Hours later I reel out with a wallet that’s been ravaged by a Mongol horde, and the sort of baggage train Theodore Roosevelt used to think appropriate when outfitting a three-month safari. Who knew how many lotions, potions and unguents were needed to keep a 21-year-old operating at her peak?
Dis-Chem has come a long way since Ivan and Lynette Saltzman opened their first store in Mondeor in 1978. Post listing in November last year, the Saltzman Family Trust still owns 53% of the business, and the Saltzmans serve as CEO and MD respectively, so the founding family retains a tight grip on its baby.
The bouncing baby now runs 108 stores across SA. And it is planning to continue its growth spurt, potentially doubling its store base by opening new units and converting independents to the Dis-Chem brand.
Despite the gloom of the retail environment, the breadth of Dis-Chem’s offering makes it reasonably resilient. As well as its core pharmaceutical products, it offers beauty and personal care, a bewildering range of health and nutritional supplements, baby care products and other household bits and pieces.
Its distribution business, CJ Distribution, has opened a warehouse in Durban and is about to open one in Cape Town. This has the potential to grow significantly in offering services to Dis-Chem and other clients.
Stefanutti Stocks: Tough times raze profits
The Book of Job has long set the bar for a depiction of suffering. Job, you may recall, was given all manner of wealth and many sons and daughters but, unfortunately for him, God asks Satan what he thinks of Job’s piety.
Satan comes up with the cunning plan of testing him by taking his wealth, killing all his children and servants, and covering his body with boils — but still he won’t curse God.
This may seem about as gloomy as it gets — until you hear the wailing and lamentation coming out of the local construction industry.
The problems are pretty clear, but navigating a way through them is more than a little tricky. Projects are constantly being delayed or cancelled, and there are too many people chasing what little work there is. The result is that margins are being cut to the bone.
Stefanutti Stocks has posted results that demonstrate the pressure the extremely challenging trading environment is generating, with the previous year’s operating profit of R392m tumbling to an operating loss of R106m in the current reporting period.
The company acknowledges the atrocious state of the market, and is looking into pretty tight niches to find areas of opportunity. It is finding some potential for growth in mining surface infrastructure, marine works, petrochemical tank farms, water and sanitation treatment plants, and residential and mixed-use building projects.
Its order book is sitting at R14bn, of which R4.4bn is outside SA. It’s working hard to make the best of the slim pickings available in an industry that must be ripe for consolidation.
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