Episode Transcript
The Finance Ghost: Welcome to episode 260 of Magic Markets. We’re going to be talking about some retail-type concepts today – specifically, some retailers, not just concepts. And even more specifically, some of the names that are playing in value retail and how well they’ve done, because there is a big world out there beyond just Big Tech.
Some of those Big Tech names are becoming only Medium-Sized Tech at the moment. Sell-offs like Software as a Service (SaaS), etcetera, are pretty ugly. We’ve just covered Alphabet in Magic Markets Premium.
By the way, we have a brand-new look and feel in Magic Markets Premium, which I love. I know I’m biased, but I’m very proud of it. I think it looks very cool.
So, if you’ve previously been with us in Premium and you’ve wondered about coming back, or if you want to give it a try for the first time, now is the time. It’s still only R99 a month. We’ve left it there since we launched to try and make it as accessible as possible for South Africans.
Glad we didn’t price it in dollars, Moe. It would have looked really good for a while, but not so great anymore, hey?
Mohammed Nalla: Indeed, Ghost. R99 is now a little bit more in dollar terms!
Ghost, retail – it’s been so interesting. We’ve just gone through the festive season. We’re just ahead of the earnings releases from some of the big retail names in the US. I know Walmart’s probably due in about a month (or in a couple of weeks’ time, at least). We’ve got Costco coming up there.
But again, I think it’s important just to have a look – it’s a bit of a temperature check – at what’s been happening. Because on the macro side, you get the talk that the US consumer’s been pretty resilient.
How resilient does it actually look when you scratch a little bit further, when you go beneath the surface? We’re going to try to unpack that. Bring that into what the performance has been of some of these big US names.
And then you’re going to compare that to South African retailers, because, remarkably, I would say South African retail’s done pretty okay in terms of the operational performances of some of the businesses.
I’ve been following Shoprite quite closely, and I’m very impressed with what they’ve done in the e-commerce space…
The Finance Ghost: World-class. Literally, world-class.
Mohammed Nalla: ...Absolutely. It’s almost as though some of the executives fly abroad, look at best practices, and bring that back down to South Africa. They’ve just really delivered something that I would say is world-class.
I could easily walk into a new-format Checkers store down in South Africa and be as impressed, if not more impressed, than by the grocery offering that I have here in Canada at the moment.
Let’s not get too sidetracked. I want to just touch on a couple of macro points, and then we can go into the companies specifically.
One of the trends that we actually highlighted in the deep dives we did into some of these global retailers last year was this distinct shift from consumers into a much more value-driven focus.
You saw this at big players like Costco. Costco is famous for its own private-label Kirkland Signature brand.
People are moving away from the bigger brands that are housed by companies like PepsiCo, for example, and they’re then moving into these private-label products like Kirkland at Costco.
Walmart’s got this thing called Great Value. I know you have Walmart down in South Africa, now – they’ve got Great Value. Up here in North America, Great Value’s pretty impressive.
So I don’t know what the experience is. I’ve heard it’s pretty poor down in South Africa. Maybe it’s early days…
The Finance Ghost: It’s just a rebranded Game at the moment, literally. We’ll see what they do with it, but literally, that’s what they’ve done. They’ve changed Games into Walmarts. That’s exactly what they’ve done. So, it’s going to take time.
Mohammed Nalla: Which I think is a bit of a disservice. Let’s maybe touch on that, because if I’m going to be talking about Walmart, people are going to be like, "What is Moe on about? Why is he so optimistic about Walmart? Why does he like it so much?"
I would say, given the pictures I’ve seen from South Africa versus my Walmart experience up here in Canada, Walmart’s pretty impressive up here. They are really the dominant retailer.
One of the reasons why this topic is really quite relevant is that just last week (or maybe the week before), Walmart actually surpassed the $1 trillion market cap range. Now, this is remarkable because usually that’s reserved for the big tech names.
