JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) -South African retailer Massmart Holdings flagged on Friday a wider annual loss of up to 1.6 billion rand ($106 million), hurt by store damage and lower trading income due to looting during the country’s civil unrest last year.
The retailer, majority-owned by Walmart Inc, said it expects its 2021 headline loss, the main profit measure in South Africa, from total operations to come in between 1.478 billion rand and 1.571 billion rand. That is at least 60% to 70% wider than the loss of 924 million rand reported in 2020.
Excluding food businesses held for sale such as Cambridge and Rhino stores, the loss is seen widening to between 938 million rand and 1 billion rand.
The owner of Game general merchandise chain had said in December it took a significant inventory write-off because of the looting that erupted after President Jacob Zuma was forced to turn himself in to be jailed for contempt of court in July.
The looting directly impacted 43 of its stores, resulting in lost trading profit of around 450 million rand and an accounting loss of around 650 million rand after insurance proceeds.
($1 = 14.9747 rand)
(Reporting by Nqobile Dludla in Johannesburg and Aby Jose Koilparambil in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Sam Holmes)
