JOHANNESBURG—Walmart Inc. has launched a 6.4 billion rand ($377.6 million) offer for the remaining 47 percent of South African retailer Massmart it does not already own, valuing it at a premium of over 50 percent.
Shares in Massmart surged 46 percent after the company announced the news on Monday, as its Chairman Kuseni Dlamini said the offer seems “fair and reasonable.”
The world’s biggest retailer had acquired a 51 percent stake in Massmart in 2010 for $2.3 billion, an investment that was seen as an outlay to use South Africa as a base to grab a share of the so-called “Africa growth story.”
But it has struggled since then in the face of very competitive and highly profitable local retailers such as Shoprite and Woolworths, curtailing the company’s aims to expand further into Africa and shaving off almost three quarters of its market value in the last decade….