Two men arrived Down Under 30-odd years ago and had their laptops stolen the next day – but it was the start of something big. Picture: iStock Australia is a veritable graveyard when it comes to the fortunes of South African entities – especially retailers – trying their luck Down Under. Pick n Pay tried with Franklins and eventually sold that unit in 2012 after burning through a boatload of cash.
The canonical example is the department store David Jones, which Woolworths bought for roughly R21 billion in 2014. It sold that business in 2022 for R1.6 billion, resulting in a loss of more than R27 billion (given exchange rate dynamics). Its Country Road Group continues to struggle, despite various attempts at reorganising that unit.
TFG acquired a number of (menswear) brands in that market – Connor, Johnny Bigg, Tarocash and yd – but in the most recent six months, revenue slipped 0.3% and operating profit was down 18.4%. Of course, privately held fast food outfit Nando’s has been a success in Australia, with well over 100 locations, but is it a A$1 billion business? Then there is the South African business that entered the Australian market about three decades ago and is now selling that subsidiary for R26.5 billion.
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This is a remarkable return on the R10 million in ‘seed capital’ that Aspen Pharmacare invested in Australia all those years ago. Speaking to investors and analysts last week, CEO Stephen Saad said that when he and Gus Attridge, one of the founding shareholders of Aspen along with himself, arrived in Australia, they were “in their 30s” and “had a R10 million cheque”. We “bought some products” and “found two people” – one of whom, Trevor Ziman, regional CEO of Asia Pacific, is “still with us”. “And we bought two laptops and we thought we were really smart and we’re going to do something big in Australia …
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