News24
13 Jan 2020, 19:13 GMT+10
One of SA's biggest retailers, Massmart, has become the second SA company to announce possible store closures in 2020, a move that could affect up to 1 440 employees. This comes just days after SA's largest clothing retailer, Edcon, announced the closure of its Edgars store in Rosebank Mall, also citing underperformance.
Massmart, which owns Game, DionWired and Makro among other brands, announced on Monday that it was consulting with its employees about the potential closure of the 34 stores. It said it has already begun talks under section 189 of the Labour Relations Act, a process that companies undertake when they intend to retrench staff.
The announcement comes three months after Mitchell Slape took over as Massmart's CEO in September with a brief to turn around the retailer.
"The Massmart Group has recently conducted a store optimisation project that highlighted a number of underperforming stores in its portfolio. Consequent to this project the Massmart Group seeks to advise shareholders that Massmart has commenced, a potential store closure consultation process," said the group in a statement published on the Stock Exchange News Services.
The retailer, which has 23 DionWired stores in the SA region, already closed two outlets in the first half of 2019. The retailer said at the time that Dion Wired sales had been affected by low consumer confidence, which caused a decline in customer traffic in major shopping malls. Customers also put on hold purchases of high price-ticket electronic items as SA economy stagnated last year. The tech retailer also faced stock supply challenges causing its outlets to underperform.
Masscash, which consists of wholesale and cash & carry outlets like Jumbo and Rhino which target low-income groups, had experienced severe price deflation in staples like maize, oil and sugar in some of its brands. Massmart started converting some of underperforming brands, like Rhino, to Cambridge Food Retail to help lift their profits.
Massmart said on Monday it will advise shareholders about its progress on the store closures at a later stage, once the retrenchment process consultations are complete.
Get a daily dose of Broadcast Communications news through our daily email, its complimentary and keeps you fully up to date with world and business news as well.
Publish news of your business, community or sports group, personnel appointments, major event and more by submitting a news release to Broadcast Communications.
More InformationNEW YORK CITY, New York: With just weeks to spare before a potential government default, U.S. lawmakers passed a sweeping tax and spending...
PARIS, France: Fast-fashion giant Shein has been fined 40 million euros by France's antitrust authority over deceptive discount practices...
PALO ALTO/TEL AVIV: The battle for top AI talent has claimed another high-profile casualty—this time at Safe Superintelligence (SSI),...
FRANKLIN, Tennessee: Hundreds of thousands of Nissan and Infiniti vehicles are being recalled across the United States due to a potential...
REDMOND, Washington: Microsoft is the latest tech giant to announce significant job cuts, as the financial strain of building next-generation...
LONDON UK - U.S. stock markets were closed on Friday for Independence Day. Global Forex Markets Wrap Up Friday with Greeback Comeback...
Birmingham [UK], July 7 (ANI): Indian pacer Akash Deep mesmerised one and all with a ten-wicket haul in a critic-silencing, era-defining...
Birmingham [UK], July 7 (ANI): Following his side's win over England, Indian pacer Akash Deep revealed that he played the match because...
Paris is withdrawing its troops after the African country scrapped a decades-old defense agreement France has handed over a military...
New Delhi [India], July 1 (ANI): On the occasion of the approval of the new 'Khelo Bharat Niti 2025', Prime Minister Narendra Modi...
Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], July 1 (ANI): The Indian Institute of Creative Technologies (IICT) opens admissions for its first batch...
New Delhi [India], July 1 (ANI): In a significant step to bolster India's research and innovation ecosystem, the Union Cabinet on Tuesday...