Massmart, owners of Game and Makro, has reported a net loss of R1.17 billion in its half-year to June 28, from a loss of R832m previously.
Massmart in a statement said fluctuations in African currencies continue to negatively impact the Group, particularly the effect of US dollar denominated leases in other African countries, resulting in a total foreign exchange loss of R112.3 million.
The company also said its total sales for the 26 weeks ended 28 June 2020 of R39.6 billion represents a decline of 9.7% compared to the same period in 2019, and that sales were significantly impacted by various restrictions put in place by respective Governments in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the jurisdictions in which we operate.
“We expect the uncertain operating environment and negatively impacted economy related to the Covid-19 pandemic to persist. While trade in all our categories is currently permitted, future Covid-19 related trading restrictions remain uncertain,” Massmart said.
“We are however, confident that we will be able to navigate through this, as we successfully did during the first half of this year. We will continue to accelerate the implementation of our turnaround plan and we expect SG&A and GP margin performance achieved during this reporting period to continue into the second half of the year.”
The group has closed 23 DionWired stores and is finalising sale of 8 Masscash Stores.