I think it’s the first retailer to actually crack that size, so that tells you how impressive Walmart actually is. How well they’ve been doing. And they are a key beneficiary of this consumer who has been shifting towards a much more value-oriented focus.
It’s not to say consumers aren’t spending, but they’re not spending on the high street. They’re not spending at the big branded malls. They’re not spending at the retailers that are arguably still full-price.
They’re going to players like Walmart and another company we’ve covered, TJX. They focus on the fashion side of things, and again, there, very much a value focus coming through.
The Finance Ghost: And Moe, just to give you the actual stats here on Walmart in South Africa, I just checked: they’re actually opening their third one now, in Boksburg (not their third one in Boksburg, their third store, which happens to be in Boksburg).
The first two were also up in Joburg, so three stores in Gauteng, that’s it. Very, very slow start. Clearwater, Fourways Mall, and now Boksburg. So, it’s going to take them time.
I think they know how hard it is, but we’ll see. If they can bring any of the international success here, then it’s going to be a very, very interesting footprint that they might build out.
Mohammed Nalla: Indeed. Let’s maybe talk about what Walmart’s been doing right, because when I got here around six years ago, Walmart wasn’t notably impressive. You went to Walmart, but it wasn’t the place that you wanted to go and shop at.
What they’ve gotten right is their store footprint – very accessible, you can get a Walmart in most locations, so that’s very strong. As they build that out in South Africa, you might start to get some of that benefit coming through, in terms of store footprint.
Then, what Walmart did is they rebranded some of their stores. They made the aisles a lot wider; it’s an easier shopping experience.
And then, something that I was very bullish about, early days with Walmart, is that they redid their entire e-commerce offering. They developed this app, which was really quite impressive. They made it easy to deliver.
So, that’s placed Walmart on an even keel with a player like Amazon. I can click on Walmart, and I can get same-day delivery from Walmart. I don’t have to pay extra for that, and that has actually meant they’ve won additional share of wallet.
That’s very important because, as I said, the reason we’re trying to unpack some of this is that it’s showing some of those underlying fragilities behind the consumer looking at buying down – the value consumer. This has important implications in terms of product mix.
Why is product mix important? With retailers, product mix has a very direct bearing on margin mix for the retailer. They don’t make a heck of a lot of money out of consumer staples; that pretty much brings the consumer into the store. They make more money on consumer discretionary.
If Walmart’s able to bring people into the store on a consumer staples basis, the likelihood that they will then spend that additional discretionary spend at Walmart becomes higher, and that becomes an unlock for higher margins at the group as a whole.
The Finance Ghost: And that logistics underpinning that you talk about there at Walmart is really, really important. That, I think, is what Shoprite’s done so well in South Africa: they’ve now built Sixty60 as a fulfilment engine.
Yes, it might say ‘Checkers’ all over the scooters, but (and I don’t know if you’ll know this because you obviously are not down here much anymore) Checkers – or Shoprite, rather – is rolling out all these new growth engines: Petshop Science, a whole lot of other new formats, UNIQ clothing, etcetera.
How long do you think it takes until that Sixty60 ecosystem, that fulfilment engine, basically just gets layered on top of all of this? So, you’ve just got one omnichannel offering across that entire footprint. Good luck, competitors. That’s all I’ll say.
Mohammed Nalla: [laughing] It’s such an important point, right? It’s why I love this conversation. That’s pretty much what Walmart’s done here. Walmart, the store formats are pretty broad, you cover everything, right? You’ve got staples, discretionary, electronics.
And what they’ve done is they’ve built that fulfilment engine on the back end. In the early days, it was quite scrappy, truth be told.
I actually remember I ordered a basket of goods, and specifically, there was a box of tea that I was buying. It wasn’t able to be fulfilled at my local store, which meant it had to be delivered separately, so it came via courier.
I was blown away. They actually shipped me a box of tea all the way from Ottawa, which is like three hours away. So, I think they’ve gotten a lot better at that, but it’s so easy once you’ve actually got all of these different angles, different product categories.
