Sense prevailed and the world's biggest retailer, WalMart, was given the competition tribunal thumbs up with what seems like few restrictions to proceed with their 51 percent purchase of Massmart. I suspect that the very best way for us to get this across is to summarize the conditions:
1) No retrenchments for two years.
2) If positions become available, the 503 Massdiscounters employees retrenched this time last year must be given preference.
3) The merged entity must honour existing labour agreements with SACCAWU still representing the bargaining unit.
4) A program (100 million ZAR) will be established to develop and train local suppliers.
Sounds reasonable enough I guess. Sense has prevailed, I have not see any union opposition to the ruling as of yet, but I am sure that some will come in the daily message titled: "Our side of the story". Makes for good reading. There is nothing on the SACCAWU website, which has not been updated for a while. There is nothing either on a fresh COSATU website either, and by fresh I mean well maintained. The wires are reporting that SACCAWU are disappointed and expected to appeal the decision.
Grant Pattison said he was always puzzled with this notion that WalMart would want to come here and downsize. And that they were always here to expand and create jobs. Yip, but then again I would side with him. Him being Grant Pattison. I wonder about re-branding, I know that the company suggested when asked this question a while back that it would not be the case for the time being. We wondered if Massmart were still paying a royalty fee to SPV for the Makro brand, anyone know? Lastly, another point that I forgot to make: What about the positive impact for the manufacturing sector of this country as the combined entity rolls out more stores across the continent? If the plan is to springboard to the rest of the continent, using Massmart as the preferred vehicle. And for the record, WalMart often falls into the top five of global brand recognition. I suppose you are going to get that with 100 billion Dollars worth of quarterly sales.