The Bašumi Trust, established by PepsiCo South Africa as part of the acquisition of Pioneer Foods, paid more than 10, 400 qualifying beneficiaries a second annual dividend of R2, 468.27 each at the end of January 2024. The Bašumi Trust was established as PepsiCo SA’s B-BBEE employee share ownership scheme.
The annual dividend payment represents the payout for the four quarters of 2023 and is payable by the end of January each year.
Many of the beneficiaries spent the dividend on school fees, school uniform, stationery, and transport for their children, including Bakery employee, Moeketsi who said: “I don’t know how I would have done it without this payment”.
Others used the money to buy building materials to build their own house or to repair their existing homes: “I bought building blocks and cement to construct a new home with an inside toilet on a new stand – I’m trying to fix up a place for me and my kids so we can have a place we can call ours”, says Hlompo.
And while a number of employees bought groceries, many used the money towards settling of debts or to pay deposits towards furthering their studies.
Chairperson of the Bašumi Trust, Melissa-Joy Golden explains that each annual dividend pay-out was estimated to be approximately R1 200 per participant. However, thanks to PepsiCo Inc.’s positive global earnings results (announced in Purchase, New York on Friday 9 February) and share price performance, the 2023 inaugural annual dividend payment was R 1 908.35, and the 2024 annual dividend payment is even higher. “It’s so heart-warming to hear from our employees who benefit from this scheme, about how useful this payment has been at the end of January.
According to the rules of the Bašumi Trust, the payment is a distribution of 50 percent of the dividends received from PepsiCo Inc. for the four quarters of 2023, less taxation.
PepsiCo, Inc FY and Q4 earnings
“We are pleased with our results for 2023 as we successfully navigated another year of elevated levels of inflation, macroeconomic volatility, geopolitical tensions and international conflicts. Our results demonstrate that the investments we have made to strengthen our business and advance our PepsiCo positive agenda are working: it’s evident in how we are innovating, operating, empowering our teams, building our brands, and competing in the marketplace,” said Chairman and CEO Ramon Laguarta.
Laguarta continued, “We are confident that our businesses will perform well in 2024 in the context of changing marketplace conditions. Category growth rates are normalizing as
consumer behaviours largely revert to pre-pandemic norms and net revenue realization moderates as inflationary pressures are expected to abate.
Moving forward, we will further sharpen our focus on providing consumers great-tasting products that offer convenience and compelling value. We will also aggressively manage our costs to accelerate productivity, and invest more in our brands, innovation, channel expansion and pepsico positive transformation.”
Whilst the PepsiCo South Africa business continues to operate in a challenging macro- economic environment, the construct of the Basumi Trust with shares held in the global PepsiCo Inc. enabled the higher than planned benefits for beneficiaries.