If you have an efficient logistics and fulfilment engine to layer on top of your entire offering, that becomes very easy, and it then entrenches you as the dominant player.
Ghost, I’m going to pause there because, as I said, we’re still waiting for results out of these big retailers up here.
What I’m going to be watching for is how the holiday season has actually gone. What’s actually happened in e-commerce? Because you get some seasonality that comes through there.
And do we see some of these trends that move towards value actually sustained? Do they extend a little bit further? What does that mean for the competitive dynamic?
I’ll get into that in my last talking point because I like to compare share price performance and movement, but I want to hear more about the retail experience down in South Africa. What have the retailers been doing there?
Because if I look at the share price performance, it’s been pretty lacklustre over the course of the last year, despite this very strong operational performance from Shoprite. It doesn’t come through in the share price.
It comes through in the relative performance, yes, sure. But in absolute terms, despite the fact that the rand has been pretty strong, I think those retailers, the share price – that hasn’t been very exciting.
The Finance Ghost: Lacklustre is a very kind way to describe the broader retail sector. I think you were using it there with reference to Shoprite specifically, which would be right.
But if you have a look at the broader sector, it’s horrible if you include apparel, and there are a couple of hideous grocery names as well.
It’s actually been a really, really tough sector – it was picking up pennies in front of a steamroller for the last 12 months, to be honest.
Mohammed Nalla: In fact, I’m so glad you mentioned that, because apparel, right? We’ve discussed this bifurcation that’s come through in terms of consumer staples versus discretionary.
You’re right. When I was referring to lacklustre, that was just Shoprite. Your clothing retailers – they’ve been absolutely horrible.
And maybe that’s a reflection of consumers who are either choosing value or under pressure – less discretionary spend, but still staples, you’ve got to buy your food to eat. Is that partially behind some of that divergence you’ve seen in South Africa?
The Finance Ghost: It is, partially. Apparel’s also been suffering with things like Chinese competitors – Temu, Shein, obviously. And also, it’s semi-durable, right? It’s consumer discretionary: you have to eat, you don’t have to buy new clothes.
They all keep blaming online betting, and there’s obviously some truth in that, because I know a lot of money is starting to go into online betting. Whether or not that’s the reason for the poor performance of some of these names, I think, is a little bit of a happy scapegoat, I’ll be honest.
But let’s focus on grocery, because that is, of course, what we wanted to talk about today.
One of the themes that I wanted to give you, before we get into some of the specifics – and only because you mentioned the festive season trading and how you’re waiting to see how the retailers did – one of the very clear themes that came through in recent updates down here is that there has been a pull-forward of demand from Christmas into Black Friday, without a doubt.
More people are starting to do their festive shopping as part of their Black Friday shopping, so you’re seeing November becoming a relatively better month for retailers versus historical levels where December was a better month for retailers.
Now – this is more my thesis than anything else, but I’ve run this past a few people in the industry, and they haven’t shouted me down – I think a lot more Black Friday shopping tends to happen online versus walking around malls, etcetera. People are not on leave yet.
So, what does that mean for landlords? What does that mean for footfall? Well, if we get away from a trudging-around-the-malls-doing-Christmas-shopping vibe, then that’s not great news for landlords, right?
Omnichannel is interesting because if you fulfil from the stores in the mall, then it counts as a sale, and so your turnover-linked clauses still trigger. That is very important. Otherwise, the landlords would have been in serious trouble already.
So, a lot of really interesting stuff happening at the moment, with property and with these stores as well.
But just some of the recent share price performances, I’ll pick out a few just in grocery. Boxer, in the past year, up 11% – yay. That’s literally the pick of the litter, so brace yourself. It only gets worse than that.
Shoprite, down 6.5% (and that’s a great business). Pick n Pay, down almost 24% (that is not a great business). SPAR, down 39% (that is definitely not a great business).
