01/06/2009 14h51
Pão de Açúcar creates team for acquisitions
Folha de S. Paulo 01/06/2009
With R$ 1.4 billion (US$ 608.7 million) in cash, Pão de Açúcar starts the year with plans to grow aggressively. Two months ago, the retailer group formed an internal team for mergers and acquisitions, besides contracting PricewatherhouseCoopers and the BBA bank. The objective is to take advantage of the opportunities that may arise because of the crisis. According to Claudio Galeazzi, CEO of the Pão de Açúcar group, the group is analyzing nearly 15 opportunities, some of which are chains of drugstores and gas stations. Today, the group sells R$ 3 million (US$ 1.3 million) a day with the sale of fuels. "We are being pro-active in our search for opportunities and we want businesses with synergy to generate the traffic of consumers in the stores", says Galeazzi. Besides growing by means of acquisitions, Pão de Açúcar also intends to open one hundred stores in 2009. The investments' expectation amounts to R$ 1 billion (US$ 434.8 million) and will also be used in technology and logistics. "Our first goal is to maintain the economic and financial health of the company, and the entire plan will depend on the performance of the Brazilian economy, says Galeazzi. In spite of emphasizing that the organic expansion will be based on good sense, Galeazzi says there is a great chance that 60 to 70 stores will be opened this year, most of them trading as "Extra Fácil" and "Assaí". Besides the opportunities of growth, Galeazzi says the negotiations with suppliers are being benefited with the crisis. According to him, there are many foreign suppliers with high stocks. "With the retraction of the American market, they treat our trading company differently", says Mattar. That will prevent a probable adjustment of prices because of the dollar price increase. Yesterday Pão de Açúcar also reported its sales from December, which increased 9.3% compared to the same month of the previous year. For the first time, the sales of food grew more than the non-food items', showing the signs of the retraction in the consumption of durable goods. In the year, the sales of the group amounted to R$ 21 billion (US$ 11.5 billion), an increase of 18.2% compared to 2007.
