South Africa’s Pepkor Profit Hit by Poor Summer Fashion Choice

Pepkor Holdings Ltd. replaced the head of its Ackermans unit after Africa’s largest clothing retailer posted a drop in first-half earnings as it failed to get the right summer fashion mix.

The discount retailer, which started 100 years ago in rural South Africa and now has 5,929 stores in almost a dozen countries, has brought in “some new eyes from outside” to run the division as it also reconsiders package sizes of items such as T-shirts and shorts, Pieter Erasmus, chief executive officer of Cape Town-based Pepkor, said in an interview Tuesday.