Thirteen years after opening its first store in Nigeria, Shoprite Holdings has put its expansion in Africa's largest economy on ice, for now. With almost 28 years' experience in the rest of Africa since 1990, it seems the group is still figuring out how to get its operations right. Shoprite CEO Pieter Engelbrecht told Business Times that Shoprite has slowed down its expansion in Nigeria. "We had to impair four loss-making stores in Nigeria . we have slowed down in terms of our expansion, until we get better clarity in terms of the banned products and foreign exchange fluctuations," said Engelbrecht. In Nigeria, Shoprite outlets were only able to "carry half of our ranges because of the products banned for forex and banned for imports", Engelbrecht added. Five years ago, at the height of the "Africa rising" story, the group planned to open 44 new stores in the country. Shoprite currently has 24 supermarkets in Nigeria. Yet Engelbrecht maintained that "we are not disinvesting from Nig...
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