Trade Intelligence Logo

Welcome to the fray Dis-Chem, which having listed last year is subject to the usual hurly burly of public trading – results presentations (“Has anyone seen slide 12?”), activist shareholders (“Tell him we’re not buying him a pony.”) and shady analysts (“But Grandma, what a big Breitling you have!”). All things considered, though, a pretty tidy little set of interims to take to the market: revenue up +13.1% to R8.5bn for the 22 weeks to end February, with retail turnover up +14.2% to R7.9bn. Like store sales grew +5.5% against internal inflation of 2.5%, with wholesale sales up +19%. All of this, according to Mr Saltzman, because of Dis-Chem’s "unrivalled pharmacy offering, dedicated front shop service and a differentiated stock range". Ahem, says the delightfully-named Casparus Treurnicht of Gryphon asset management. Also because of the rate at which they rolled out new stores over the period, to the tune of more than one a week, in pursuit of their target of 200 by 2023.

Comment: Still, an excellent showing, and one which will please those punters who managed to snaffle up a couple of bob’s worth under Dis-Chem’s restrictive IPO.

Back in 2015, you will recall (although it seems a lifetime ago) Massmart brought a complaint to the Competition Tribunal to the effect that exclusivity agreements between shopping malls and the big three grocery retailers – Shoprite, Pick n Pay and SPAR – were preventing it from opening its new Game Food offering in existing stores. The big three objected to the objection, and the Tribunal decided to uphold their objection but allowed Massmart to file an amended referral. This they did, and, the Tribunal moving at a glacial pace, have once again just had it thrown out of court, with costs, and without the option of referring the issue again. Over to you, Massmart spokesperson Annaleigh Vallie: “We remain of the view that exclusive lease agreements are intuitively anti-competitive, protectionist and prejudicial to South African consumers.”

Comment: Over in the US, of course, malls seem to be able to do without grocery retailers as anchor tenants. It’s just possible that the big retailers have more swing than is strictly warranted, and that a more laissez-faire approach may not in fact hurt property owners at all.

A nice big payday for Clicks workers participating in the employee share scheme via their Employee Share Ownership (Esop) Trust: the Trust has just flogged off half its holdings, which when they were issued back in 2011 were worth R44 apiece. They went for a significantly more impressive R166, for a total of 1.27billions of rands (South African). The scheme was launched to attract and retain scarce and critical skills, accelerate transformation, build employee commitment and enable employees to share in the growth and success of the business. Judging by the performance of the business, and looking at the makeup of the happy shareholders – 87% of the 6,814 participants are black, and 64% women – job done.

Comment: Excellent work there Clicks. A testament to a business which continues to do well by doing right, and a great model for other South African companies to follow in this new historical ambit.

Skullduggery on the high seas, where Capn’ Francois Kuttel has tipped himself the black spot, if you will, and is resigning his position as CEO of fishing conglomerate Oceana. He is soon to acquire a majority shareholding in Westbank Fishing, which is part-owned by Ocean and operates fishing vessels which contract to Louisiana-based Daybrook Fisheries, 100% of which Oceana bought back in 2015. Since that flurry of acquisitive activity, Westbank Fishing Partners have been looking for a suitable US entity to flog the remaining 75% of the business to, and it just so happens that Cap’n K has a crisp US passport and experience running a fleet of trawlers in the stormy water of Alaska. How does all of this sit with the Ocean board? Absolutely fine, apparently, although some commentators have noted that Kuttel himself had steered Oceana toward the Westbrook acquisition in the first place…

Comment: Still, due process has been followed, by all accounts.

Showing the way towards sustainability again, while flying in the face of standard corporate procedure this week was Unilever, which has decided to practice absolute transparency vis-à-vis its palm oil supply chain. Palm oil, as you know, is all well and good except for the small matters of biodiversity loss, deforestation and human rights abuses. In this unprecedented move, Le Grand Bleu have disclosed the location of more than 1,400 mills and over 300 direct suppliers of the viscous stuff which Unilever uses in snacks, soaps, cosmetics and the like. There are sustainable outfits; transparency and traceability are essential in identifying them and getting the others to play catch up. It has a complex supply chain, though, with the fruit passing through the hands of various buyers and agents before they even reach the mill.

Comment: Just excellent stuff from a business we have long admired. Supply chain transparency is another one of those genies that big data has liberated, let’s ensure it stays free.

Comment: This scratches the surface. Our President is positively exploding with energy and ideas. Let’s help him execute.

More on that Tesco discounter we spoke about last week. Apparently they have engaged the services of one Boston Consulting group to help them come up with new concepts, one of which involve stripping down their offering to 3,000 lines from the usual 25,000 and beefing up private label. Another is to launch a bulk retailer along the lines of our own dear Makro. In other news from the UK, the big four supers are under pressure to reveal – and presumably reduce – the amount of packaging they create. This, they say, is information too “commercially sensitive” to share. Sorry, mate: that argument does not wash anymore, see Unilever above.

A trading update from the business formally known as Rainbow: they’re expecting Headline Earnings to increase by somewhere between 29% and 43% on improved performance in their freshly-restructured chicken business, which is now focused on limiting the production of “consequential commodity products” (Anyone? Anyone?), and has also benefited from improved market conditions.

Activist shareholder Theo Botha has at last weighed in on the Steinhoff saga, which he reckons was due in part to a lack of board oversight. Boards of large companies get comfy in their leather seats, he says, and take their eye off King IV, which is only as good as the directors who apply it. Group think kicks in and everything goes south. He may have a point. In this new era, where corruption is exposed under the light of public scrutiny, it might well be time to look at certain time-honoured practices with fresh eyes. And you’ll certainly want to know all about the Trade Intelligence Retail Trends, which has an illuminating section on Ethical Business.