Cencosud S.A. is a

publicly traded A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of share capital, stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter (finance), over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) co ...

retail company based in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

. It is the largest retail company in Chile and the third largest listed retail company in

Latin America Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...

, competing with the Brazilian Companhia Brasileira de Distribuição and the Mexican Walmart de México y Centroamérica as one of the largest retail companies in the region. The company has more than 1045 stores in Latin America.

History

By the end of 2006, the operations of the company included 65

Jumbo hypermarkets Jumbo is a Chilean hypermarket chain with a presence in Chile, Argentina, and Colombia. Founded in 1976 by Horst Paulmann, Jumbo is a subsidiary and pillar of the Cencosud business consortium, which also owns Santa Isabel, Disco, Super Vea, and ...

, 165 Santa Isabel supermarkets; 249 Disco, Vea and Jumbo supermarkets; 60 Easy home improvement stores; 36 Paris department stores; 27 shopping malls and 52 offices of Banco Paris bank, totaling a sales area of 1.8 million square meters, or 19,375,038.75 square feet. It has more than 4.3 million active credit card accounts, issued under the brand Tarjeta Cencosud (in Chile, Peru and Argentina), Tarjeta Cencosud Colpatria (Colombia) and Cartão Cencosud Bradesco (Brazil). By the end of 2007, several new stores had been opened in Chile,

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

and

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

, and the company acquired Wong supermarkets, the largest retailer in Peru, and GBarbosa, a Brazilian retailer. In August 2011, Cencosud announced the acquisition of Johnson department stores. In 2022, Cencosud acquired a majority controlling share in

The Fresh Market The Fresh Market, Inc. is an American chain of supermarkets based in Greensboro, North Carolina. History The Fresh Market was founded by Ray and Beverly Berry on March 5, 1982, in Greensboro, North Carolina. The first store was opened in the f ...

, a chain of specialty grocery stores in the United States. At the time of the announcement, The Fresh Market operated 160 stores across 22 states.

Brands

Cencosud operates upscale

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

department stores, the

Costanera Center The Costanera Center is a commercial and business complex located in the commune of Providencia, Santiago, Chile. Owned by Cencosud, the complex consists of four skyscrapers, including the Gran Torre Santiago, two high-end hotels, an office bui ...

financial center, Easy home improvement and hardware stores,

Jumbo Jumbo (December 25, 1860 – September 15, 1885), also known as Jumbo the Elephant and Jumbo the Circus Elephant, was a 19th-century male African bush elephant born in Sudan. Jumbo was exported to Jardin des Plantes, a zoo in Paris, and then tr ...

hypermarkets, Santa Isabel supermarkets, in Chile. The company also operates Bretas supermarkets, G Barbosa super and hypermarkets, Prezunic supermarkets and Perini supermarkets in Brazil, Vea and

Disco Disco is a music genre, genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the late 1960s from the United States' urban nightclub, nightlife, particularly in African Americans, African-American, Italian-Americans, Italian-American, LGBTQ ...

supermarkets in Argentina, Wong and Metro in Peru, and in 2012 acquired the

Carrefour Carrefour Group, S.A. (, ), is a French multinational retail and wholesaling corporation headquartered in Massy, Essonne, Massy, France. It operates a chain of hypermarkets, grocery stores and convenience stores. By 2024, the group had 14,000 ...

hypermarket operations in Colombia, which changed branding to Jumbo.

References

External links

Official website
{{Authority control Retail companies of Chile Retail companies established in 1960 Companies listed on the Santiago Stock Exchange Companies formerly listed on the New York Stock Exchange Companies in the Índice de Precio Selectivo de Acciones Companies in the S&P Latin America 40 1960 establishments in Chile Companies based in Santiago, Chile Chilean brands