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Mr Price expected trading in the second half to March 2008 to be “more challenging” in the face of the new credit law, higher interest rates and costly fuel, the discount retailer said last week. But it believed that profit would still grow for the year as a whole.

September 4, 2007

By Tom Robbins

Mr Price expected trading in the second half to March 2008 to be “more challenging” in the face of the new credit law, higher interest rates and costly fuel, the discount retailer said last week. But it believed that profit would still grow for the year as a whole.

Mr Price’s warning follows predictions by Woolworths and Massmart, the owner of the Game brand, that sales growth would slow.

Stewart Cohen, Mr Price’s joint chairman, said that as a primarily cash retailer with limited exposure to credit sales, the company expected “to weather the slower growth in consumer spending better than most”. – Tom Robbins, Cape Town