SPAR's retailers have spent the better part of a year in open conflict with the company that supplies them. On 10 September they stopped waiting to be consulted and named the chairman they want.
The SPAR Guild of Southern Africa speaks for the independent retailers who own the stores, and its directors wrote to interim chair Lwazi Koyana putting forward Phil Roux. Certain shareholders had started looking for candidates themselves, the letter said, and there was meaningful shareholder support behind him.
Roux ran Pioneer Foods from 2013 to 2017, was an executive director at Tiger Brands before that, and led an operational turnaround at the recruitment group Adcorp during the pandemic. Most recently he ran Nampak, which he joined in 2023 to restructure into an aluminium and tinplate can maker. Speaking to News24, he called Nampak one of the most demanding experiences of his life and said he has pressed the pause button since stepping down, but would give due consideration to a SPAR approach.
The rollout that sent retailers to the suppliers
The relationship did not break in a boardroom. In 2023 SPAR took a new SAP system live at its KwaZulu-Natal distribution centre, with flawed data migration and poor testing behind it. Shelves emptied, and the damage came to roughly R720 million in lost profit on an estimated R1.6 billion to R2 billion of lost turnover. Retailers went around head office and bought from suppliers directly, a hard habit to reverse.
The distraction was not only local. SPAR paid R2.67 billion to get out of Poland in 2024, and left Switzerland in 2025 with a R683 million cash payment covering debt extinguishment and a competition fine.
Two statements, six days apart
The 10 September letter also went at the executive team. “We cannot be asked to support an executive in which we do not have the utmost confidence,” it said, adding that the current team does not inspire the confidence to take SPAR forward. The group is run by chief executive Reeza Isaacs, a former Woolworths finance chief.
Six days later the Guild's retail directors issued a softer version. The letter asks the board to satisfy itself that the group has the retail depth, leadership and execution capability to deliver the turnaround, they said; that responsibility rests with the board, and it should not be read as retailers standing against management. Both statements are on the record.
SPAR's answer is procedural. No appointments are confirmed, a search firm is at work, the Guild's candidates will be judged on the same basis as everyone else's, and the board remains satisfied that its current executive team can deliver the turnaround.
The Guild wants two more of its own on the board as well: SPAR Eastern Cape managing director Conrad Isaacs and group sustainability executive Kevin O'Brien. Anchor Capital's Steph Erasmus told News24 that what matters is that the Guild wants Roux, someone whose calibre would be a net positive: if the Guild is happy, almost half the battle is won.
