South African retail CEO that dominated his competition
New analysis by Daily Investor revealed that former Shoprite CEO Whitey Basson created a 2,450% return in shareholder value during his fifteen-year tenure.
For this analysis, Daily Investor looked at the shareholder returns – share price growth and dividends – under prominent retail CEOs over the last twenty years.
The start date for the analysis is 1 January 2001, and we calculated the performance until 31 August 2022.
If a CEO started his tenure before 1 January 2001, his performance was only calculated from 1 January 2001.
The analysis revealed that shareholder returns were closely linked to the CEO’s performance and the period during which they were in charge.
Former Spar CEO Peter Hughes achieved the highest annualized return at 39%, followed by former Woolworths CEO Simon Susman at 28%.
However, Whitey Basson’s annualized performance over the same period as Hughes was 59%, and he achieved a 30% annualized return over the same period as Susman.
It is easy to see why Basson received a pay package of R627.6 million in 2011.
He was behind growing Shoprite from an 8-store chain to the largest food retailer in Africa, comprising of 1,649 stores in 15 countries and employing just under 130,000 people.
Shoprite chairman Christo Wiese described Basson as a person whose talent is incredibly rare.
“If I could find another Whitey Basson, I would happily pay him a billion,” Wiese said in response to Basson’s pay package.
Other noteworthy performances came from former Spar CEO Wayne Hook at 21%, former Pick n Pay CEO Sean Summers at 18%, and current Pick n Pay CEO Pieter Boone at 17%.
Top South African retail CEOs for shareholder returns
The table below shows the shareholder returns for CEOs from JSE-listed retail companies.
| Top South African Retail CEOs | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| CEO | Company | Total Return | Annualized Return |
| Whitey Basson | Shoprite | 2,450% | 22% |
| Pieter Engelbrecht | Shoprite | 52% | 8% |
| Sean Summers | Pick n Pay | 177% | 18% |
| Pieter Boone | Pick n Pay | 22% | 17% |
| Richard van Rensburg (interim) | Pick n Pay | 10% | 11% |
| Nick Badminton | Pick n Pay | 53% | 9% |
| Richard Brasher | Pick n Pay | 48% | 5% |
| Peter Hughes | Spar | 86% | 39% |
| Wayne Hook | Spar | 294% | 21% |
| Graham O’Connor | Spar | 100% | 10% |
| Brett Botten | Spar | -12% | -8% |
| Simon Susman | Woolworths | 1,025% | 28% |
| Ian Moir | Woolworths | 164% | 11% |
| Roy Bagattini | Woolworths | 26% | 9% |
By Jacques Bartleman, first published on Daily Investor and republished with permission.
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