GLOOMY OUTLOOK
Little hope in sight for SA’s retail sector
The food and drug retailers index rallied just under 9% last week following the release of better-than-expected results from grocery giant Shoprite. While Massmart’s results also came as a pleasant surprise, the general retailers’ index only managed to narrow its losses to 0.11%. Shoprite reported sales growth of 14% in the six months to December 31 to R71.3bn and a rise in trading profit of 19.2% to R3.91bn. Like-for-like sales, which strip out the effect of new stores, were the strongest they had been in seven years. The group declared a dividend of 180c, up 15.3% compared with the year-earlier period. Importantly, the company’s trading margin grew to 5.48%, from 5.2% the previous year.
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