South Africa's Bidvest FY profit up 11 percent, lags consensus

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's second biggest company by revenue Bidvest Group reported an 11 percent rise in annual profit on profit on Monday, helped partly by favourable currency swings.

Bidvest, a conglomerate spanning auto show rooms, shipping and catering, said headline earnings per share totaled 1,723 cents in year to end-June, below a 1,751 cent estimate in a Reuters poll of nine analysts.

Headline EPS, the most widely watched profit measure in South Africa, strips out certain one-off items.

(Reporting by Tiisetso Motsoeneng; Editing by Ed Stoddard)