The thing I just want to pick out there, as you react and think through some of those share price moves, is that Pick n Pay owns about 65.5% of Boxer.
Boxer’s up 11%, Pick n Pay’s down 23.9%. What does that tell you immediately? It tells you that the market is heavily discounting the rest of Pick n Pay, ex-Boxer. Now, if you go and do the maths, it gets even scarier.
If you just take Pick n Pay’s look-through exposure (so you basically literally take percentage stake times Boxer’s market cap), and then you compare that to Pick n Pay’s market cap, Pick n Pay (the rest of Pick n Pay) is currently valued at less than zero. In fact, it is valued at significantly less than zero.
Now, you need to make another adjustment here. You need to apply a marketability discount to that Boxer stake, because Pick n Pay cannot wake up tomorrow and sell 65% of Boxer overnight to whoever they want. That’s not realistic.
So, if you apply a marketability, kind of ‘holdco’ discount of 20% – 25% (very much market-related), you roughly get to maths where Pick n Pay is valued at zero inside the broader Pick n Pay group.
It’s all Boxer. You can either go buy Boxer, or you can buy a look-through to Boxer, but people are not buying the Pick n Pay story.
So what does that tell you? Well, Valuations 101, right? The valuation is a function of future cash flows. It tells you that the market does not believe that the rest of Pick n Pay’s business is capable of generating positive cash flows over any length of time.
Why is that the case? Because grocery is a scale business. It has ultra-thin margins. You need to go to your suppliers, and you need to get volume-based rebates and discounts, because you’re selling a lot of stuff.
So, if you are shrinking to survive (like Pick n Pay is trying to do), that doesn’t work in grocery land. It just doesn’t work at all, because a smaller store base is just a worse retailer overall.
The economics just get worse all the time – you have less buying power; you have a higher cost to serve.
I think the key difference in apparel – and this is something Woolworths has done really well, by the way. They have actually shrunk into prosperity in their FBH (Fashion, Beauty, Home) business.
But I think the reason for that is, in apparel, you’ve got a different product range to the store next door, so you can get away with being a more focused, smaller offering. Plus, you’ve got online, which is a really important channel, and you’ve got the ability to make omnichannel work for you.
But in grocery, why would you walk into a store that is just worse than the one next door? It has less stuff; the assortment isn’t as interesting.
Bigger is not always better in grocery, but convenience counts for something, otherwise you might as well just go on your app. So, if you now have to travel further to find your nearest Pick n Pay when you could just go to the Checkers that just replaced them in the mall down the road, why would you do this?
The products are almost homogeneous. Yes, there’s some differentiation, there’s some private label stuff, but bread is bread. Milk is milk, to a very large extent. You can get this stuff wherever you want. You don’t have to drive – and people don’t drive.
So, that’s a reason why you can’t shrink into prosperity as a grocery retailer. And that, Moe, if I can just start with Pick n Pay, is why I think Pick n Pay’s down so sharply.
I’ll let you potentially jump in there, because I want to go through each of those four names and that’s Pick n Pay out of the way.
Mohammed Nalla: Wow. I’ve got nothing to say there. Pick n Pay has been just this terrible story. There was a time when Pick n Pay was, effectively, the Walmart of South Africa. They were a dominant player, and they’ve just really fallen from grace. I’m not going to dwell on that.
My mom, for example, has a Pick n Pay within walking distance of her. It’s so terrible that she chooses to drive to the nearest Checkers in another suburb, in order to shop there. So, that tells you the whole story you need to know about Pick n Pay.
Shoprite’s done well; we’ve kind of touched on that. You might actually unpack that.
What’s also remarkable for me is that you mentioned ‘shrinking into success’, which Woolworths has kind of done. Woolworths had a very clearly defined niche, with regard to their clothing as well as their food offering, and I think Shoprite has chipped away at that food offering a little bit.
