On May 30, a story made headlines: “Pick n Pay writes off entire Zimbabwe investment.” The story, which was shared over seventy thousand times, sounded like TM Pick n Pay was in crisis, and that its South African partner had suddenly walked away. But here’s the catch: that write-off happened in 2024, and the business may actually be doing better now than last year.Beyond the headline, this story offers a valuable lesson: how accounting rules, currency risk, and media framing can distort the true picture of a business.Let’s unpack.
Thank you so much for this very informative article which helps to clear the air on the TM PnP issue. However, what is missing is an analysis of the store closures of the 2 Mutare branches. Apparently N. Richard's Group just closed its doors in Mutare too.
Yes, there are issues with retail in general. It is a challenging environment. This was more to say that the situation with TM PnP is not a crisis like we had at OKZ.
That is true. The retail environment in Zimbabwe is a hard hat area currently. The reporting of TM PnP's situation did seem like it was either intentionally or unintentionally due to a misinterpretation of facts a sensationalization of the issue to maybe feed into the negative hype around OKZ's troubles.
Thank you so much for this very informative article which helps to clear the air on the TM PnP issue. However, what is missing is an analysis of the store closures of the 2 Mutare branches. Apparently N. Richard's Group just closed its doors in Mutare too.
Yes, there are issues with retail in general. It is a challenging environment. This was more to say that the situation with TM PnP is not a crisis like we had at OKZ.
That is true. The retail environment in Zimbabwe is a hard hat area currently. The reporting of TM PnP's situation did seem like it was either intentionally or unintentionally due to a misinterpretation of facts a sensationalization of the issue to maybe feed into the negative hype around OKZ's troubles.