Grupo Éxito Full-Year 2023 Net Profit Jumps 27% Year-on-Year
Medellin-based multinational supermarket giant Grupo Éxito announced February 27 that its full-year 2023 net profit rose 27% year-on-year, to COP$126 billion (US$30 million).
Revenues also rose 2.4% year-on-year, to COP $21.1 trillion (US$5.36 billion), or an 8.7% boost if excluding peso-to-dollar exchange-rate effects.
Corporate-wide earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) dipped by 1.4% year-on-year, to COP$1.64 trillion (US$417 million) in the three countries where it operates: Colombia, Uruguay and Argentina.
“In Colombia, operating income grew 3.6%, despite the contraction in demand [while] Uruguay and Argentina operating income grew by 9.8% and 245.5% respectively — both above inflation, measured in local currency,” according to Éxito.
Also in Colombia, Éxito continued to expand its cooperative “Aliados” supply initiative, now totaling 2,430 unaffiliated mini-markets and neighborhood stores.
On the social/environmental front, “Grupo Éxito stood out as the seventh-most sustainable company in the food retail industry globally and the first in Colombia, due to its sustainability standards in the Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA), one of the most internationally recognized evaluations,” the company boasted.
On a similar front, “72,567 boys and girls were served by the Éxito Foundation with better nutrition, through the delivery of 183,358 food packages, seeking to combat chronic malnutrition,” the company added.
As for its “innovative format” store initiatives in Colombia, the “Éxito Wow” stores accounted for 36.3% of total Éxito brand sales, while “Carulla FreshMarket” accounted for 62.7% of all its “Carulla” supermarket sales.
In Uruguay, the “Fresh Market” store format reached a sales share of 58.8%, while the “Cash and Carry” format in Argentina took 17.3% of sales there.
Meanwhile, electronic sales (E-commerce) channels now represent 12.7% of sales in Colombia, up 10.1% year-on-year, reaching 19 million orders
As for Éxito’s commercial real-estate business division, this unit reported occupancy rates above 97.6% in Colombia and 94% in Argentina, with income growth above inflation levels.
Meanwhile, as announced during fourth-quarter 2023, the El Salvador-based Calleja Group has launched a tender offer for a stake of at least 51% — or possibly as much as 100% — of the company’s publicly-traded shares. “Once it is concluded, Grupo Calleja will be the owner of 86.84% of the company’s share capital,” Éxito added.
