Home grown local diversified wholesale and retail Sefalana Group overcame a difficult opening quarter of 2020 to record growth for the year ending 30 April 30, 2020.
Sefalana’s revenues increased by 10% whilst its Profit Before Tax remained flat at P259 million.
Revenue reached P5.8 billion as compared to the P5.3 billion recorded in the prior fiscal year.
Additionally, Sefalana Group’s gross profit went up by 14% year-on-year reaching P387 million.
The Group’s Managing Director Chandra Chauhan while presenting the Group financial results on Thursday said the first half of the year has been not easy for the Group’s business operations.
He regretted that the Covid-19 pandemic had a negative impact on the business as the restricted movement due to lockdown reduced consumer buying power as they could not access shops.
“The Covid-19 pandemic impacted the business activity. Government focused more on fighting the pandemic hence this led to lack of award of tenders that we expected to come in from the government. Nonetheless, the food basket response scheme bolstered the business,” he added.
To reduce more reliance on the government tenders, the Group has turned to focus on the private sector for varied income, adding that they continue to evaluate new alternative markets too.
High foreign exchange volatility, especially realised on the South African income – according to the Chauhan – led to a significant decline on the foreign exchange due to high Rand depreciation.
The South African Rand, he said, depreciated by 10% against Botswana Pula in the period under review. However, he said the returns from the Botswana business are showing great signs of recovery, adding that the Namibian and Lesotho markets are still enduring a lot of stress at the moment.
During the period under review, the Botswana Stock Exchange (BSE) listed goods and services conglomerate noted positive signs of recovery in the Botswana market environment.
“The second half of the year was not so positive. But Group has done well to mitigate against the Covid-19 ravaging effects by putting in a number of macro level responses such as maximising yields from our Botswana business where we see better signals of growth,” said Chauhan.
Group Finance Director Mohammed Osman said 2020 has been difficult for the Group but said they managed to post the best results ever in their 46-year-old history following well from the 2019 good performance.