He may keep it on the down low when it comes to media profile, and so far you won’t find him or his shares anywhere near a Securities Exchange, but touch him on his Israel and Dis-Chem’s Ivan Saltzman will come up swinging. “This has been a ‘buycott’ for us instead of being a boycott,” says he of the recent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against businesses which, like his, stock Israeli product. He believes that BDS is needlessly dividing South Africa on something in which we have little international swing. Saltzman last hit the press on a similar issue three years ago after a much publicised war of words with a woman who was demanding that Dis-Chem remove Dead Sea cosmetics from their shelves.

Comment: And quite frankly they’re better on the shelves than being hawked in the corridors by pushy, though attractive, reps.

A big deal for the little co-op that could: Alpha Pharm, which is owned substantially by its 900 member pharmacists, has sold a controlling stake of 51% of the business to a Swiss investment company, the delightfully-named Shogun Holdings und Finanz AG, for a cool R350million after voting overwhelmingly in favour of the transaction. The members’ continued ownership of the remaining 49% will, they say, ensure “the company’s sustained commitment to servicing and growing the independent pharmacy sector and its customers”. For their part, Shogun will continue to let Alpha Pharm operate (mainly) as they have been, while improving its “commercial operations and profitability.” And leveraging synergies and blah blah.

Comment: And no doubt scaring the willies out of Dis-Chem, MediRite and Clicks while they’re about it.

Le Grand Bleu has long lived by the maxim that doing good is good business, and now they’ve stepped it up a notch, putting their money where their mouth is, so to speak, and partnering with the Loerie Awards for Cleverness in Advertising, notably via their Unilever Ubuntu Award for Sustainable Marketing. The idea, you see, is to get crehaytives to get involved in making sustainable living commonplace – which is Unilever’s vision for itself as a company, and more ambitiously for South Africa and for Africa as a whole. One of the interesting features of this involvement, as detailed by Yaw Nsarkoh, the MD of Unilever Nigeria, is that while in the past the focus has been on the wonderful opportunity presented to marketers by the wide horizons and smiling happy consumers of Africa, a more gimlet-eyed view is needed of Africa as a place of notable challenges – like inequality – which businesses like Unilever could become involved in addressing.

Comment: Sound reasoning for any business which has aspirations beyond selling luxury to the 1%, on this continent or elsewhere.

If you wished to purchase a men’s undergarment on an auction, you’d want Bidvest to do it for you. Well, we assume that’s how they got their name anyway. But they’re pretty handy blokes to have around, whether you’re running a hotel kitchen or a mid-size pharmaceutical manufacturer. And now even these handy blokes are warning us about the state of the dear old economy, mentioning that they’d had a heck of a time of it these last three months, what with slower consumer spending and labour unrest. On the upside, however, they have just listed part of their business – Bidvest Foodservice – on the London Stock Exchange. This move has been brewing since an unnamed investor made an offer on the business some three years ago after some years of very attractive growth. For the financial year just gone, Foodservice at R102billion, was the single biggest contributor to Group revenue of R183.6billion. 

Comment: Something of an interloper in our own great industry, by virtue of their dealings with Adcock, but always one to watch anyway.

Last week we reported that SABMiller had put in an offer for Heineken, maker of the eponymous (ahem) brew, of the somewhat meatier Newkie Brown and of long-time rival for the affections of SA’s upscale pinters, Amstel. Those in the know say that the offer was simply an attempt to sidestep the long-rumoured acquisition by Anheuser-Busch Inbev of SABMiller itself. In the race to capture fast-growing emerging markets in places like China, Latin America and Africa, AB has dropped a cool $100billion in acquisitions in the last ten years. The purchase of Heineken could have closed the gap between the two big fellers somewhat. 

Comment: Although it is fondly to be hoped that the gap however small, remains, monopolies not being our sort of thing at all.

If you love retail shares (and we have been known to) you’re going to hate this. SGB Securities, who are said to know a thing or two about these sorts of things, have issued (if that’s what you do) “sell” recommendations on several retail stocks, including Pick n Pay (with a price target of R60), Massmart (R136), Clicks (R67) and – wait for it – Shoprite at R160. While these price targets may appear bullish, say the stern men and frosty women of SRG, they suggest that the companies’ re-rating may be driven by better working capital management rather than improved margins or an increase in turnover. After this, quite frankly, it all becomes a little arcane for us, and you may want to toddle over here for a more detailed squizz, if you like that sort of thing.

Comment: And we’re pretty sure you do.