Conclusion

The website and the available biography look at several aspects of Renier’s life and career: Renier’s success at such an early age with Pep, his decision to leave Pep at the age of 50 at the peak of his success and power, and his attempt to return to business later in his life with Harwill. It addressed Renier’s compassion and humanity and his financial support for good causes, as well as his acute awareness of the injustices in apartheid South Africa and his stand against apartheid at a time when it was fraught with risk. 

Above all, it is the story of Pep and Renier van Rooyen, a South African legend. Even today, with many Afrikaner billionaire families in influential positions in the South African economy, Pep’s early history from the little Bargain Store in Upington to a dominant player the country’s retail sector is still the subject of folklore, inspiration and academic research – among the dwindling number of surviving early Pep employees and management there remains a sense of camaraderie and pride over what was achieved in the face of considerable odds.

Renier was only 23 when he ran his first store and he retired from Pep in 1981 aged 50. This period of 27 years saw him being transformed from a young man in a small town with little money, no experience, to become one of South Africa’s greatest entrepreneurs and a top Afrikaner businessman.

He discovered early on in his business life that clever business idea and an eye for an opportunity by themselves would not be sufficient to ensure his success – not did he have an elaborate business plan, access to large amounts of capital, a business education or business experience. What he did have were a single-minded determination and will to succeed and the kind of personality that attracted a loyal core of supporters, employees and friends to his cause. In addition, he had a strong moral compass and desire to share his financial success and to stand up for the underdog.

Along these lines Renier founded the Pep Empire on the five basic pillars of faith, positive thinking, hard work, enthusiasm and compassion. This not only became part of Pep’s business philosophy, but served as his guide on how to create a business from nothing and how to keep running it successfully. These basic principles were instilled into the collective psyche of his employees and colleagues and the result was a company that grew from one store in Upington in 1954 to a business empire with almost 500 stores, 10 factories, 12,000 employees and a turnover of close to R300 million 27 years later.

His will to succeed and to overcome the many setbacks and his instinctive sense for finding new profitable opportunities, for example expanding into the food retail sector, are among the vital characteristics that define Renier van Rooyen’s success with Pep Stores. In addition, his limitless energy and optimism, his ability to appoint the right people at the right time and the capacity to work and communicate easily with his employees at all levels, are further characteristics of Renier’s entrepreneurial success. Encompassing all the above was his clear vision of what he wanted to achieve, how, at what costs and within what timeframe. When he realized that he had achieved everything that he had ever hoped for and more, he stepped back to spend more time to do those things which he never had the chance to do during the hectic 27 years.

It is difficult to identify a single defining moment that stood between Renier and success or failure within Pep, for there were many such moments. Among these was his realization in the mid-1950s that a combination of selling for cash and selling cheaper was the magic formula that could propel him into filling a market niche that was largely unexplored by the bigger companies such as Edgars. His to decision to expand rapidly across the country and to move away from diminutive Upington to cosmopolitan Cape Town in 1966, as opposed to settle comfortably for one large and successful store in Upington among family and friends and a familiar environment, was another crucial decision – so was his last-minute-decision not to sell his fledgling company to Edgars in 1970 for R4 million. Changing the company’s name from Bargain Stores to Pep Stores in 1966 was probably not a decisive step.

However, much more important was Renier’s move in 1980 to enter the food retail sector with the buying of 8 Shoprite stores and putting in charge the right for the job, Whitey Basson. Despite doubts of the ability of a clothing retailer like Pep’s ability to compete against established food retail giants like OK, Grand Bazaars, Checkers and Pick&Pay, – all but the latter were eventually swallowed by Shoprite. Finally, his decision to pick Christo Wiese to take over the company from him when he retired turned out to a decisive moment in Pep’s history, if not directly for Renier - Wiese used the platform created by Renier eventually to create his own business conglomerate and then to almost lose it again when his (Wiese's) Steinhoff empire almost collapsed in 2017.

Renier’s unsuccessful attempt to re-enter the business world during the 1990’s in the guise of the Harwill group was another decisive step in his life. He could have comfortably stayed on in Europe and explored the world, or retired with his fortune in South Africa after 1995 and live a life of luxury – he chose neither. Instead his entrepreneurial spirit and a desire to recreate the Pep miracle drove him to reenter the business world at the age of 65. In addition, he wanted to contribute in the form of job creation and industrial development, to the Mandela-era South Africa for which he waited for so long and which he desperately wanted to help succeed.

It serves no purpose to debate the ‘what-if” scenario, for example: where would Pep have been today if Renier remained at the helm for another 10 or 20 years or if he kept a majority control of the company after retiring. But one thing is certain: as the father of Pep he created entrepreneurial parameters which permanently remodeled the South African business environment and he will always be remembered for that contribution.