The release of Choppies financials was delayed, in opposition to JSE requirements. The announcement was made by the Botswanan supermarket chain following warnings about a profit decline and led shares to fall to a five-year low.
Choppies Enterprises has announced that it will delay the release of its full-year financial results. The company said that “a number of matters requiring the attention of the board and management, which may impact materially on the results, are being considered”. These matters are pointed as the main cause for the postponing of the release, despite JSE deadlines on financial reports.
The missing of the deadline, along with the profit warning led to a very significant decline in the company’s shares. On the 25th September, after the company’s statement, shares for Choppies Enterprises plunged and reached a five-year low. Trading at 42 cents (ZAc) ($0.03) at closure time, shares saw a fall of 74.6% in value, just before a slight recovery after the weekend.
Representatives for the company administration said, in anticipation of the annual results release that shareholders should expect a profit after tax decline of, at least, 20%. There was no indication, however, as to what the administration believes to be behind the poor performance. The supermarket chain has focused its efforts, during the past year, in expanding its store network both at home, in Botswana, but really in all of its markets, from South Africa to Zimbabwe, Kenya and Zambia. Additionally, Choppies has added Mozambique to its network, after it opened its first store in the country in May 2017.
The updated Choppies financials should also come as surprising after the company forecast up to a 30% increase in profit for the six month period ending December 2017, driven mainly by an increase in profit in its South African operations.
Choppies has lately been embroiled in a high profile legal and political battle over its ownership. The issue opposes former Botswanan president Festus Mogae and former Zimbabwean Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko. At the centre of the conflict are doubts over the actual proportion of shares of the Zimbabwean operation owned by Mphoko, which Mogae argues to be 7% – in opposition to the 51% claimed by Mphoko.
