South African billionaire Christo Wiese’s Shoprite in banking talks with Investec

Shoprite Holdings Ltd., the South African grocery chain in which billionaire Christo Wiese is the largest individual shareholder, is in talks with Investec Group about a partnership that would help it sell more financial services to its shoppers, according to people familiar with the matter.

The discussions are ongoing and the structure of any agreement is still being worked out, the people said, asking not to be identified because the talks are private. There is no certainty a deal will be reached. Shoprite declined to comment and said it would share information about business partnerships with the market when it becomes available. Investec said it does not comment on speculation.

A tie-up would let Shoprite, Africa's largest food retailer, expand into banking-type products without becoming a bank itself. Investec, a South African and British lender and wealth manager listed in Johannesburg and London, could provide technology, regulatory know-how and lending services, while Shoprite would bring one of the country's biggest pools of consumer spending data and a national store network.

Shoprite's money business

Shoprite already runs a Money Market Account with African Bank, launched about three years ago, which lets customers deposit and withdraw cash, send money, pay bills and buy airtime and electricity at counters in its stores. The account has more than 4 million users, charges R5 (30 cents) for a cash withdrawal and has no monthly fees, and handles more than R1 billion ($61 million) in transactions a month. The retailer has been testing a Mastercard debit card linked to the account.

In August, Shoprite completed the purchase of an initial 51% stake in R&A Cellular, a technology and payments company whose point-of-sale devices are used by informal traders, giving it another channel for financial services.

Chief Executive Officer Pieter Engelbrecht has said repeatedly that Shoprite has no plans to become a bank. "I am after the transaction," he said in an interview on Sept. 1. "We are not bankers, we are retailers. Full-fledged banking, I think, is better left to the bankers."

The talks come as retailers and insurers push deeper into South Africa's mass-market banking, long dominated by Standard Bank, Absa, FirstRand's FNB and Nedbank. Pepkor Holdings, the owner of the PEP and Ackermans clothing chains, won a banking licence last year, while Capitec Bank Holdings has about 26 million clients.

Wiese's stake

Wiese, 85, built Shoprite from a small chain of eight Cape Town stores he bought into in 1979 and chaired the company for 41 years until he stepped down in 2020. He held 63.2 million ordinary shares at the end of June 2025, about 10% of the company, almost all of them through his Titan investment group. Titan's Thibault Square Financial Services also holds 305.6 million deferred shares, which carry voting rights but little economic value and give Wiese more influence than his ordinary stake alone. The Government Employees Pension Fund, managed by the state-owned Public Investment Corp., is the biggest shareholder, with about 18%.

Shoprite's sales rose 7.2% to R270.8 billion ($16.4 billion) in the year to June. The company has a market value of about R200 billion ($12 billion).