When Mandla Sibeko opened a Pick n Pay store in Kliptown, Soweto, in 2008, it was a defining moment for both Sibeko and the retailer.
Sibeko, a young law graduate with an existing track record in business, was the perfect candidate to take on one of the company’s defunct Score stores and open a Pick n Pay franchise — the second in the heart of South Africa’s most famous township.
The supermarket giant had embarked on a programme to convert its Score stores to Pick n Pay outlets and offer them to black entrepreneurs in a bid to grow its share of what the company termed “emerging markets”. But two years later Sibeko and his business partner, Desire Thomas, had lost the business because, Sibeko said, he did not have the energy to battle Pick n Pay any more. Read full story here.
