South African grocery retailer Pick n Pay’s chief executive officer has resigned with immediate effect, according to a statement released by the company on Monday, October 2.
Pieter Boone will be replaced by former CEO, Sean Summers.
Mr Boone and the Pick n Pay board of directors had allegedly come to this decision due to the concerns over the poor performance of the “Pick n Pay core business.
To this effect, Sean Summers will be returning to the position, and to South Africa, after spending 16 years away.
Summers had been the CEO of the Group from 1974 to 2007 and had been chosen by the board to lead the company once again in what has been described as “a very difficult period.”
The announcement had highlighted the weak customer environment, cost pressures from load shedding, suppressed sales at its supermarkets and the gross profit margin pressures that had all combined to offset any beneficial growth of the company’s Clothing, Online, and Boxer segments.
Despite the incoming veteran CEO’s arrival to the retail chain, the Group still expects to face continued difficulties into the latter half of 2023 but on a brighter note, investors have been assured of stronger future earnings as a result of the holiday shopping that will take place at the end of the year and the Project Future initiatives that have begun to contribute to profits.
