Retail

One South African retail CEO crushed his competitors in shareholder returns

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%

Newsletter

Comments