Pepkor CEO sells half a billion rand of shares

The transactions were part of a ‘periodic process’ by an associate of Erasmus’s, Vista Treasury, to rebalance ‘its investment portfolio’. Picture: Pepkor website The CEO of Pepkor, Pieter Erasmus, has sold shares in the group with a total value of R531.3 million. The transactions were affected across three days in early February.

In total, Erasmus sold 20 million shares in the retailer, at prices of between R26.10 and R27.27 per share. The shares were sold by an associate of Erasmus’s, Vista Treasury, which says the transactions were “part of its periodic process to re-balance its investment portfolio”. These shares were acquired in a number of complex transactions by Vista as part of the Steinhoff (now Ibex) global settlement concluded in 2022.

Until this sale, Vista held 60 million shares in the retailer. On 28 March 2025, Pepkor says it was informed that “Vista became entitled to require Ainsley to make a distribution, which, if not effected in accordance with the terms of the Class A ordinary shares, would entitle Vista to exercise its rights under the pledge agreement”. Vista exercised its rights under that agreement and subsequently took transfer of 60 million shares in Pepkor from Ainsley in early April.

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Ainsley then informed Pepkor that it had begun legal proceedings to “challenge Vista’s position regarding this matter”. A settlement was reached in August last year where Vista agreed to return the shares to Ainsley. It then acquired these from Ainsley at R27.096 per share with the holding equating to 1.6% of Pepkor’s current shares in issue.

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