{"id":875455,"date":"2026-09-15T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=875455"},"modified":"2026-09-15T10:32:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T08:32:12","slug":"top-executive-leaves-r3-9-million-a-month-job-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/875455\/top-executive-leaves-r3-9-million-a-month-job-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Top executive leaves R3.9 million a month job in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Pepkor’s Chief Operating Officer (COO), Sean Cardinaal, will step down from his role at the end of this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the 2025 financial year, Cardinaal was Pepkor’s highest-paid executive based on total remuneration, earning more than the CEO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The high earnings come as Cardinaal earns expatriate allowances from the company, due to his living and working in England.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He earned nearly R46.97 million in total remuneration at the end of the 2025 financial year, while Pieter Erasmus, Pepkor’s CEO, earned approximately R30 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company announced that Cardinaal would step down from his role on 31 December 2026, at the end of his fixed-term contract.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The Board expresses its sincere appreciation to Sean for his exceptional leadership and significant contribution to Pepkor during his tenure,” Pepkor said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He will be succeeded by Garth Napier, Pepkor’s current chief commercial officer, at the start of 2027 after Cardinaal steps down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The Board is pleased to announce that Garth Napier, currently Pepkor\u2019s Chief Commercial
Officer, will succeed Sean as COO, effective 1 January 2027,” Pepkor said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Napier has served at Pepkor for years, including as managing director of Pep Africa, overseeing operations across the continent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While working as its commercial officer, he “led the group’s fintech strategy, including financial services,” Pepkor said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has also served in C-suite positions at other companies, including managing director of Old Mutual Insure and leading a division within Edcon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company also said that a structured transition would occur between October and December 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Cardinaal will leave his executive position at the end of the year, Pepkor said that he would remain with the company in an advisory role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It said that he would “remain actively involved within the Pepkor group throughout 2027” to retain his “expertise and deep institutional knowledge.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strong results for Pepkor<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

With Cardinaal at the helm of Pepkor’s operations, the company is expecting strong results so far in 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company shared a voluntary trading update, showing that like-for-like sales growth was positive across nearly every business segment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company saw particular success in its overseas operations, such as Avenida \u2013 an affordable clothing retailer in Brazil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In South Africa, Pep saw its sales volumes grow by 3.4% in the last ten months, while Pep Africa had a larger growth of 6.6%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only Pepkor segment which saw sales decrease in the first ten months of the company’s financial year was Ackermans, which dropped by 1.3%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The strong sales growth in several segments translated into improved revenue for the year, with Pepkor’s clothing and general merchandise sector increasing by 10.4%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Revenue for the company’s furniture, appliances and electronics segment also increased by 16.3% year-on-year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company said that, while South Africa’s consumer environment had been subdued recently, it had outperformed many competitors and gained market share.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The group outperformed the market and gained market share, based on July 2026 retailers liaison committee data, adjusted for acquisitions and brand closures,” Pepkor said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It said that Pep had been a driving force behind its performance, which it called “the group\u2019s discount leader.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Speciality performed well relative to the market and the newly acquired Legit business exceeded expectations,” the company added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the furniture and electronics sector, Pepkor said the market had been challenging, but its lifestyle division had delivered a strong performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also found that online sales across its segments had increased considerably, by roughly 38.9% year-on-year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pepkor’s positive results over the last ten months have also led to the company increasing its retail footprint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the last ten months, Pepkor has increased its total number of retailers by 736, with 195 being newly opened stores and 541 being added through acquisitions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pepkor’s highest-paid executive, Sean Cardinaal, will step down from his role at the end of the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":875497,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2099785552228700257","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2206084986878567","_sma_instagram_post_id":"18428230810180983","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26519,959,4076,26520],"class_list":["post-875455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-garth-napier","tag-pep","tag-pepkor","tag-sean-cardinaal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875455","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\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=875455"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":875498,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875455\/revisions\/875498"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/875497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=875455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=875455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=875455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}