You’ve been pacing anxiously, and thrashing about in dampened sheets at night. Gnawing on pencil ends, and reaching for the Rothmans in your bottom drawer. Don’t attempt to deny it. But do take a breath, and relax a little. The Shoprite interims are in and they’re not bad. Turnover up 12.5%, with operating profit up 9%. Operating margin was down a tad, from 5.3% to 5.1%, but who’s counting, especially in these torrid economic times? Breaking it down, turnover at Shoprite supers was up 9.7%, Checkers 12.9%, and Usave up a big 13.6%. Moving north, constant currency growth in Africa is up 15.4%, despite the hit the low oil price has delivered to places like Angola and Nigeria. 

Comment: But you would have known all this had you been a Ti subscriber, and received our flash update on Tuesday.

Walmart’s fourth quarter, as you are by now aware, is the rough equivalent of everyone else’s entire last decade. Sales were up 1.4% to $130.7billion, with net income up 12.1% to $5billion. And revenue for the full fiscal year was R486billion, which sounds awfully impressive. But the really big news this cycle is that WalMart have finally done the right thing and succumbed to public opinion made the prudent choice and announced a raise for their staff. Pay will go up to $9 per hour this year and to $10 next year for the worst-paid workers, with 500,000 receiving increases. And investments are also to be made in training and scheduling. The shareholders are reportedly so thrilled that they went out and sold some of their stock in celebration. “We’re strengthening investments in our people to engage and inspire them to deliver superior customer experiences,” says CEO Doug McMillion.

Comment: “And also to stop them from whining to the media for the next ten years about not being paid minimum wage.”

We’re proud and happy to report that the Independent Trade is alive and well in South Africa. And not only that, but suppliers and service providers have a massive enthusiasm for this sector, the soul and cornerstone of the industry. Or so we are led to believe by the wonderful response to our Independent Trade Forum, which we held in Jozi last week. Delegates awarded the event an impressive four out of five and spoke in glowing terms of the quality of presentations – both by our own CEO Maryla Masojada and by the speakers from the industry who gave so generously of their time and insights.

Those Rainbow Chicken interims then …only kidding, those RCL Foods results: revenue up 38.8% to R12.0 billion for the six months ending December, with headline earnings up 70c per share. As you know, there has been a significant rejigging of the model, with Remgro backing the business as the Next Big Thing in Food, and a major restructuring which sees the advent of two new business clusters: ‘Consumer’, which includes Rainbow and Foodcorp’s Grocery, Beverage, Pie and Speciality divisions and ‘Sugar & Milling’ which includes TSB, Rainbow’s Feed division Epol and Foodcorp’s Milling and Baking divisions. The ‘Big Wheel Keep on Turning’ cluster continues to consist only of Vector Logistics, and isn’t actually even called that. 

Comment: The inexorable rise of Rainbow is certain to put the wind up the competition, and will, we predict, be one of the big stories for the next decade or so.

The Rhodes Food Group is an impressive young outfit, all taut of thigh and bursting with energy. This week they’re on something of an acquisition spree, buying Boland Pulp, which apparently does not feature a darkly hilarious comeback performance by John Travolta but rather makes fruit puree, and Deemster, who is not your wacky and probably alcoholic friend from res but a business which manufactures pickled foodstuffs. For these they will fork over R101million and R10million respectively, in their quest to diversify the business out of the narrow canned fruit, jam, vegetable and meat products, fresh ready-made meals, pies, pastries and dairy products niche they currently occupy. 

Comment: We shall observe Rhodes’ progress with considerable interest, and may even think about partially funding their studies at Stellenbosch in 10 years’ time.

It’s not a boom, perhaps not even a recovery. But it’s better than a slap in the face with a wet fish, so to speak. Retail Trade Sales for the merry month of December were up 3.4% YOY, after increasing just 2.5% in November. This was their strongest showing since last January, although to be fair they actually fell month on month, after ticking slightly up in both of the preceding months. The big contributors this time around – if big they may be called – were retailers in textiles, clothing, footwear and leather goods, and general dealers, which put us in mind of aproned men with wire-rimmed spectacles and handlebar moustaches selling blankets and dried beans to prospectors. Or indeed some of the 203,000 people who found employment in the last quarter, and on whom economists are attempting to pile at least some of the responsibility for the improvement. 

Comment: Long may it last…

Distell is dead keen to grow its African business, which contributes 55%, or R3billion, to the liquor outfit’s international revenue in the six months to December. Africa, you see, delivers margin of 23% to 26%. Sales back home, still making up 70% of group revenue, grew 13% for the period, for a total R7.9billion, with operating profit up 30%.

That fabled SABMiller takedown may be edging closer, just sayin’. This after the news this weekend that Brazilian investment outfit 3G Capital was considering a bid of £75billion for the big feller, at a premium of 32% over SAB’s actual value. 3G, it is not irrelevant to note, own 21% of Anheuser Busch…