The closest comparative to Woolworths would be Marks & Spencer in the UK, and they’ve done pretty decently. In dollar terms, over the course of the last year, they’re up 20%. So again, there’s probably something more than just operational performance here. It’s obviously the temperature of the South African consumer as a whole.
I don’t know if you had any of the pharmacy companies on your list. I know when I looked at some of these performances, I looked at Dis-Chem; I looked at Clicks, as well. Those have actually outperformed some of the other ‘staples’ businesses, so maybe there’s some of that defensive element coming through there.
And they’ve done decently, even in dollar terms, if you compare them to some of the global competitors. But I’m going to let you jump into that, because you have a couple of names to get through there.
The Finance Ghost: Yeah, look – those are great businesses. I didn’t include them in the grocery subset here. They are very good, but they trade at big valuations.
And so what happens is, as people are starting to rotate out of some of these big defensive quality stocks, looking for other growth options on the JSE – because it seems that this is what’s happening on the JSE: ironically, the better South Africa looks, the lower the valuation on the quality stuff and the better the valuation becomes on the more scrappy stuff. And I guess you’ve just got this pool of capital that needs to chase risk-adjusted returns.
That’s actually why Shoprite’s share price is down. It’s valuation sensitivity. The JSE, in my experience, gets pretty nervous above 20x P/E (Price-to-Earnings ratio). That seems to be a big psychological level. I’ve been watching that.
They have slower growth in Supermarkets RSA. They’re still doing well, but it’s slowing down. That’s obviously because, over time, Pick n Pay closed a whole bunch of stores that they could kind of jump into. That was one quick win.
For a business the size of Shoprite to grow at 6% or 7% a year… The rand value of those sales, those incremental sales, is absolutely mind-boggling. They just can’t do it forever. So, in a low-growth economy, that’s just how it is.
You’ve got that capital rotation point that I’ve already talked about. And there’s some good stuff at Shoprite that the market seems to be kind of saying, "Yeah, yeah, okay." Those new growth engines they’re incubating – that thing I talked about earlier with the layer of Sixty60 logistics – might be small now, but it does give you some upside optionality.
But the fight against Shoprite is actually being done very well by Boxer. So, Boxer is very much Pick n Pay’s fighter here – pun intended. That’s the business that works. It’s a pure-play discounter. They are a beneficiary of the informal-into-formal grocery shift.
They have a much simpler model. It’s fewer SKUs (Stock Keeping Units), simpler logistics, faster stock turn – it’s a discounter model.
If you’ve ever been in a business like this – and I’ve been to a Boxer – you go in, and it’s a big shelf that has a particular type of product, maybe there are two different brands, and that’s it. There is tonnes of stock on the shelf, but there’s not a lot of assortment.
Just a much simpler business to run, and that gives you better prices – and these are the most price-sensitive consumers in the country.
It also means that Boxer can focus on private label (that’s a feature of discount retail), and the margins on that are often at least as good as, if not better than, selling the branded stuff.
So, very, very strong business, Boxer. Doing a wonderful job of competing with Shoprite (and Usave, specifically, within the Shoprite Group).
And then Shoprite Group (I know it gets a bit confusing) – Checkers seems to be their really good story over the last few years, eating Woolworths’ lunch quite literally. Woolworths has at least started to compete successfully again. Pick n Pay is just kind of losing out to everyone at the moment.
Moe, I’m just going to deal with SPAR quickly, and then we can bring this one home in the interest of time. SPAR, the worst one of the four, right? As I said, it was down pretty horribly in the last year – what was it, like 39%? Not good.
It’s because their offshore stuff just keeps breaking. Every time we think we’re done with a broken offshore business, there’s another one that’s broken, and then there’s another one that they need to sell. It just gets worse.
So, the European acquisitions are an overhang (the few European things they have left), and the market’s not willing to forgive that just yet.
But I think the bigger issue they’ve got at SPAR is the omnichannel model. Or rather, the franchise model and how difficult it makes omnichannel.
