(Bloomberg) -- Bid Corp., the South African food service company, is considering a sale of its Angliss business in Asia, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Johannesburg-based group is working with an adviser to gauge interest in the unit, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information isn’t public. Food wholesaler and distributor Angliss Asia could fetch a few hundred million dollars or more in a deal, they said. 

Angliss’s business in Greater China saw no improvement in 2022 due to restrictive Covid policies, though it remained profitable, according to a trading update from Bidcorp in November. The business has begun to pick up post-Covid, one of the people said.

Deliberations are ongoing and Bidcorp could decide not to sell the asset, the people said. A representative for Bidcorp declined to comment.

Bidcorp predicted headline earnings per share in the second half of 2022 were as much as 49% higher than in the same period the year before, it announced Wednesday. Shares rose 9.4% as of 11:22 a.m. in Johannesburg, their largest increase since November 2020.

South African conglomerate Bidvest Group Ltd. listed Bidcorp on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in 2016. It has customers in 35 countries, according to its annual report. The company acquired Angliss, then operating in Singapore and Hong Kong, in 2007. Angliss Asia also has a presence in China, Malaysia and Vietnam. 

(Updates with earnings per share and stock increase in fifth paragraph.)

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