Massmart, the owner of Makro, Game and Cambridge Food, said on Friday that 41 stores had been looted during this week's violent riots in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.
Two distribution centres were looted and the one in Queen Nandi drive near Durban North, burnt down. Massmart has a total of 343 stores in SA.
Protesters looted 18 Cambridge stores, 10 Game stores, eight Builders stores, three Cash & Carry and two Makro stores, Massmart said in a statement on Friday. Two distribution centres were damaged.
In total, four facilities including stores, suffered “significant damage due to arson,” the company said.
Some distribution centres and stores in KwaZulu-Natal have been closed and will reopen as soon as it is safe and practical to do so.
Despite damage to the supply chain, the company says it is confident it will be able to restock stores.
“We have successfully activated business continuity replenishment plans that involve shifting replenishment capability to distribution centres into which we have built in backup capacity.
“We are therefore confident in our ability to service the stock needs of our stores,” it said.
This week, Massmart CEO Mitchell Slape wrote a letter of encouragement to the group's 45,000 employees. He told employees that its majority owner, Walmart, is still supporting the company.
“We are also fortunate to have a good majority shareholder in Walmart who are working with and supporting us through these challenging times,” he wrote in one of the letters seen by Business Day.
Investors had expressed concern that the world's biggest grocer Walmart, which in 2010 paid R148 a share for the company, would want to pull out of SA. Massmart's share price is now trading at around R56.
Massmart said in a statement on Friday that Walmart has “unambiguously expressed their commitment to our business.”
Massmart had been trying to return to profitability without enacting widespread job cuts, after losing R1bn for two years, and was expecting to break even this year. Its Builders business has been thriving as consumers upgrade homes, but Game continues to lose money.
Massmart's share price was R55.93 in midmorning trade, up 3.08%.
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