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Grupo Exito history
Grupo Exito company history timeline
The chain of hypermarkets known as Almacenes was initially a textile business that opened its first store in 1949 in Medellin, Colombia.
Grupo Éxito traces its origins to a Medellín, Colombia family run textile business founded in 1949 by Gustavo Toro Quintero. Éxito is the Spanish word for success.
Public Company Incorporated: 1950 as Gustavo Toro y Cia.
In 1962 the first modern self-service store was opened
Though today the company gets three quarters of its revenue from food, it wasn't until 1972 that grocery items were added to store shelves.
In 1972 Exito added supermarket offerings to its fabrics and clothing, and two years later it added a second store in Medellín.
In the 1990's Groupe Casino started taking interest in the company with a 25% stake.
Cativen (acronym for Cadena de Tiendas Venezolanas SA) is a venezuelan supermarket chain founded on March 23, 1995.
Almacenes Exito passed its chief competitor, Gran Cadena de Almacenes de Colombianos S.A. (Cadenalco) in revenue in 1997.
By 1998, when the company led all others in the hypermarket and supermarket sector, there were ten in Colombia, located in or on the outskirts of the largest cities: Bogotá, Medellín, and Cali.
J.P. Morgan Partners invested $25 million to buy 7 percent of Almacenes Exito in 1998.
By March 1999 Almacenes Exito had bought so much of Cadenalco’s stock that, with 57 percent, it held majority control.
At the end of 1999 manufactured products were included in the virtual store. Éxito was a pioneer of electronic commerce.
MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS: 2001–07
The infusion of funds allowed Almacenes Exito, in 2001, to raise its stake to 80 percent in Cativen, which opened the first of six new hypermarkets in Venezuela, under the name Exito.
-Merged with Cadenalco (formerly Colombia's largest retailer) in 2001.
To diversify its clientele, the company purchased lower-end Surtimax in 2004.
Subsequently, it bought the shares of the French group Casino, which owned 61.7% of Cativen's shares, and nationalized the remaining six Éxito supermarkets in the country. It became affiliated with Grupo Exito in 2004 when Groupe Casino acquired 80% of Cativen's shares.
These acquisitions gave Exito control of 47 percent of the revenue recorded in 2005 for Colombia’s large retail chains, with Almacenes Éxito accounting for 29.5 percent and Carulla Vivero for 17.5 percent.
In October of 2006 company founder Gustavo Toro sells his entire stake in the company (24%) to key competitor Cencosud for $273 million.
In April 2007 Casino and Cencosud reached an agreement to launch a home improvement store chain in Colombia as a joint venture.
In 2007 purchased controlling interest (77.5%) in Carulla Vivero.
In 2007 Gonzalo Restrepo López was still president of Almacenes Exito.
In early 2010, the Government of Venezuela expropriated several Éxito supermarkets citing price gauging, hoarding of supplies, and breaching the Law for the Defense of Persons in Access to Goods and Services.
Grupo Exito and parent company Groupe Casino previously owned a majority stake in Venezuela's leading supermarket chain Cativen (67.1%) however it was forced to divest that share in 2011 (bought by Venezuela's government).
In 2011 Grupo Exito expressed a strong desire to expand operations elsewhere in Latin America.
In the summer of 2011, Almacenes Éxito acquired the Devoto and Disco chains in Uruguay, for US $746 million, as part of its expansion plan in Latin America.
On October 5, 2018, Grupo Éxito opened the Viva Envigado shopping center, which with 260,000 m² is the second largest shopping center in Colombia after Centro Mayor (Bogotá), Calima (Bogotá), Mayorca Mega Plaza (Sabaneta), Plaza Central (Bogotá) and Santafé (Bogotá)
"Almacenes Exito S.A. ." International Directory of Company Histories. . Retrieved June 21, 2022 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/books/politics-and-business-magazines/almacenes-exito-sa
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Grupo Exito competitors
| Company name | Founded date | Revenue | Employee size | Job openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cencosud | 1960 | $14.0B | 126,530 | - |
| The Magazi Inc | - | $1.7M | 35 | 79 |
| Showplace Rent to Own | 2019 | $13.2M | 30 | 56 |
| Busch's Fresh Food Market | 1975 | $250.0M | 1,150 | 241 |
| Co-op Food Stores | - | $540,000 | 7 | - |
| Fresh Approach | 2008 | $660,000 | 19 | - |
| Colonial Spirits of Acton | 1966 | $310,000 | 5 | - |
| Jungle Jim's International Market | 1971 | $71.8M | 320 | 39 |
| Rainbow Grocery | 1975 | $39.7M | 200 | 2 |
| Clean'n'Press | 1987 | $610,000 | 10 | 1 |
Grupo Exito history FAQs
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Grupo Exito may also be known as or be related to Grupo Exito and Grupo Éxito.