Because if you think about it, there’s no single source of truth on the inventory in the store. The SPAR near my house is its own operating business. SPAR Head Office has no idea what they have on the shelf. That SPAR is not even forced to buy everything from SPAR’s DCs (distribution centres).
In fact, that’s one of the unique elements of the SPAR model: if you’re a franchisee, it’s your business. If you buy wholesale through SPAR, that’s your choice. If you want to buy directly from others, that’s also your choice.
It’s why SPAR has always had a very strong convenience-retail flavour, and they’ve always been the ‘neighbourhood grocery store’ – because their stock is based on that neighbourhood. A SPAR in a more expensive area is going to have a very different assortment to a SPAR in a cheaper area, for example.
In theory, that should work brilliantly. But now, with omnichannel retail and more and more people buying online (whether that’s from Woolworths, Checkers, or even Pick n Pay), it’s much more difficult for SPAR to get that right.
They have something called SPAR2U. I think I’ve seen a SPAR2U vehicle on the road probably five times. And I have a SPAR near my house, a good one.
A Checkers Sixty60 scooter, these days, you have to be careful not to knock them over at the robot, because I guarantee you, there is one around you. If you don’t know that, it’s just because you haven’t seen it, but it’s there. They are everywhere.
So, that’s the challenge for SPAR – that the convenience model has come under a lot of strain from omnichannel.
You’ll notice that very few of these things I’ve talked to are hardcore, number-related, valuation-type concepts, etcetera. And that really is the last point I wanted to make: investing is also about applying common sense.
Looking at the world around you and looking at your own buying habits and the habits of your friends, your peer group. Yes, you have to try and adjust for anecdotal stuff, but you can learn a lot by just observing the world around you and then looking at the valuation, for example, and trying to figure out what the best punt might be.
So, will Pick n Pay and SPAR turn this around? Can they play catch-up? Personally, I don’t think Pick n Pay can. I think it’s too far gone. I think their model… I don’t know what their model is now. They’re just like a bad Shoprite. They don’t have a key differentiator at all.
Whereas SPAR, at least, has that neighbourhood-grocery feeling, and a lot of the SPAR problems are at the head office level, not at the store level. So, there has to be a bottom somewhere for SPAR, and that, sadly, is the one that I backed as a turnaround.
It hasn’t worked. I didn’t buy it at a big valuation, luckily. I’m pretty much back where I started now with it, last time I looked. So, we’ll see what happens there. Tough place to play. Really, really tough place, grocery retail.
Mohammed Nalla: Ghost, I like that comment you made around common sense – look at where you’re spending money, look at where your family and friends are spending money. And sometimes, the expensive valuation is telling you something. The momentum runs away with that.
We’ve said that, for example, on some of the US stocks we cover, sometimes you’ve got to buy the best player in that industry and then just ride it, even though the valuation looks a little bit extended.
That being said, I’m going to try to wrap this in terms of a quick look at some of those international names we mentioned. We’ve spoken a lot about Walmart, so I’m going to use that as the anchor.
Over the last 12 months, let’s call it, all in dollar terms (because I’ve looked at some of the US names, I’ve looked at some of the UK names as well), Walmart’s up around 27%. That is a very strong performance. It’s why they’ve gone past that $1 trillion valuation.
We’ve also compared it to Costco. Costco was a very strong (or is a very strong) business. You mentioned limited SKUs; a warehouse model. Costco effectively defined that. And over the last 12 months, Costco – down around 4%.
So, why would that be the case? That’s the valuation point coming through. Because around a year ago, Costco was trading at a premium to some of the other retailers that are out there.
And again, the market may be effectively rotating out of that into some of the other names on a valuation basis, maybe also on a growth basis.
Then I cast a slightly wider lens. You spoke about Pick n Pay. When I think of Pick n Pay, I think of Target in the US, because Target – terrible year, minus 12% there. Kroger (that’s a middle-of-the-road kind of retailer), they’re up around 3%, call it 4%, there and thereabouts.
