James Wellwood "Whitey" Basson (born 8 January 1946) is a South African businessman and billionaire who was largely responsible for growing a small business called Shoprite from an 8-store chain valued at R1 million[2] into an international retail conglomerate with revenue in 2019 of R150 billion, market capitalisation of R114 billion, more than 2 300 stores and 140 000 employees across 15 African countries.
"[6] He attained his BCom CTA from Stellenbosch University and completed his CA(SA) in 1970 after his articles at ER Syfret & Co (now Ernst & Young).
[citation needed] He then went to work at Brink, Roos & Du Toit (now PricewaterhouseCoopers) and from mid-1970 and in 1971 he practised as a chartered accountant.
[7] At this point Christo Wiese bought out van Rooyen's holdings in Pepkor and became the major shareholder.
[8] One of the competitors to Pep in South Africa was the Half Price Group, managed by Sam Stupple.
"[6] This led the Half Price Group into financial trouble and Basson bought them out as his first major acquisition.
[6] Basson restructured Shoprite to optimise its growth by focusing on the largest economically active segment of South Africa's population, the middle-to-lower LSM market.
[1] In 1986, Shoprite was listed on the JSE although its net asset value was the R1 million paid for the original eight stores and any accumulated profits.
[11][12] Under Basson's leadership, from 2010 Shoprite had become the single biggest South African grocery retailer with 34% market share.
[6] In 1990 Basson approached Carlos Dos Santos and bought Grand Bazaars at what was considered an even better price than the original deal.
"[6] By 1998 Shoprite had branches in the remote North West and Mpumalanga provinces but was still considered too small to be competition to South Africa's major supermarket chains, Pick n Pay Stores, OK Bazaars and Checkers.
On the first occasion the owners of Checkers "held unrealistic perceptions of the value of unfocussed and inefficient retail stores,"[1] according to Basson.
"And when I got to Checkers it was fantastic, because they said that about 1 o'clock I have to have lunch in this beautiful dining room with waiters with white gloves.
"[6] "They are not the easiest people to deal with," says Stephan le Roux of property management company Growthpoint.
"[15] There was some criticism by financial analysts of the continued trading under two brand names but Basson saw it as target market segmentation.
[1] During 2001, Basson devised a strategy to reposition the Checker's brand as close as possible to its higher LSM major rival, Pick n Pay.
USave had a cost structure that would allow it to reduce its gross margin by 50% while still offering good return on investment.
In 2019 the group had stores in Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Eswatini, Uganda and Zambia.
Following his retirement, Basson served for nine months on the Shoprite Holdings board as non-executive vice-chairman to ensure an orderly leadership transition.
[22] Basson lives with his family on Klein DasBosch wine estate on the banks of the Blaauwklippen River in the Western Cape.