Massmart rises most in three months

170111 Massmart CEO Grant Pattison at shareholders meeting held in Sunninghill North of Johannesburg.photo Simphiwe Mbokazi

170111 Massmart CEO Grant Pattison at shareholders meeting held in Sunninghill North of Johannesburg.photo Simphiwe Mbokazi

Published Jan 15, 2014

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Johannesburg - Massmart Holdings Ltd., the South African food and goods wholesaler owned by Wal-Mart Stores Inc., climbed the most in more than three months after saying 2013 sales rose 9.7 percent.

The stock rallied as much as 5.4 percent, the biggest intraday gain since September 30.

It traded 4.8 percent higher at 131 rand as of 1:13 p.m. in Johannesburg, having declined 9.5 percent in December.

Massmart’s total sales in the 53 weeks to December 29 climbed to 72.2 billion rand ($6.6 billion), the Johannesburg-based company said in a statement today.

Sales comparing 52 weeks in 2013 to the 52 weeks to December 23, 2012 were up 7.5 percent, it said.

Same-store sales growth was 3.8 percent.

“The retailers depend on the holiday period, and while Christmas sales were quite weak, it seems there’s relief it wasn’t worse,” Henre Herselman, a derivatives trader at Nedbank Private Wealth in Johannesburg, said by phone today.

The company lost about 200 million rand of revenue because of store closures on December 15, the day of Nelson Mandela’s funeral, or 0.3 percent of full-year sales, Massmart said. - Bloomberg News

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