Makro is a family and business chain store.
Just Some history on Makro South Africa
The Makro concept was formulated by a German academic, Dr Biesheim, who solicited the interest of a wealthy German family to form Metro A.G. (unrelated to the South African Metro).
The founding family of Metro A.G. was a close business associate of the Ventener Van Vlissingen family, who owned SHV, a hundred year old Dutch based coal trading company.
SHV decided to open up similar stores, called Makro, in countries that did not compete with Metro.
A cross shareholding agreement eliminated potential conflict.
All Makro stores internationally (once spread across Europe, South America, South Africa and Asia), operated on a similar format as the original concept developed in Germany and the Netherlands.
In 1997 during re-structuring, the Makro stores in Europe were subsequently sold off by SHV to Metro AG.
SHV now only operates Makro's in South America (Argentina, Brazil, Columbia, Venezuela) and Asia (Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and China).
