Over the past few days two recommended stocks, Famous Brands and Massmart have announced expansion plans outside of South Africa. It is one of the beautiful things about investing in equities, the world is sometimes your oyster. Companies can search for areas (on your behalf) where there is growth potential, they do the hard yards to get there and as an investor you benefit. Assuming of course that they get it right.
The Massmart announcement, which came out yesterday, said that they are opening up 2 stores in Angola by next year. This is a country where they do not yet have a presence. The oil rich nation is one of the fastest growing countries in the world. According to Wikipedia, the Angolan economy grew an annualised average 11.1% from 2001 to 2010. According to The World Bank the economy is expected to grow 8% in 2014 so you can see why Massmart are pushing for entry. Since the Walmart acquisition I have felt the expansion up north of our border has been slow, it has obviously been harder than they (or I) thought. It was never going to be easy. This news is encouraging, but we have to remain patient.