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Shoprite Holdings Ltd., the South African grocer in which billionaire Christo Wiese controls the largest block of votes, has appointed Tasneem Abdool-Samad, a former Deloitte partner, as an independent non-executive director.
Abdool-Samad will join the board and its audit and risk committee on March 1, 2027, the Cape Town-based company said in a statement to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange on Nov. 6. The board said it had completed a fit and proper assessment and was satisfied with the result.
Abdool-Samad is a chartered accountant with a bachelor of commerce degree in accounting and a postgraduate diploma in accounting from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. She spent a number of years as a partner at Deloitte South Africa before moving into a career as a non-executive director. She has served on the boards of Absa Group Ltd., Bid Corp. Ltd. and Reunert Ltd., and has chaired the Absa Group audit and compliance committee. She has also served on and chaired board committees covering risk, remuneration, social and ethics, and investment.
A week of scrutiny
The appointment was announced on the day of Shoprite's annual general meeting, the first at which shareholder votes on executive pay are binding under changes to South Africa's Companies Act. Several large US and European pension funds had said they would vote against the company's pay proposals, including a new one-off long-term incentive plan for Chief Executive Officer Pieter Engelbrecht. Proxy advisers Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis had urged investors to reject the plan.
Engelbrecht's total earned pay rose 35% to R117.8 million ($7.1 million) in the year to June. Wiese, who sits on Shoprite's remuneration committee, has defended the board's decisions. Shoprite had not published the results of the votes by Friday afternoon.
Wiese's voting power gives the board a large cushion in any contested vote. He owns about 10% of Shoprite's ordinary shares, mostly through his Titan group, and his Thibault Square Financial Services holds 305.6 million deferred shares that carry votes but little economic value. Together they give him control of about 41% of the voting rights, according to ISS.
A lawyer by training, Wiese built Shoprite from a chain of eight stores he bought into with Whitey Basson in 1979 into Africa's largest grocery retailer. He handed the chair to Wendy Lucas-Bull in 2020 and remains a non-executive director. Forbes estimates his net worth at $1.8 billion.
Figures were converted at R16.6 to the dollar.
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