Pick n Pay’s chief executive has stepped down with immediate effect, the company said in a statement on Monday.
Pieter Boone will be replaced by former CEO Sean Summers, according to the retailer.
Boone was with Pick n Pay for less than two-and-a-half years.
CHALLENGES AT THE COMPANY
Pick n Pay chairman Gareth Ackerman said on Monday that while he appreciated the work done by Boone the company’s performance over the last few months have been challenging.
“He became our CEO while the Covid pandemic was still raging, and has led the business through some extraordinary challenges, including the transition out of the Covid lockdown, the unprecedented civil unrest in 2021, and the current loadshedding crisis.”
“Unfortunately, in a very difficult environment, the performance of our core Pick n Pay business has been very challenging over the past months, and has not met expectations. Pieter accepts that the Board has decided on a change in leadership,” Ackerman noted.
SEAN SUMMERS
It seems that the company wants to return to its past successes and is looking at Summers to get it back on track.
Summers was Pick n Pay’s CEO from 1999 and 2006.
In a statement the retailer said that during his tenure, Pick n Pay was the clear grocery market leader in South Africa. The late Raymond Ackerman described Sean as ”an excellent leader, who achieved remarkable things at Pick n Pay”.
“We are delighted that Sean is coming back to Pick n Pay. His knowledge and experience is unrivalled. He is passionate about getting Pick n Pay back on to the right trajectory, and winning the trust and confidence of customers new and old. He is absolutely the right person for the job at this time,” Ackerman added.
HEADLINE EARNINGS
The Pick n Pay group said that it had achieved a “pleasing uptick in sales momentum over the latter six weeks of the period, versus the initial part of the period (20 weeks to July 16, as previously reported).
Group sales for H1 FY24 increased 5.4%. SA sales growth for the period was 5.1% (1.8% like-for-like), while the Group's rest of Africa segment sales increased 14.4% (12.2% on a constant currency basis).
MUTED RESULTS
Pick n Pay, in their July trading statement said that their sales performance within the company “was muted as the Group strove to contain the margin impact of load shedding costs”.
“Group sales for the first four and a half months of FY24, covering the 20-week period from 27 February 2023 to 16 July 2023, increased 4.8%.
“South Africa sales growth for this period was 4.4% (0.9% like-for-like), while the Group's Rest of Africa segment sales increased 15.9% (12.0% on a constant currency basis)”.
The company’s clothing sales, in the stand-alone stores, grew by 10.9%.
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