Sefalana Group, one of Botswana’s giant retailers says it will soon roll out a cash withdrawal offering in all its stores across the country in partnership with First National Bank Botswana (FNBB).
Through this partnership, all FNBB card users can withdraw cash at any of the Sefalana Hyper or Cash and Carry store tills, a move that will bring convenience to their customer base.
Sefalana currently has three Hyper Stores, 26 Cash & Carry stores and 26 supermarket retail stores trading as Sefalana Shoppers across the country, giving the Group a total count of 55 stores in Botswana.
When commenting on the group’s financials for the six months ended October 31, 2018, the group’s finance director, Mohammed Osman said the initiative would come in handy where banks or ATMs are not close by. “An advertising campaign is currently underway to inform the public of this new offering which is widely found in other countries,” he said.
Further, the group would continue to focus on its core segment of FMCG and supporting businesses as they anticipate further growth in this area. In particular, they would expand their manufacturing business with fruit juice and bottled water.
In addition, they seek to launch the latest division of Sefalana Catering in the next few months.
The division will focus on serving the large hospitality industry with frozen foods in wholesale size units.
“We will continue to pursue process improvements and efficiencies to maximise return from our existing businesses and look at providing our customer base with a wider product and service offering.
We will also explore and evaluate other neighbouring regions as part of our regional expansion drive. This will however continue to be a cautious and measured approach,” Osman said.
Over the last five years, the group has expanded into South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho and Zambia. Sefalana reported that the underlying South African businesses in which they have invested are performing well and generating a return in line with plan.
In Lesotho the group currently operates two stores while in Zambia their single property investment remains in place.
After penetrating the Namibian market, the group is currently the leading Cash & Carry business in that country with a total of 16 stores.
