{"id":841016,"date":"2025-10-27T08:00:34","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T06:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=841016"},"modified":"2025-11-02T07:34:58","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T05:34:58","slug":"good-news-about-pick-n-pay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/841016\/good-news-about-pick-n-pay\/","title":{"rendered":"Good news about Pick n Pay"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Pick’n Pay has continued to see improvements in its bid for profitability, but admits that another loss will occur in the 2026 financial year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In its interim results for the six months ended 31 August 2025, Pick’n Pay said that it successfully executed on multiple strategic initiatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These were aimed at delivering a meaningful improvement towards profitability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group saw its headline loss reduce to R439 million, compared to a loss of R804 million in the prior comparable period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The improved result was driven by a R227 million trading profit increase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also benefited from a R537 million positive net funding interest swing, as the full benefit of the FY25 recapitalisation was realised in Group earnings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Group turnover increased 4.9%, with 13.9% growth from Boxer and 0.1% growth (4.4% like-for-like) from the Pick n Pay segment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gross profit margin expanded from 0.3% to 18.2%, driven by a recovery in the Pick’n Pay segment\u2019s gross profit margin. Other income grew 4.5%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trading expenses increased by 4.8%, driven by the Boxer expansion plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Group trading profit rose by 273.5% year-on-year to R310 million, which reflects a R931 million Boxer trading profit (+16.2%) and a R621 million Pick n Pay trading loss (+13.5%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Group net finance costs decreased 44.8% to R627 million, reflecting the net impact of the positive funding interest swing and a 3.9% increase in net lease interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This increase in the net lease interest was caused by a relatively high lease interest growth, driven by the Boxer store rollout, which was offset by a reduction in Pick\u2019n Pay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group loss before tax and capital items reduced by 69.9% to R317 million compared to a loss of R1.1 billion in the first half of the 2025 financial year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When accounting for capital items and the 34.4% Boxer non-controlling interest, the attributable loss after tax recovered 40% to a loss of R496 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a vast improvement from the loss of R827 million in H1 FY25.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key Group Financial Indicators<\/th>26 weeks to 31 August 2025 (H1 FY26)<\/th>26 weeks to 25 August 2024 (H1 FY25)<\/th>% Improvement<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
Turnover<\/td>R58.8 billion<\/td>R56.1 billion<\/td>4.9<\/td><\/tr>
Trading profit<\/td>R310 million<\/td>R83 million<\/td>273.5<\/td><\/tr>
Trading profit margin<\/td>0.5%<\/td>0.1%<\/td>\u2014<\/td><\/tr>
Loss before tax and capital items<\/td>(R317 million)<\/td>(R1 052 million)<\/td>69.9<\/td><\/tr>
Headline loss<\/td>(R439 million)<\/td>(R803 million)<\/td>45.3<\/td><\/tr>
Headline loss per share (HEPS)<\/td>(59.77 cents)<\/td>(136.60 cents)<\/td>56.2<\/td><\/tr>
Basic loss per share (EPS)<\/td>(67.53 cents)<\/td>(140.83 cents)<\/td>52.0<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Outlook <\/h2>\n\n\n
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Pick n Pay at Westown Square Mall<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The group said that the first half of the year showed steady progress in the group\u2019s profit recovery. Boxer\u2019s performance was due to the result of its operational execution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boxer will continue to drive its store rollout as it looks to capture a substantial long-term structural growth opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The improvements are not limited to Boxer, with the group highlighting the improvements of the Pick’n Pay segment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAccelerated like-for-like sales growth shows that customers are once again choosing Pick n Pay, and the gross profit margin recovery demonstrates that this is a sustainable recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe project to exit unprofitable stores has been successfully executed, with 65 loss-making, company-owned supermarkets expected to have been closed or converted by the end of FY26.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When including the closed stores and the stores that are at or near profitability, the group said that this part of the strategic plan will come to an end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pick’n Pay Clothing opened its 400th stand-alone store and saw further market share gains, with turnover growth of 12.0% (7.5% like-for-like).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Online sales also saw solid double-digit growth, which the group said highlights its increased digital expansion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pick’n Pay acknowledged that its core business is currently unprofitable at the trading profit level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This comes as company-owned supermarkets saw like-for-like sales growth lagging slightly behind like-for-like operating cost growth in the reporting period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe multi-year journey of returning Pick n Pay to a profitable and future-fit business continues to be tackled in a purposeful and methodical manner.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOn a full-year FY26 basis, the Group expects the Pick n Pay segment trading loss to be broadly in line with FY25.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is because Pick n Pay continues to invest in critical skills to rebuild retail excellence to facilitate the achievement of the trading profit after lease interest break-even target.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pick’n Pay has seen a marked improvement in its bid to return to profit, but warned that it is still some time away from achieving this goal. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":818479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[6655,4067],"class_list":["post-841016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-boxer","tag-pick-n-pay"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=841016"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841016\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":841666,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841016\/revisions\/841666"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/818479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=841016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=841016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=841016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}