TOUGH FINANCIAL YEAR
Slow trading and myriad problems do not stop Shoprite investing in future
Most of the Shoprite executives attending the group’s annual general meeting in October 2017 were dressed in black. They were participating in the countrywide demonstration of support for the 19,000 people murdered during the year. As it happened, that dress code turned out to be a chilling harbinger of what CEO Pieter Engelbrecht describes as "the toughest year I can recall", during which Shoprite had "been to war". They had the scars to prove it. Financial 2018 was the first time in 20 years that Shoprite had reported a drop in its full-year earnings. Basic headline earnings per share, the key measurement of the supermarket group’s profit, were down 5.2% to 969.6c — uncomfortably off the 1,090c forecast by analysts. "I don’t want to ramble down a long list of excuses," Engelbrecht told analysts at a results presentation on Tuesday, before itemising a nerve-wrackingly long list of excuses. These included chronic unemployment, weak consumer demand, industrial action, service deliver...
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