With domestic growth slugging along at 2% while Nigeria and Angola get their acts together and convert oil into Moet, Shoprite is more excited about the prospects for growth beyond our borders than they’ve ever been. This as the Big Red One missed its profit for the 12 months to June, raking in a still-tidy 11% to R5.39billion on sales growth of 12% for a total of R92.7billion. The big performers here at home were Checkers and Usave, both taking share from Shoprite as well as from the competition. Plans for next year include 171 new stores, 47 of them abroad. And they intend to invest in the price leadership which differentiates them from the rest, but which carries a price of its own when it comes to the old margin. Explaining the more muted tone of this year’s performance relative to the brassier numbers of the past, Whitey Basson cited widespread labour unrest, rising costs fuelled by a weak rand, falling commodity prices and consumers’ lack of disposable income due to their high level of indebtedness.

Comment: Still, eh? The down-home genius of SA’s biggest retailer continues to amaze and delight.

Sales were up a disappointing 8.9% to R32.37billion, or 5.5% in comparable terms over at Massmart for the six months to June, with first half profit down a worrying 9.9% as South Africa’s punters feel the pinch in a slowing economy. That’s the bottom line. The better performers within this were Massbuild, growing at a comparable 9% as their first RDC comes on-stream, and Makro, at a comparable and inflation-beating 6.9%. Game, on the other hand, grew comparable sales just a solitary percent. Like Shoprite, Massmart are looking for growth elsewhere in the continent, with a new food format they will test in West Africa towards the end of the year and 90 new stores planned for the next three years. Among The Men in Black’s other strategic priorities are a continued focus on food and more energy on clothing and e-commerce, as general merchandise declines here as it has abroad.

Comment: A rough ride indeed for Massmart, dependent as they are on the lower-to-middle end consumer in a threatening economic climate.

And while we’re on the subject of that large mass of land that sits at the top of our country like an ornate if slightly lopsided head dress of some sort, it’s not just South African retailers looking to Africa to beef up the old bottom line, oh, no. There’s Carrefour, for instance, which has partnered with distributor CFAO to open shops in eight sub-Saharan African countries by 2015, starting with Abidjan‚ Ivory Coast in 2015 then heading into Nigeria‚ Ghana‚ Cameroon‚ Congo‚ Democratic Republic of the Congo‚ Gabon and Senegal in quick succession. CFAO, which will own 55% of the JV, is controlled by Kering, which also owns Gucci, and targets a modest R13billion annually in its first decade of operations, including revenue generated by the malls it plans to open.

Comment: Carrefour has a sizeable presence in Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt already, but their expansion elsewhere has been rumoured for years. It is to be hoped for their sake that they have not missed le bateau.

Distell increased their sales by a bubbly 12% to almost R16billion on a volume increase of 7.2% for the year to the end of June, with 27% of the total coming from international sales and 56% of that in turn coming from Africa, where strides have recently been made in Angola, Kenya and Ghana. And their plans for international markets are big, with a target of 35% and significantly the appointment of a Mr Richard Rushton as MD to replace the outgoing Jan Scannell. Rushton comes to Distell from a little outfit called SABMiller, where of late he has been heading up operations in Columbia, a tricky geography with a highly competitive market in the intoxicants category. The recent acquisition of Burn Stewart Distillers – they of Bunnahabhain and Black Bottle – will also help in this regard, there being a brisk international trade in that other amber liquid.

Comment: Let’s not forget that SABMiller own a 29% stake in Distell, so the appointment is not as leftfield as might first have been thought.

And in other news from the dop side, SABMiller has kicked things up a notch, or to be more precise two, on the Mother of All Continents, with new breweries in Uganda and Zambia. The first of these falls under their Nile Breweries subsidiary, and is situated in Mbarara in the north. It will cost The Big Feller $90large and will double brewing capacity to 3.6million hectolitres a year. The second, in Zambia, is located in Lusaka, will cost $24million, and involves a complete overhaul of the existing plant which was built before we were born if you’ll believe that. The new rig is something called a “high-tech opaque brewery”, which we gather means traditional beer made by machines. Why the interest in Africa, you need hardly ask. In the quarter to June volumes were up 8% and revenue was up by 10% on these shore, while globally, volumes for the group were down 1%.

Comment: Bold and confident moves, of the sort we make on the dance floor after a couple of SAB’s finest.

Things are slowing down in the Middle Kingdom, and as you know, when China sneezes these days we all come down with bird flu. This was the general tenor of a warning from one Michael Pettis, professor of finance at Peking University in Beijing where he makes something of a career out of Sino-pessimism yet has remained curiously free of the labour camps. And earlier this month, the Reserve Bank informed us with gloomy fatalism that China had been our biggest trading partners for four years now, and is the biggest destination for our exports, gapsing up as much iron and steel, nonferrous metals and chemicals as we can shove in a rusty old bulk carrier. Commodities, said Pettis, will soon sink to their pre-2000 prices as demand slows in China, and then we’re all in the dwang.

Comment: Was it not Confucius who said that the wise man does not put all of his fragile possessions into a single receptacle? No.

Another set of results, another set of crackers from The Man:

On public transport, and what have you: “It’s a lot of money that now has to go for taxis and trains and what have you that used to go into food baskets.”

On international competition: “Is Walmart still in South Africa?”

On thermodynamics and online retail: “The ice cream seems to melt before it gets to the house of the person who ordered it.”

On… well, quite frankly, we aren’t sure what: “We haven’t seen any of the sort of runaway-trying-to-conquer-the-world-with-a-canoe. …” (spoken wistfully)