{"id":843558,"date":"2025-11-18T09:03:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T07:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=843558"},"modified":"2025-11-18T12:13:56","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T10:13:56","slug":"end-of-an-era-for-south-africas-royal-family-of-retail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/843558\/end-of-an-era-for-south-africas-royal-family-of-retail\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa’s retail royals sell millions of Pick n Pay shares"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Pick n Pay’s founding Ackerman family has sold about 64 million shares, the South African retailer said on Tuesday, more than a year after pledging to cede control of the struggling grocer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In May 2024, the Ackerman family said it will relinquish control of Pick n Pay as part of a revamp aimed at stemming losses, cutting debt and regaining market share.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gareth Ackerman, who had been with the company for four decades, said he will retire as chairman after 14 years in the job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The placement shares, representing an 8.5% of Pick n Pay’s total issued ordinary shares, were sold at R25.50 apiece in an accelerated book-build, a 6.4% discount to the company’s closing price on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It raised about R1.6 billion in proceeds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The massive shift for Pick n Pay ends an era of the Ackerman family’s control of the group. The retailer faced extreme financial pressures in the 2024 financial year, declaring a R3.2 billion loss.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This came off the back of the poor rollout of the Ekuseni strategy, which cost the company billions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The strategy\u2019s core premise was restructuring the company into different silos, shifting the Pick n Pay brand into the premium market to compete with Woolworths and launching a new \u201cQualiSave\u201d brand to compete in the middle market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plan was to reinvigorate the Pick n Pay brand and give consumers more choice and allow the retailer to more effectively compete across all market segments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the strategy fell flat. This forced the group to implement a series of rapid changes, starting with the return of former CEO Sean Summers, who quickly reversed the strategy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group then announced a two-step recapitalisation plan, which included a R4 billion rights offer and the IPO of Boxer, one of the group\u2019s best performers, which raised over R8 billion for the group. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As per the rights offer in 2024, the Ackerman family reduced their percentage of voting rights from 52% to 49%, ending the family\u2019s control of the group, even if they maintain a large chunk. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, following the latest sale in shares, the Ackermans’ voting interest in the company will shrink to 36.8% from 49%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The family has given up majority control but retains the role as the anchor shareholder to support the retailer’s turnaround efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the placement, the Ackerman family will continue to hold 135.4 million ordinary shares in Pick n Pay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs a family, we\u2019ve always seen ourselves not just as shareholders, but as stewards of something bigger, a business with purpose, people at its heart, and a deep belief in doing good while doing well,” said former chair, Gareth Ackerman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat belief has not changed. We remain committed to supporting Pick n Pay as it continues to evolve.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working back to profitability<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Pick n Pay CEO Sean Summers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Taking over from Ackerman as chairman of the group is James Formby, who previously worked as the CEO of RMB and spent 25 years at the FirstRand group.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Formby was previously the lead independent director and has been a non-executive director since leaving RMB in 2022.\u00a0He was already the chairman of Boxer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He will work alongside Pick n Pay CEO Sean Summers, who recently had his contract extended until 2028.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In October, Pick n Pay released its interim results for the 26 weeks through August 2025. On a group level, the company saw its turnover grow by 4.9% to R58.8 billion and its trading profit improve by 273.5% to R310 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, this was largely driven by Boxer\u2019s standout performance, as the retailer grew its turnover by nearly 14% to R22.52 billion and its trading profit by over 16% to R931 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast, the company\u2019s core brand, Pick n Pay, proved to be a drag on the company\u2019s latest interim results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This segment reported that its turnover remained essentially flat at R36.3 billion and it recorded a trading loss of R621 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notably, this loss is a 13.5% improvement from the first half of the company\u2019s 2025 financial year, showing that the group’s turnaround strategy is yielding results, but still needs time to play out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Reuters<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pick n Pay’s founding Ackerman family has sold about 64 million shares, dropping their stake to under 37% a year after promising to step back from controlling the group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":786580,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[10345,4067],"class_list":["post-843558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-ackermans","tag-pick-n-pay"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843558","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\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=843558"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":843600,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843558\/revisions\/843600"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/786580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=843558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=843558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}