our short-term priorities are to complete these integrations and extract further value.

Future acquisitive growth, in line with our identified strategic growth segments, will be considered once we have completed the remaining portfolio changes.