Dear Sir,
I refer to our telephone conversations on the articles published in the Namibia Economist of 4 April 2008. I refer to the articles on Page 3, “Bidvest postpones local bourse listing” and the article on Page 10 “Waltons poised to regain lost market share”.
Both these articles contain inaccuracies that can damage the image of both the holding company, BidVest and Waltons Namibia.

Let me start with the article on page 3, “BidVest postpones local bourse listing”. The article states: “The stationery and distribution business unit, which includes subsidiaries of Waltons and Konica Minolta, an IT distribution business in Windhoek, also performed dismally and lost a significant market share.”
You said that the information was taken from the interim results published by BidVest, South Africa. However, nowhere in the results or the message to shareholders there is any indication of this statement. In fact, I quote from the message to shareholders. Under the heading “Bid industrial and commercial products” we read: “ The stationery and furniture performance was satisfactory, although operating profit was flat. The flagship WALTONS brand achieved gains in both revenue and operating profits…..”
That does not sound to me as if Waltons performed “dismally. ” These comments include the performance of Waltons Southern Africa. In Namibia, Waltons has grown in double figures, year on year since 1993. I did not detect any dismal performance. I attach a graph of the growth since 1993.
Referring to Konica Minolta, I did not notice a single reference to them in the interim results. Where did your staff writer get this information?