This is a strange sector, cobbled together in the corridors of the JSE with few of the constituent companies having much connection with each other. It is dominated by Bidvest, arguably SA's largest company, which is itself a mixture of various operations. The others are Mvelaphanda Group, Adcorp, Kelly Group and Mix Telematics.

What does one say about Bidvest and its founder Brian Joffe, that hasn't been said before? After he left W&A in the late 1980s, Joffe obviously had a burning ambition that his newly formed company - Bidvest - would be bigger and better than W&A.

Today, Joffe is regarded as one of SA's corporate greats, alongside Donald Gordon, Punch Barlow and Harry Oppenheimer. He's adopted the mantle of philanthropist and even philosopher.

But what of Bidvest? If anything, it has probably grown too big. It's hard to spot a chink in its armour as all of its constituent companies are of the highest quality. But the question on most investors' lips is: "Where to now?"

Much of its growth in the 1990s and into the early part of this decade was acquisitive. But with new acquisition potential looking decidedly slim, it has had to increasingly rely on organic growth.

Like Barloworld and Imperial Group, Bidvest has a large exposure to the motor industry. This is probably why Bidvest has been such a pedestrian performer in the past couple of years. As demand for motor cars has fallen off a cliff, motor dealers and their holding firms have taken a hiding.

Will Bidvest eventually go the same way as Barloworld and Imperial Group? Barlows today is a shadow of its former self, with a market capitalisation of less than R10bn. It has divested itself of huge chunks of assets and is now a (relatively) focused company. Imperial appears to be going the same way. It's unlikely that Bidvest will follow suit while Joffe is still at the helm.

Mvela Group, though tiny in comparison with Bidvest, is also a relatively unfocused conglomerate. Formed almost five years ago by merging some of Mvela Holdings' interests with those of Rebserve, the company is today's largest broad-based, black-controlled, owned and managed diversified group. It is difficult to see the threads that join Mvela's holdings in Absa, Group Five, Swissport, Life, Vox Telecom, Avusa and Steinhoff.

Like Bidvest, Mvela's share price has been in secular decline relative to the Alsi.

At least one can see a thread in Kelly Group and Adcorp. Both are involved in recruitment. The business model of both companies is good, especially considering SA's chronic unemployment rate and acute skills shortage.

Adcorp has been around for more than 20 years and its very long-term share price action has been impressive, even though it has been hammered in the recent global equity crisis. Results for the year ended February 2009 were impressive, with EPS rising by 19%. It will be interesting to see how the group survives the recession.

Kelly Group has been listed only since 2007 and its share price at the time of writing was sitting at about 40% of its listing price. This belies its relatively strong operating performance, though its interim results to March 2009 showed signs of strain. Longer-term, Kelly's prospects seem good.