Top South African retailer closing some stores in Gauteng

The Spar group continues to downsize its presence in South Africa, closing more stores in Gauteng as it focuses on core operations.

The group reported a significant loss of R4 billion for its interim period ended March 2025, driven mainly by impairments in Europe.

Spar is making a concerted effort to exit its European businesses following a pricey exit from Poland, with the Swiss and UK AWG businesses next in line.

These businesses recorded aggregated post-tax losses of R4.4 billion, which included impairments of R4.2 billion.

The group’s continuing operations fared a lot better over the six months, seeing revenue growth of 1.7%, with profit after tax from continuing operations at R768 million.

The continuing operations mainly reflect the group’s business in the Southern Africa region, which includes South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Eswatini and Mozambique.

The vast majority of the operation is in South Africa, however.

SPAR said that combined grocery and liquor wholesale revenue rose by 1.1% in the region, while retail revenue increased by 1.9% in a difficult trading environment.

This relatively flat growth was affected predominantly by lower food inflation, post-election unrest in Mozambique and the timing of Easter falling in the second half of the current financial year,

However, it noted that it was also impacted by store closures in Gauteng.

While the group noted that it acquired the assets of four retail stores in South Africa, it is still consolidating its presence, having closed a net five stores between September 2024 and March 2025.

The number jumps to nine store closures when looking at its operations from the start of the year in January 2025.

Between September and January, the group actually increased its store presence by expanding to three more outlets, taking its total footprint to 2,029 at January 2025.

The group told BusinessTech that its total store numbers for Southern Africa at March 2024 sat at 2,021—nine fewer—comprising 1,086 grocery stores and 935 liquor stores.

The group did not provide a specific breakdown on the specific types of stores, but did note in its January Capitam Markets Presentation that it its SaveMor and SPAR Express format stores were showing growth.

It also noted that the group was staging significant reinvestment in its store network, with 84 major and minor refurbishments ongoing at a cost of R211 million.

Net store selling area is also increasing, it said, moving to about 1.39 million square metres at the start of the year.

The table below outlines SPAR’s footprint in Southern Africa between September 2024 and March 2025.

Competitive space

SPAR and its competitor in the grocery space, Pick n Pay, are two of the biggest retailers in the country who are in the process of ‘rightsizing’ amid challenging trading conditions.

Pick n Pay has been closing and converting loss-making stores as part of its turnaround strategy, while SPAR has had a stronger focus on exiting Europe to focus on its more successful operations back home.

In both cases, however, the groups have not looked at expansion as a way to compete.

According to Pick n Pay CEO Sean Summers, the country is in fact opening too many stores, and there are questionable returns on investment in expanding rapidly, putting their financial viability at risk.

The top five retailers in South Africa opened more than 700 stores last year, according to company filings. They have set up 230 new stores in 2025 alone.

Incidentally, Boxer—owned by Pick n Pay and spun off as its own public listing in 2024—is one of the retailers that has seen a significant expansion in its footprint over the past year.

The group added 48 news stores in its financial year ending March 2025, with its gross lettable area (GLA) increasing 9%.

Boxer now has a total of 525 stores, including 320 Boxer Superstores, 175 Boxer Liquor and 30 Boxer Build stores.