After failing to find domestic purchasers for the stores, South African retailer Massmart Holdings (MSMJ.J) announced on Wednesday that it had started worker talks about closing its Game stores in East and West Africa.
In order to stop losses in that underperforming area of its business, Massmart Chief Executive Officer Mitch Slape stated last year that it was in talks to sell all of its Game stores in Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania.
“Over the course of a year, Massmart started a process to look at… the possibility of selling our East and West African outlets to local investors. Sadly, this project failed to produce a significant result “a statement released by the business on Wednesday.
In South Africa, Massmart has been incurring losses and losing market share to larger regional rivals, pushing Walmart Inc., the company’s main owner, to make cost reductions and increase capital expenditures in order to turn the business around.
The American retail behemoth has agreed to start acquiring the remaining 47% of Massmart.
