At the helm of Africa’s largest retailer, Shoprite Holdings is Afrikaner Whitey Basson.
Comfortably now past retirement age, there have been murmurs for years that sooner or later, Basson must surely hang up his hat.
And once the man who dragged Shoprite to the top of the retail flagpole is out the way, analysts believed, it would be open season in the retail space, with the way open for Pick n Pay to mount a renewed challenge.
But Basson says he’s not going anywhere any time soon, despite more than three decades in the job.
When asked whether he’d still be at Shoprite in five years – he’ll be in his 70s then – Basson is unequivocal.
“Yes, but not in the same job. I’ll stay on as the CEO but I’ll pass more things over.”
It’s this relentless drive that, a few weeks ago, made Shoprite – a home-grown retailer – the second-largest retailer in the world after America’s Walmart, surpassing even the French-owned Carrefour.
Shoprite is now worth R96.9-billion, making it the 18th-biggest company on the JSE.
The stock is worth R167 a share. Which means that if you’d put R100 000 into Shoprite shares back in April 1994 when South Africa entered a democratic era and the share was at R1, that stock would now be worth R16.7-million.
This is a consequence of Basson’s theory that his team and inner circle are like that of boxers in a ring, competing for excellence. No excuses or mediocrity are tolerated.
But the question is, where will Shoprite go during the next decade? What will be the driver of its next R100-billion?
The answer lies in the rest of the continent.
Basson was the first retailer to see big possibilities in Africa. Though initially it was more a case of testing himself against bigger competitors and international players outside of South Africa, it was also to see if they really were a good team. “Africa was really the only place where we could take the money out to play.”
Challenges have not changed much in Africa, but they have become more moderate, he says. “The biggest challenge is still Africa trying to do business with Africa …” he says.
“Then you have these fantastic politicians like the one I just saw in Turkey. I asked how the hell did you manage to change things in 10 years because the last time I was there, I was travelling behind goats. He says for instance, Turkish airlines now flies to the most destinations, it’s the cheapest airline. Because his motto is: ‘we take the people to the rest of the world so they can do business, and we’ll bring the tourists here’. That’s 31.5million tourists a year in a 75million country.”
Another challenge is the inability to get products inexpensively into Africa. Basson says a basket of goods in Luanda costs 3.01 times more than in South Africa.
“A lettuce costs R75 in Luanda, it costs R140 for a pocket of potatoes. Why should the people of the breadbasket of Africa – Angola – pay three times more?
“Those are the practical things that people never expose themselves to. So you have these conferences where people spend their governments’ money, they have 150 bodyguards and I say come with me to the shop, let me show you what it’s like. And that’s Africa.
“It’s getting better but we’re never going to catch up with the world.”
Luckily for Shoprite, Basson does not see much competition from global retailers in Africa yet. He says Walmart has other challenges such as corporate governance accusations affecting the group.
Carrefour recently said it was moving into North Africa, but Basson says it is battling. Its new CEO has a lot on his plate.
Shoprite has fewer labour disputes than many peers. Some would say it’s about the iron management and steely executive team. Basson says money is not the only driver behind working for a company, and that the group has a policy of employing employees’ children , so long as they meet the criteria.
He says Shoprite does not have senior managers hired from elsewhere; its own people are built up over the years.
And with that he’s off to other challenges and meetings before he flies off to Johannesburg the next day.
Within the week a crisis emerges in Mozambique. Five Shoprite stores are closed there. The group said this action stemmed from the dismissal of an employee found selling expired margarine through the back door. The Mozambican government’s National Inspectorate of Economic Activities closed down the stores in Maputo, Boane and Chimoio for selling old food. – timeslive.co.za