LISTED GROCERY RETAILERS PICK UP THE PIECES – AND MAYBE MORE MARKET SHARE

finweek analyses the outlook for South Africa’s Big Five grocery retailers in the aftermath of July’s riots and looting.

- Brendan Peacock

The more information regarding the coordination and organisation of planned attacks on civil infrastructure comes to light, the more the looting and unrest encouraged by individuals politically connected with former president Jacob Zuma seem to have scored an own goal.

If the exponents of radical economic transformation intended to attack so-called white minority capital to create the desired spectacle, the owners of the listed grocery retailers whose assets were pillaged will recover quickly and relatively easily – leaving smaller, independent and largely black-owned businesses that were indiscriminately looted struggling to reopen.

Vuka Chonco, deputy general secretary of the Food & Allied Workers Union, says the union is still – some weeks after what is now being labelled a failed insurrection – not in a position to accurately quantify the fallout from the unrest. “We’re still counting the lost jobs and livelihoods. It will take a while for that to filter through from workers who will lose out.”

Similarly, the SA Property Owners’ Association (Sapoa) has said that 112 shopping centres had been looted and damaged, as had 90 pharmacies. More than 1 000 ATMs, 269 bank branches and 3 931 retail stores had been destroyed, with more than 150 000 jobs placed in direct jeopardy because of the violence and destruction. Sapoa’s research indicated that 50 000 informal traders and 40 000 businesses had been affected.