Logistics and transport group OneLogix, which posted a drop in profit for the first time in 11 years, expects a recovery in the next year, as business activities across its subsidiaries are expected to improve after the lifting of the lockdown.
OneLogix’s operations include transporting cars for manufacturers and heavy duty trucks as well as liquids and gases, and also provides warehousing facilities for importers and exporters of bulk materials.
Profit fell in the year to May as the Covid-19 pandemic dealt a further blow to SA’s “protracted listless” economic environment. In the latter two months, the “ramifications of the worldwide Covid-19 societal lockdown” disrupted operations. Full-year profit fell 48% from R89.85m to R46.8m.
But CEO Ian Lourens said OneLogix was in a healthy position in that it did not need to raise finance to rescue any of its 12 businesses from closure, while other companies across SA closed their doors and threatened retrenchments in 2021.
“All of our businesses are profitable and we are gaining momentum again. We had to take a major hit in this period because we essentially move things around as the economy grows. Nobody was making things to move around. As the world opens up, our businesses get going,” said Lourens.
The pandemic especially disrupted operations during the last two months of the group’s financial year and this cost it R30m in profit before tax, excluding property writedowns of about R5m. The revenue lost was about R170m. Total revenue was down 4% to R2.62bn.
He said the group’s decentralised management structure enabled a “swift and effective response to the pandemic lockdown”. Some of its interventions include staff reduction, freezing of non-essential capital and operating expenditure, as well as salaries.
OneLogix has a footprint throughout SA and neighbouring countries, with logistics capability extending to countries including Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi and Tanzania.
Lourens said inquiries from customers, especially in African countries other than SA, had risen sharply.
The group has opted not to pay a dividend, but said it would consider acquisitions.
Lourens said the group should be in a position to pay a dividend again as long as SA’s economy is not thrown into a severe economic lockdown again as it was earlier in 2020, in an effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
OneLogix’s share was unchanged at R2, having fallen about 36% so far in 2020. This gave the group a market capitalisation of R531m.
andersona@businesslive.co.za
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