South African tycoon Michael Lewis to leave fashion retailer TFG after 37 years

Michael Lewis, the South African businessman whose family has been tied to The Foschini Group for decades, will step down as chairman of TFG Ltd. and leave its board at the end of the year, ending a 37-year association with one of Africa's biggest fashion retailers.

Lewis will retire on Dec. 31, the Cape Town-based company said on Nov. 6, the same day it reported lower first-half earnings. He joined the board in 1989 and has been chairman since June 2015. Alexandra Watson, a professor who chairs private education group ADvTECH Ltd., will join TFG as an independent non-executive director and take over as chair from Jan. 1, 2027.

The change comes after a long stretch of pressure on TFG's overseas operations, which have weighed on group profit. In June 2025 the company reclassified Lewis as a non-independent director because he had served on the board for more than 12 years.

Weak trading abroad

TFG's headline earnings per share, the main profit measure used by South African companies, fell 6.8% to 272.8 cents (16.4 U.S. cents) in the six months to Sept. 30. Operating profit dropped 6.5% to R2.1 billion ($126.5 million). Revenue was little changed at R31.4 billion ($1.89 billion), while retail turnover slipped 0.4% to R29 billion.

The company cut its interim dividend 6.9% to 121 cents a share.

The decline came from the U.K. and Australia. TFG London, which owns womenswear brand Phase Eight, posted a 2.2% fall in retail turnover and a 26.5% drop in operating profit in local currency. TFG Australia, home to menswear chains Johnny Bigg and Tarocash, saw turnover fall 4.4% and operating profit decline 28.3%. Both businesses are overhauling their brands, costs and store networks, and Phase Eight and Tarocash have new leaders.

At home the picture was better. TFG Africa, which runs the Foschini, Markham, Sportscene and Jet chains, lifted retail turnover 3.8% to R19.7 billion ($1.19 billion) and operating profit 2.7% to R1.7 billion. It also gained market share and slightly improved its gross margin.

"In a tough six months, TFG Africa, our largest business, grew sales, profit and market share," Chief Executive Officer Anthony Thunström said.

Store closures and cost cuts

TFG closed 120 underperforming stores in the period and opened 41, and plans to shut another 60 to 80 in the second half. It removed R257 million ($15.5 million) of costs from its African business and expects about a fifth of the sales from closed stores to move to other TFG outlets or to Bash, its online platform. Online sales rose 53.3% to R2.2 billion.

Cash generated from operations increased 20% to R3.7 billion, and net debt, excluding lease liabilities, fell by R1 billion to R9.1 billion ($548 million).

The results follow a difficult full year. In the 12 months to March, TFG's profit fell sharply after it wrote down the value of several brands, and the company cut its dividend.

Lewis's stake and background

Lewis remains a TFG shareholder. He held 1.46 million shares indirectly at the end of March, and in June he bought another 1.4 million shares in three trades at prices between R57.43 and R59.91, spending about R81 million ($4.9 million). The purchases roughly doubled his holding, which now amounts to less than 1% of the company's 331 million shares.

His late father, Stanley Lewis, took control of Foschini, the business that grew into TFG. His grandfather, Meyer Lewis, founded the Lewis furniture chain in Cape Town in 1934.

Lewis studied economics at the University of Cape Town and moved to London in the 1980s, where he built an investment career outside the family business. He is a partner at Oceana Investment Partners and chairman of Strandbags Holdings Pty Ltd., the Australian handbag and luggage retailer he owns. He also founded ProChon Biotech, a biotechnology company that Histogenics Corp. acquired in 2011.

Figures were converted at R16.6 to the dollar.