And so there’s been a lot of movement, even within that retail sector, just within the US – lots of divergence, some strong players, some weaker players.
Ghost, the thing that stood out the most for me – you don’t have a direct comparative in the listed space down in South Africa, but it’s the dollar stores. Because you’ve got two big players here: Dollar General and Dollar Tree. Those companies are shooting the lights out.
And let me contextualise that. I mentioned Walmart, up around 27%. Dollar Tree, up 70% – that’s more than double what Walmart’s up over the last year. And then Dollar General, up 100%.
So, when I say there are signs of cracks in the US consumer, that’s where it’s starting to show up. People are definitely buying down that value chain.
And then, if we actually widen that lens, I’ve included Tesco (that’s in the UK) – 27%, pretty decent performance there, actually on par with Walmart.
And then even Marks & Spencer (the UK Woolworths, if you want to call it that), up around 21% over the last 12 months. That’s all in dollar terms. Yes, there’s some currency movement that obviously changes those numbers around.
And so, when you look at those performances versus the performances of even the best South African companies down there, you can actually see that international investing makes a lot of sense, right?
It’s why we’ve covered international stocks in Magic Markets Premium. We’ve covered some of these retailers there as well.
And lastly, the point I want to land on is: if I’m looking at just valuations (whether it’s a forward P/E or a historic P/E), yes, the US names are pretty well baked. If you’re looking at Walmart, that’s trading at around a staggering 40x earnings. That’s really remarkable for a retailer.
Costco, still, even though it’s had a lacklustre year, is currently above 50% or there and thereabouts. So, it’s very expensive to buy US retailers.
Some of those dollar-store names I mentioned – Dollar Tree, Dollar General – they’re down around the 20x earnings mark. So again, now starting to look similar to some of the better South African retailers that you’ve actually got out there.
But then, very importantly, you’ve got to widen the lens. Because the theme we discuss on Magic Markets time and time again is, maybe ex-US, what have the European companies traded at? And there you’re getting Tesco at around, I would say, 15x to 20x, there and thereabouts.
So, pay attention, because there are international businesses that you can buy at similar valuation multiples to some of the South African names. And if you’re really looking at growth dynamics, should we be comparing the UK to South Africa?
Well, I would say South Africa’s an emerging market, but it does still exhibit a slow growth trajectory. And so I would say that comparison, when you’re looking at the consumer, certainly when it comes to things like staples, I would say that’s still a relevant comparison.
Ghost, I’m happy to leave it there, in the interest of time. I think it’s been a very interesting show, lots to unpack here.
But I want to hear from our listeners: what do you think of the show? If you haven’t checked out Magic Markets Premium, go and check that out – a whole new look and feel, great content in there at only R99 a month.
And if you’re interested in how these international stocks look relative to some of the names you see down in South Africa, I think that’s still some of the best money you can spend, in terms of deep bottom-up research.
The Finance Ghost: Last point, Moe. That Dollar-Tree kind of vibe? The Crazy Store, in South Africa. That’s the winner. But it’s private, from what I understand. They’ve had approaches before.
It’s family-owned, it’s a private business (a very, very good one), and gigantic. You might remember the yellow ducks as their mascot.
Mohammed Nalla: Maybe now you know why it’s private. No need to list if you’re making lots of money and you’re doing it pretty successfully, all well and good.
The Finance Ghost: Many companies taking that route. We’ll leave it there. Thank you to our listeners. We’ll be back next week. We’ve had a blast, and good luck in the markets.
Mohammed Nalla: Remember to hit us up on social media. It’s @MagicMarketsPod, @FinanceGhost and @MohammedNalla, all on X. Or you can find us on LinkedIn. Pop us a note on there. Until next week – same time, same place. Thanks, and cheers.
The Finance Ghost: Ciao.
