Bruce Whitfield: I mean; when you look at Pep, and Pep grew by acquisition, I think you bought Half Price Stores didn't you? Shareholders, though, are happy to dish out the same treatment. Four years later Nelson Mandela was freed after spending almost three decades in prison. He however realised that to achieve his goals, acquisitions and turnarounds of struggling companies had to be a priority. Whitey Basson: I didn't actually. I know first-hand the exploitation of the black poor at the hands of white capitalism in South Afrika, and that is why I unapologetically champion a student-worker struggle that also seeks to dismantle the exploitative outsourcing of, and payment of poverty wages to, workers on campus.
He was recalled to South Africa to enter a career in politics. The two supported Brait Private Equity's attempt to buy out the business two years ago but the deal fell through. How long they're going to be just loyal Pep customers, I can't tell you. For the first time Shoprite was offered the opportunity to compete in the modern shopping centres that were being developed. Kant believed that there were specific categories on how to understand the world, we would understand them by: time, space and causality, however the mind has categories for many experiences, nobody can prove in the world that anything has a cause, we can assume that it does and only confirm it by certain experiences that we face. Wiese, no longer number two, pictured something much grander. They tell you what you should do only if you have the desire.
Other growth came through acquisitions. The economy would collapse and investors would no longer be interested in investing in such a market. But only because he has the desire to become a doctor if he did not then he would not need to go to medical school. Bruce Whitfield: Who is Renier? And then Martin Shane phoned me and said there's this business that you can buy. Whitey Basson: You know Pep was. And then I started buying a couple of very.
This is Whitey Basson who famously bought a couple of interesting businesses. Whitey Basson: I bought that, ja. Bruce Whitfield: Where does 'James Wellwood'come from? South African companies were no longer pariahs, and Wiese began to expand elsewhere in Africa. Were you a bit downmarket? But Shoprite's success is not just about market timing and its sustained investment in infrastructure over the past decade. You don't have people who have never fought their way out of a paper bag telling you what to do.
They are dictatorial, don't seek joint solutions and they've not created a climate where workers are heard. We probably drew a crowd of people that were. Wiese also grew interested in something that has always attracted the ambitious in South Africa—diamonds. Morality is made up of ' categorical imperatives' meaning that you should do something simply because they are the correct things to do, as you are expected to fulfill things in life this is called a certain 'duty'. More than 60% of his wealth is in Shoprite and Steinhoff, while another 30% or so comes from his shares of Brait, an investment vehicle Wiese uses to buy other companies, many of them outside South Africa.
A class that sees our class as black excellent students. It is these deferred shares that give Wiese such a powerful negotiating hand, and partly why Coronation and Allan Gray railed at the Brait takeover offer, which Wiese underwrote. Yes the company is paying for his top skills but everyone that works at Shoprite also contributed to making Shoprite the success it is programmed Luxurious today and they are not receiving any share of the profits the company is making. By and large, they all carry the same message. If the retail giant were to pay the full market price of R221 as at close of trading yesterday , Basson would be receiving just under R2 billion. There is only one Categorical Imperative but there are three different formulations that Kant has created.
He can shut his eyes and picture his empire twice as big as it is today, but for it to grow that large, he must look beyond Africa. Whitey Basson: But he was a lovely guy and between '74. This formula is a two part test. To turn around the loss-making Checkers group was a mammoth task as Checkers at that stage comprised of 169 stores and its losses equaled the turnover of Shoprite. In 1974 he was appointed to the Board and remained a member until 2004. Bruce Whitfield: There's a wine named after Paul Sauer, so what about your dad? Whitey may be outspoken to the point of being abrasive. He claimed to have been the top student in all his courses.
But these days few are fooled by the act. He found a mine nearer his hometown, in Richtersveld. The African operations grew sales by 54% and contributed 14% to supermarket revenue in the six months to December. Bruce Whitfield: So, when did you become 'Whitey' Were you 'Whitey'from the start? Kant belived that being rational is the answer to morality, because of this belief it would be right to say that all rational beings would need to have the exact same moral laws, and that the moral laws would have an. But after a while, the shopping sprees and the expensive cars would be exasperating and eventually would incur debts.
Yet he seldom loses a senior person. When you are losing R1m a day, you have to prioritise decision-making. Doctors get paid a awful lot, but I don't think you would have been happy. And he offered it to us. Imagine that in this credit crunch.
I'm available for 24 hours a day. There is nothing sinister about this, this is certainly not a reflection of my view on South Africa. We will do it because we think it's the right thing to do, and we will do it our way. There would be no inequality, in other words there would be perfect equality, there would also be no difference in society classes and everyone would be rich. The office was upstairs in the storeroom. In all likelihood, I would not rationally act on this maxim in such a world.