Basson's African dream

Whitey Basson is a straight-talking businessman who has been at the helm of Shoprite for more than three decades, during which time it has grown from eight stores in Western Cape to nearly 1500 in 17 countries.

Basson was voted the Sunday Times Top Business Leader in 2011.

Q: Is it tough doing business in South Africa?

A: No. It's easier than in most other places because there's less competition.

What makes it tougher than it should be is a serious shortage of middle-rank and senior retailing managers.

And the business environment is complicated by over-regulation. We have first-world systems in this country, but they are very poorly implemented. It is almost impossible to build a shopping centre. I'm a trader. I want it to be easy to trade.

We have lots of business in Africa and we want to export as many South African goods as possible. But the regulations . sometimes it is something as stupid as a full-stop on a label that prevents us from exporting from South Africa to the rest of the continent.

Q: Have you been to all of your stores?

A: Of course. If I haven't, then I'm very close, but it's tough to keep up when we are opening more than 100 stores a year.

Q: Where do you get the staff for your stores in the rest of Africa? Do you use locals or South African expats?

A: We start with a manager from South Africa and then we do a lot of training on that side. Mostly in Africa the locals are well-educated and trained. In Nigeria, in Zambia, they have great schools and we can pick from a pool of educated locals.

Q: Shoprite is the biggest retailer in Africa and there has been a lot of talk about Wal-mart's entry into the market since it took control of Massmart. Is there a battle between you?

A: No. It's always nice to be in virgin territory. And everyone is talking about Africa, but who really goes in? Most of those Africa analysts have never set foot in Africa. Besides, with the rand, any new retailer would have to make a 20% profit just to absorb the past year's depreciation of the currency.

Q: Has the recent attack on the Westgate shopping centre in Nairobi influenced your business?

A: Kenya is one of the countries we don't operate in. I've been there plenty of times but we haven't been able to get in there. But no, the attack has had no influence on our business.

Q: Do you look at what retailers do in other parts of the world?

A: Of course. Even when we just started, I think we had fewer than 20 stores, we went to America, me and four or five of my people. We looked at retailers there. We went and worked in some of the shops. This was early in Shoprite's history, maybe within the first two years.

Q: And how does it help?

A: A lot of our earlier ideas came from how Kroger [an American retailer] does business. And Whole Foods. And that Canadian, Danny Wegman, of Wegmans Foods, is the only guy I've seen who's found a formula for making money from upmarket food stores.

We go to plenty of food conferences, see new things. My idea for Wines of the World in Checkers comes from something I saw 20 years ago in Dallas.

Q: How important is a businessman's public image?

A: I'm not that bothered by what people think. I don't try to be ordentlik [proper] when I don't want to be. I have more friends than enemies. Most people say Christo Wiese [Shoprite's chairman] is the nice guy and I'm the difficult guy. But it doesn't worry me.

Q: What do you do when you're not running the company?

A: I play a bit of golf. And fish a little. [He is obviously quite sociable. An entire wall of his office is crammed with photographs of family, colleagues, friends and famous South Africans. In the top left-hand corner is a picture of Basson and Nelson Mandela.]

Q: What would you do if you suddenly picked up R5-million today?

A: That's not really a good question. I wouldn't play with R5-million. I would probably give it to my fund manager. You use the vehicle that you have been using.

You really want to ask me what would I do if I had to start over tomorrow. If I had nothing . I would open a café. I'd make sure I get cash from my customers and I'd pay my creditors in 60 days. That's how I'd start.