Credited with taking an eight-store grocery chain in the Western Cape and growing it to be Africa’s largest retailer, Whitey Basson’s reputation in retail circles is unparalleled.
He redefined the retail landscape in South Africa with innovative strategies that saw Shoprite’s value grow to a market capitalisation of R114bn, with 2,300 stores across 15 African countries and employing more than 140,000 people by the time he retired in 2016.
Born in 1946 in Porterville, Western Cape, Basson attended Rondebosch Boys’ High School and then Stellenbosch University, where he graduated with a BCom (CTA). He qualified as a chartered accountant after completing his articles at ER Syfret & Co (now Ernst & Young). After a stint at Brink, Roos & Du Toit (now PwC), Basson joined Pep Stores as its financial manager in 1971. In 1974, he was promoted to financial director and joined the board, a position he retained until 2004.
In 1979, Pep acquired a modest grocery retailer called Shoprite. Under Basson’s leadership, Shoprite focused on the middle-to-lower LSM market and moved into rural markets. He quickly realised that to grow the business required acquiring and turning around struggling companies. In 1984, the group acquired six Ackermans food stores.
“Not many people today get an opportunity to pick up several struggling businesses and turn them around”
— Former Shoprite CEO Whitey Basson
The Shoprite Group listed on the JSE in 1986 and, in 1990, acquired Grand Bazaars, giving the group a degree of market dominance in the Western Cape.
In 1992, Shoprite acquired Checkers, which was losing R45m a year. At the time, it consisted of 169 stores and was one of the three biggest grocery retailers in the country, along with Pick n Pay and OK Bazaars. After the acquisition, Basson closed Checkers’ head office, resized the stores and turned Checkers around in nine months, in the process saving 16,500 jobs.
He did the same thing a few years later, when Shoprite acquired a struggling OK Bazaars in 1997 for R1. Before the acquisition, OK Bazaars had been making a loss of R20m a month. Returning the former OK Bazaars stores to profitability included converting and modernising more than 150 of OK’s food stores and converting Hyperama stores to Checkers Hyper stores. Ultimately, the takeover and turnaround saved more than 14,000 jobs.
In 2001, a decision was made to operate Shoprite and Checkers under two brands, with Checkers serving higher LSM consumers and positioned more closely to Pick n Pay's market focus. The remaining OK stores and brand were franchised, with the result that OK is now a corporate franchise business. The repositioning of Checkers saw it become the fastest-growing retail brand in South Africa.
After South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994, Shoprite expanded beyond the country's borders, opening stores in Zambia, Nigeria, Ghana, Mozambique, Madagascar, Mauritius, Angola, Malawi and Uganda. Though attempts to open stores in Egypt, India and Tanzania were ultimately unsuccessful, Basson never regretted trying, always maintaining that retail companies need to invest a portion of their earnings in risk capital to develop new markets.
Basson retired from his role as CEO of the Shoprite Group in 2016. At the time, Shoprite was ranked the 86th-largest retailer in the world. Analysis by Daily Investor revealed that Basson enabled a 2,450% total return in shareholder value during his tenure at the helm of Shoprite.
What made Basson such a successful retailer was his attention to detail. He never stopped regarding himself as a storekeeper and was a frequent visitor to the shop floor. He knew what customers wanted and he delivered on that expectation. He pioneered central distribution and paid attention to advertising — including that of competitors.
He is the first to concede it was much easier to grow a retail business then than it is now.
“There were far fewer risks and no real dark clouds that we had to contend with in those days,” he says. “We weren’t dragged down by onerous board reporting. Many of the opportunities we were presented with fell into our laps. Not many people today get an opportunity to pick up several struggling businesses and turn them around.”
The risks today, he says, are that much greater. In addition to an uncertain electricity supply, many local municipalities are looking unsustainable, and the government doesn’t appear to have the ability to solve the multiple crises taking place. Business leaders have to answer to board members, many of whom have little or no understanding of the actual business.
His concern for the trajectory of the local economy saw him offer his services to the government in late 2022 to help address some of the many challenges facing the country.
“The government appears to have as many shortcomings as some of the companies we took over in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s,” he says. “Not only is it financially constrained, but it’s also constrained in terms of talent pool and systems. As a result, infrastructure is on the verge of collapsing, we have a high unemployment rate and no meaningful economic growth.”
Changing the economic trajectory of the country, he says, requires fixing what can be fixed systematically to ensure more business-friendly regulations and to encourage private investment and competition.
“We need to make it more comfortable for citizens to live and operate in the country. A priority is to address the debt issue and then return the economy to an annual growth trajectory of at least 5% to 6% to resolve the unemployment crisis. Our current fiscal situation requires that we urgently combat corruption to ensure money is not diverted from the fiscus.”
Given his track record with turning around ailing businesses, is it such a stretch of the imagination that Basson could add some valuable insights into how to turn South Africa’s fortunes around? The president should give him a call.
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