Whitey Basson's nose for business
Whitey Basson made the risky decision to take Shoprite into Africa when he sensed, on the streets of Maputo, that there was more money there than the GDP figures suggested
Whitey Basson, who hung up his spurs as CEO of SA’s largest retailer, Shoprite, in December, won’t be taking up any cosy directorships on any “typical SA boards”. “That is a waste of time and energy,” he says. “Johann Rupert said that before the first board meeting he attended with his father, he asked him how many people sat at his board table. He said he didn’t know but added that it ‘seats 24 and sleeps 22’.” It isn’t just the new rules that irk Basson. “Corporate SA is not driven by the entrepreneurial guys out there, the guys who built businesses, like Brian Joffe. Now people merge businesses, sell internationally. There’s no drive,” he says. “You could see there was wealth in pockets and lots of poverty in other areas. There wasn’t a Pick n Pay breathing down your neck or a very smart marketing guy from some other company. You just had a feeling you could make money. “And you saw it — the entrepreneurial guys in Africa were making money a long time before me,” he says. While t...
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