What: The newly appointed and first non-family member CEO reviews the current challenges and opportunities in Brazil.

Why it is important: Brazil is different from other retail markets, as the mall business is often looking like the department store business in other countries. It is interesting to see how they make the most of both as this might bring interesting insights to department stores companies.

Iguatemi is a major luxury player in Brazil, where the format of department store is often mingled with the mall one. We reported the appointment of Cristina Betts last October 2021 (see here).

Malls in Brazil are located in city centres (quite a difference with the US market), are designed to be safe havens and provide all entertainment facilities in addition to shopping proposals. In Sao Paul itself, Iguatemi operates 19 malls.

Just like department stores, Iguatemi scout for new brands and are very active into making sure that they remain on top of trends. In addition, they propose to brands to team up into JV or partnerships, to make do with the inverted seasonality when compared to the Northern hemisphere.

Iguatemi also operates Iguatemi 365, a phygital touchpoint (see here) allowing the company to operated in both channels and mitigate for the heavy investments involved in mall building (on average EUR 85m). Omnichannel operations are however totally focused on local businesses, be them communities or brands.

Cristina Betts from Iguatemi interview