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The wealthy South African Ackerman family has seen the market value of their joint stake in the leading retailer, Pick n Pay, increase by R162 billion ($10.3 million) in the past three days.
Pick n Pay is South Africa’s second-largest retailer. The Cape Town-based retail behemoth operates more than 2,000 stores in eight countries on the African continent under the governance of the Ackerman family.
Members of the family, which include Raymond Ackerman, who founded the retailer in 1967, and Gareth Ackerman, the chairman of the group, jointly control a beneficial 25.53-percent stake, or 124,677,238 issued shares, in the leading retailer.
The recent rise in the market value of their joint stakes can be linked to sustained buying interest in the retailer’s shares among investors and equity traders, as their buying actions on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange spurred the stock price to increase.
As of press time, Jan. 7, shares in the leading supermarket chain were trading at R53.25 ($3.42), six-basis points lower than their opening price on the local bourse this morning.
Since the closing of trading activities on Jan. 3, Pick n Pay’s shares have increased from R51.95 ($3.316) to R53.25 ($3.4) at the time of the drafting of this report. This caused its market capitalization to increase above R26.3 billion ($1.68 billion).
As a result of the increase in its valuation, the market value of the Ackerman’s 25.53-percent stake in the retail behemoth surged from R6.47 billion ($413.42 million) to R6.64 billion ($423.77 million). The increase accrued a joint unrealized gain of R162 billion ($10.3 million) for the family in just four days.
Nearly one month ago, members of the family received an interim dividend of R44.63 million ($2.91 million) from their stake.
The dividend was paid from the group’s retained earnings thanks to the robust financial performance that it delivered in the first half of its current financial year.
In the first half of its 2022 financial year, the retailer reported a 4.1-percent growth in revenue despite disruptions caused by civil unrest in South Africa and restrictions placed on liquor sales in the country.
Operational efficiencies coupled with the growth in sales led the retailer’s profit to surge by 87 percent from R158.7 million ($10.92 million) in the first half of 2020 to R296.8 million ($$20.4 million) in the corresponding period of 2021.
