Mr Price Group lifted retail sales and other income by only 7 percent to R6.9 billion in the 13 weeks to July 2, a figure that barely exceeds the average inflation rate.
The group also granted CEO Mark Blair a R32.931 million bonus in the year to 2 April 2022, in the form of an allocation in its group forfeitable share plan.
This took his total remuneration for the 2022 financial year to R56.5 million, an increase of 201% on the R18.8 million package in 2021.
The bonus equates to his total packages for 2021 and 2020, combined.
South Africa’s annual inflation for April, May and June averages 6.6 percent. The share price increased marginally by 0.59 percent to R179.12 yesterday midday, but the price has fallen 20.6 percent over the quarter starting April 2022.
Value retailer Mr Price’s total retail sales of R6.6bn for the period grew 6.4 percent, while other income increased 25.5 percent to R270 million, the group said in a trading update yesterday.
The apparel segment, which made up 74.3 percent of retail turnover in the 13 weeks in 2021, increased 8 percent, while home segment turnover was up only 1.6 percent, and the telecoms segment, comprising cellular handset and accessory sales, increased 4.4 percent.
Mr Price said a number of factors impacted sales, including that first quarter sales in 2021 grew 70.3 percent as the Covid-19 pandemic period was exited, so the current period is compared with a high base.
In addition, April and May 2022 sales was crimped by the non-payment of the Covid-19 social relief grant to consumers.
There had also been “a material” loss in trading hours from load shedding.
Adding to the woes was the impact to April and May trade of problems in implementing the Enterprise Resource Planning retail modernisation system on April 4.
The group said, however, that the new system’s issues were resolved, the evidence of which was group sales growth of 14.8 percent in June 2022, which further accelerated in July.
“The group is comforted by the increasing momentum in the second half of the first quarter and believes it is well positioned to capitalise on opportunities in the rest of the financial year,” the group said.
Sales growth for the first three weeks of July 2022 was 18.4 percent, which took sales growth for April 3 to July 23 to 8.2 percent.
Total unit sales grew 0.1 percent. Group retail selling price inflation at 6.3 percent was managed to maintain a leading value positioning.
BUSINESS REPORT