Company: Pepkor
Country: South Africa
Sector: Apparel/Footwear Retail
CEO: Pieter Erasmus
Website: https://www.pepkor.co.za
Careers Page: Not publicly listed
LinkedIn: Not publicly listed
Email: Not publicly listed
Headquarters: Cape Town, South Africa
Founded: 1965
Valuation/Revenue: $4.68bn revenue and $5.13bn market value (African Business Top 250, 2025 ranking); Wikipedia cites R95.3bn revenue for 2025
Pepkor Holdings Limited is South Africa’s largest retail operator by number of stores, running a portfolio of discount and value retail chains across clothing, footwear, homeware, furniture, appliances, electronics, and fintech services. Founded in 1965 and listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange since September 2017, Pepkor operates more than 6,000 stores and processes around two billion customer transactions a year across Southern Africa.
What Does Pepkor Do?
Pepkor’s core business is value/discount retail through well-known South African brands including PEP, Ackermans, Shoe City, Dunns, and Tekkie Town for clothing and footwear; Bradlows, Rochester, and Sleepmasters for furniture; and Incredible Connection, HiFi Corp, and BUCO for electronics and building materials. The group has continued to expand its portfolio through acquisitions, adding OK Furniture, House & Home, Legit, Swagga, and Style to its stable, alongside a fintech arm that processes payments and value-added services across its store network, giving Pepkor a large embedded financial-services footprint tied to its retail traffic.
Is Pepkor Legit?
Yes. Pepkor is a JSE-listed public company with a large, established retail footprint, audited financial statements, and a workforce of roughly 49,700 people as of its most recent detailed disclosures. It is one of the most recognisable retail groups in South Africa given the ubiquity of PEP and Ackermans stores across the country.
How Big Is Pepkor?
Pepkor ranked 34th on African Business magazine’s Top 250 Companies in Africa for 2025, with revenue of roughly $4.68bn and a market value of $5.13bn. Separately, company disclosures cited by reference sources put Pepkor’s revenue at R95.3bn for 2025, reflecting the group’s position as the largest retail operator in Southern Africa by store count, with over 6,000 locations.
Who Is the CEO of Pepkor?
Pieter Erasmus (referred to in company filings as P J Erasmus) serves as Chief Executive Officer of Pepkor Holdings, overseeing the group’s portfolio of retail brands and its continued acquisitive growth strategy.
Who Owns Pepkor?
Pepkor’s largest shareholder is Ibex Topco B.V., which holds approximately 43.8% of the company; Ibex Topco is itself linked to Steinhoff International’s historical shareholding structure, tracing back to Steinhoff’s original stake following Pepkor’s 2017 JSE listing, though Steinhoff’s own subsequent insolvency proceedings (following its 2017 accounting scandal) have led to changes in how that stake is ultimately held and unwound over time.
Is Pepkor Publicly Traded?
Yes. Pepkor Holdings listed on the JSE in September 2017 and trades as a standalone public company, separate from its former parent Steinhoff International, which itself underwent a major corporate restructuring and delisting following its 2017 accounting fraud scandal.
How Does Pepkor Compare to Its Competitors?
In value clothing and footwear retail, Pepkor’s PEP and Ackermans brands compete with Mr Price and Truworths’ value formats; in furniture and appliances, its Bradlows, OK Furniture, and House & Home brands compete with Lewis Group and JD Group (Steinhoff-linked); in building materials, BUCO competes with Cashbuild and Build It. Pepkor’s scale advantage — over 6,000 stores — gives it significant purchasing power and market reach relative to most single-format competitors.
What Has Pepkor Been in the News For Recently?
Pepkor has continued to expand its furniture and homeware portfolio through acquisitions (OK Furniture, House & Home, Legit, Swagga, Style), while its historical association with Steinhoff International — which collapsed into insolvency proceedings after a 2017 accounting scandal — continues to be a point of reference in coverage of Pepkor’s ownership structure, even though Pepkor itself has operated as an independently listed, unaffected entity since 2017.
What Financial Services Does Pepkor Offer?
Beyond its retail brands, Pepkor operates a significant embedded fintech business, including consumer lender Capfin and payments platform Flash, which enable it to extend credit and financial services to lower- and middle-income South African consumers who transact through its stores, an important complement to its retail model given that a large share of its customer base is cash-strapped and underbanked. This financial-services layer, processing roughly two billion transactions annually across the group, has become an increasingly important profit contributor alongside traditional merchandise sales, positioning Pepkor as both a retailer and a meaningful financial-inclusion player in the South African market.
Links
Website: https://www.pepkor.co.za
Careers Page: Not found (site directs applicants to individual trading-subsidiary career pages)
LinkedIn: Not found
Email: Not publicly listed
FAQ
What does Pepkor do?
Pepkor operates discount and value retail chains across clothing, footwear, furniture, appliances, electronics, building materials, and fintech services in Southern Africa.
Who owns Pepkor?
Ibex Topco B.V. holds approximately 43.8% of Pepkor, with the remainder held by public JSE shareholders; the stake traces back to former parent Steinhoff International’s historical ownership.
Who is the CEO of Pepkor?
Pieter (P J) Erasmus is Pepkor’s Chief Executive Officer.
Is Pepkor related to Steinhoff?
Pepkor was previously majority-owned by Steinhoff International before its 2017 JSE listing; Steinhoff’s later insolvency does not directly affect Pepkor’s independently listed operations, though ownership links remain via Ibex Topco.
How much revenue does Pepkor make?
Approximately $4.68bn per African Business magazine’s 2025 Top 250 ranking, with other sources citing R95.3bn for 2025.
Is Pepkor publicly traded?
Yes, Pepkor Holdings has been listed on the JSE since September 2017.