BUY: Shoprite
Shoprite CEO Pieter Engelbrecht earned R117.8m in 2026, according to the latest financials. This amounts to R2.26m a week. It seems outrageous, but consider the following: Engelbrecht was appointed as COO in 2005 and worked with Whitey Basson, the legendary CEO, for 10 years. Shoprite continues to impress under Engelbrecht’s leadership — and the market took the shares to a record high earlier this month. Annual profit rose to R16.2bn, and this is not at the expense of the consumer. Shoprite’s chief sustainability officer, Sanjeev Raghubir, notes that a customer can walk into a Shoprite now and buy a loaf of bread for R5. In the 2025 financial year more than 13,000 products in its stores were cheaper than the previous year. Tellingly, Shoprite is now worth more than Pick n Pay, Spar, Woolworths and Boxer combined.
SELL: Pick n Pay
Pick n Pay is still battling for traction. The many years of strategy resets, management changes and costly restructuring have left it trailing Shoprite on growth, margins and customer momentum. Were it not for its holdings in Boxer, Pick n Pay would arguably no longer exist — remember that the sale of a third of its Boxer shares raised enough capital to allow Pick n Pay to pursue its turnaround plans. The Boxer listing was intended to unlock value and sharpen focus at Pick n Pay, but the core supermarket business remains problematic with patchy store standards, uneven pricing perception and Shoprite’s delivery literally eating Pick n Pay’s lunch. Debt and funding needs continue to constrain critical investment. History will show that recovery in grocery retail is slow and turnaround plans carry a high execution risk. Investors have been promised the “next phase” too often and until like-for-like sales growth and margins improve consistently, the shares look more like a speculative hope than a sound holding.
William Meyer is the chief investment officer at Fenestra Asset Management
