So here’s how it’s going to go down, listen carefully: Shoprite are going to acquire the African retail assets of Steinhoff, including Pep, Ackermans, the Speciality Group, including Shoe City, John Craig, Refinery and Dunns, and the Pep and Ackermans African operations. And for this lot, Shoprite will pay Steinhoff handsomely, in shares, following which Steinhoff will hold a “significant interest” in the newly-bolstered Shoprite Group. The value of the transaction will be negotiated, we are told, “taking into account the best interests of both Steinhoff and Shoprite shareholders.” Both of which groups include, as you know, a Mr. C. Wiese. The resulting entity will be known with a certain justifiable inevitability as Retail Africa, and it will have sufficient heft to see off any global competitors, positioning the combined businesses as the leading multi-format discount retailer on this majestic continent we call home. Additional benefits will include infrastructure and services sharing; product specialization and indeed product diversification; supply chain optimisation; customer loyalty, choice and convenience; and people management benefits. As part of the deal, Steinhoff will also be buying out the respective Shoprite shareholdings of Titan and the PIC in a share exchange.

Comment: Impressive. Great for the business in Africa, although back here at home we might feel a certain sense of disquiet at this massive chunk of consolidation hurtling toward the retail industry like the asteroid out of ‘Armageddon’.

Did someone say something about a mega merger? Pffft. The really big news this week is that you won’t have to pause The Crown on Netflix just because you decided to pop out for some fresh pasta and organic tomatoes. Your favourite retailer (if you’re of the pinot-swilling, Tatler-reading demographic), you see, has launched free Wi-Fi in 85 stores. And that’s not all: in order to meet the demand of its double-digit growth in online sales over the holiday period (half of that in mobile, much of it in staples like bread, milk, meat and salads and holiday fares such as bubbly and gifting items), Woolies has also opened its first dedicated warehouse, to provide the storage and delivery of online clothing, beauty and homeware products. Rather delightfully, it is calling this facility a “dark store”.

Comment: This puts us in mind, rather, of Gru in “Despicable Me” – a black suited villain with a heart of gold…

Punctuationally-challenged GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and local heroes Aspen Pharmacare have agreed to end their partnership in Sub-Saharan Africa, where for some years now the latter has been flogging the former’s drugs hand over fist, resulting in R2.6billion of gross revenue in the 2016 FY. The arrangement will continue as it has in South Africa, though, suggesting that the split elsewhere may be amicable – as amicable, in fact, as only a £45million exit payout from GSK could make it. The fact that GSK’s chief strategy officer, David Redfern, is staying on the Aspen board is also salient. GSK are also disposing of the remaining 6.2% interest they own in Aspen, a divestment they began in 2013. Aspen will also be acquiring from GSK, for the probably not coincidental sum of £45 million, anaesthetic drugs Fraxiparine and Arixtra in certain countries in which GSK has the rights, most notably China. In other Aspen news, the pharmaceutical giant welcomes the 7.5% increase in the single exit price for medicines and scheduled substances announced by the health minister last week.

Comment: M’s, A’s and JV’s seem common in the world of Big Pharma, with no hard feelings either way.

We closed last year on the sad news that RCL Foods, a business which has worked hard creatively to resist the avalanche of cheap chicken being dumped on the South African market, was set to retrench half of the workers in its Hammarsdale plant at the end of January. Some of these workers are understandably bitter, although the Food and Allied Workers’ Union (Fawu) has been perhaps surprisingly understanding: “The companies are the victims,” says FAWU general secretary Katishi Masemola. “Fawu demands that government hikes import tariffs on chicken,” he concludes. RCL MD Scott Pitman agrees: “Our company’s troubles could end and jobs (be) saved overnight if the government placed tighter regulations on imports,” he avers. Some commentators are comparing the situation in poultry to the destruction of the South African garment industry when retailers like Mr Price began importing cheap and nasty clothing from places like China.

Comment: A fine line between the rights of consumers to the cheapest chicken they can get their hands on and the obligation – and ability – of capital to create jobs and grow the economy.

Here’s one for the next dinner party: it is cheaper for South Africa to import stuff from Brazil – feedstock, sugar, dirt cheap chicken – than it is to bring stuff in from Zambia. This is because the costs for overland cross-border freight are in some instances double what they should be, and higher than in regions like Europe and North America – despite the fact that the various input costs, like vehicles, fuel and drivers’ pay – are lower. This according to a new research paper by something called a “global think tank.” Researchers from this organisation, which is called the Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development (CCRED), have found that a 50% reduction in freight costs would make regional suppliers 10% cheaper and thus able to compete with deep-water alternatives like Brazil. This would be hugely advantageous for Zambia, for instance, which while it enjoys substantial production advantages in both feedstock and sugar production, loses out to Brazil because of freight inefficiencies. While SA has bilateral transport agreements with places like Zambia, adherence to the provisions thereof is patchy. And bribes are an integral and substantial part of the cost of doing business.

Comment: The free market, we are beginning to understand, is anything but free.

If you like to read between the lines, try these ones. SPAR has announced that it will stand surety for TIL JV Finance Designated Activity Company (a subsidiary of TIL JV Ltd) in Ireland, in favour of Barclays Bank, to the tune of €15.6 million, a sum SPAR is confident will sort out any solvency issues the business may have. TIL JV is housed in BWG House, BWG being the Irish business of which SPAR acquired an 80% majority last year. Rum.

And in our last word this week on the subject of mergers and acquisitions, AB InBev has agreed to sell SABMiller’s stake in South African in the Distell Group to the Public Investment Corporation, removing a significant roadblock in the way of the Big Freakin’ Deal (BFD). The PIC will buy the 26.4% stake for an undisclosed sum, although based on the current price, $640million-odd would be reasonable.