Those Clicks results then, for which you’ve been clamouring like Halloween candy, you naughty scamps! Revenue up +10.9% to R28.34bn, profit after tax up +16.8% to R1.28bn. This is what we in the industry call “solid”, and attribute to the resilience of pharmacy and cosmetics even – perhaps particularly – in these troubled times and to the value of a large and nimble loyalty programme. Sales in the health and beauty brands were particularly strong, with The Body Shop, GNC and Claire’s up by +14.7%. Overall retail turnover was up +13.5%, while wholesaler UPD put in a respectable showing at +11.4% to R12.32 bn. And Mr Kneale revealed, with quiet pride, that Clicks was gaining market share even in the face of competitors like Dis-Chem – at the expense, it must be said, of the independents. Store numbers were up majorly this year, with the addition of 111 stores, including 80 secured through the outsourcing arrangement with Netcare, for a total of 622. 73 new pharmacies were added to existing stores.

Comment: Excellent work there, Clicks.

Shoprite is doubling its footprint in the burgeoning East African economy of Uganda, adding stores in Entebbe and Kamwokya to the two already on the ground, as rival Nakumatt struggles to find a foothold. Shoprite was the second international retailer to open shop after Metro, which subsequently shut down. Since then, its chief rivals for the hearts and wallets of the growing middle class have been East African outfits like Nakumatt and Uchumi. The business is also in talks to open up its first Kenyan store – in a location recently vacated by Nakumatt. This looks like the strategy of choice for Shoprite in East Africa’s biggest economy, where a more established retail market sets up higher barriers to entry. All of this just a couple of years after Shoprite, with characteristic pragmatism, closed shop in the frankly impossible geography of Tanzania.

Comment: Shoprite made it to 110 in the Deloitte Global Powers of Retailing survey last year, with now parent co. Steinhoff at 72. Just a hunch, but we reckon the Big Red One might make it into the top 100 in the next couple of years.

Extending its brand into underserved areas while giving a hand up to local entrepreneurs this week is Pick n Pay, whose first spaza modernisation store in the Western Cape opened in Gugulethu. Like its sisters in Gauteng, Nozinga’s Market offers punters an expanded range of products at supermarket prices, with all the convenience of a local spaza, as well as value-added services including money transfer, ticketing, airtime and data, bill payments, lottery tickets and the sale of prepaid electricity. Oh, and booze. And the programme offers owners like Pumla Rudah the training and resources she needed to bring her dream of starting a business to a reality employing 15 people. In other Pick n Pay news, the Big Blue has fired the first salvo in the pre-Christmas price wars, slashing the tags on 500 essential items and launching a veritable battalion of promotions and deals against its competitors.

Comment: Oh, it’s on, as out teenage son is often heard to remark as he girds himself for battle with the denizen of the Xbox. Pick n Pay is indeed throwing it down.

Our friends over at Anglovaal Industries (how that name swirls on the tongue, like an 18-year-old brandy) have the sort of problem we’d like to have: who to sell I&J to, and for how much? At least that’s what we assume. All we know for certain is that AVI have “received a number of expressions of interest for certain of its business units.” As I&J’s hake unit must by law be sold to a more empowered contender, four names ring in mind: Sea Harvest, Oceana, Premier Fishing and Brands (Premfish), and unlisted player Terrafin. None stands out as a firm favourite right now, with all sorts of pros and cons for each, and various combinations of synergies with I&J’s other units including its Aussie business and its abalone concession. And as long as they all have the R2bn odd the business is estimated to be worth, it’s anyone’s game.

Comment: Thrilling times if you’re AVI. Or one of the other businesses concerned. Or indeed a shareholder.

Rivals Astral Foods and Sovereign Foods have turned in some fairly tidy trading updates recently, proving that profit and poultry may yet be pronounced co-phrasally (Enough. Ed), and this means that RCL may not be as swift to unbundle its Rainbow Chickens unit as certain irresponsible speculators would have you believe. Rainbow itself has started to do better, shifting sales in the last year from the low-margin commodity business into higher-end foodservice, economising on production at the same time. This is important: RCL’s employee costs are around 17% of revenue compared with 10.5% at a similar business like Tiger Brands. It also boosted its share of the freezer-to-fryer market from 24% in June 2016 to a whacking 40% a year later.

Comment: So OK, parent company Remgro hasn’t exactly made a mint out of Rainbow these past how many years. But there’s change in the wind; perhaps now’s not the right time to get out of chicken. Or perhaps it is.

Newly-minted Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba’s mini-budget last week didn’t exactly have an approving house on its feet, nor did it send detractors scurrying in shame for the exits. Consider the numbers – tax revenue coming up short to the tune of R50.8bn in the current year, the budget deficit to widen to 4.3% of GDP – something Gigaba himself described as “a shocker for everybody”, and debt-to-GDP ratio rising to 60.8% over the next four years. Further ratings downgrades might well be in the offing, with Fitch pronouncing that the good Minister had failed to reveal measures to contain the impact of either the deficit or the debt. And lest you think our refuge may be found in some of the other indicators, Producer Price Inflation was up an unexpected +5.2% in September, reducing any chance of a rate cut later this year.

Comment: On the extremely slim upside, Gigaba has shown a refreshing willingness to acknowledge the magnitude of the problem, a necessary first step to seeking solutions.

In the UK, against mounting competitive and market pressures, as well as the growing power of online retail, Tesco has retrenched 2,000 staff, Sainsbury’s is due to retrench a similar number, and Asda is looking ominously to either cut staff or working hours. Across the pond, in the meantime, Walmart is unleashing shelf-scanning robots in 50 of its stores to help staff identify out of stocks and replenish them timeously, but not, of course to replace said staff. Yet. 01101000 01101001 00100001. 

The MySchool programme, whose partners include the Dapper One, has raised over R500m during its 20 years of existence, and is currently raising R6m a month through its 1.2 million supporters. And in other news, Woolworths has just been recognised as a global leader in sustainable water management by CDP, the non-profit global environmental disclosure platform.

Pick n Pay is beating Woolworths, Clicks and Game, any number of cute cat/llama combos and your last Mauritian holiday on Facebook, reporting over 1.7 million likes in the last three months. Elsewhere, Woolies is beating all comers with 400,000 twitter followers, 250,000 Instagram followers and 9 million views on YouTube. This according to research by Ornico, anyway. Our research indicates that they’re all pretty much even when it comes to mentions in a certain influential weekly e-newsletter though.