Posts tagged w/ retail

Brazilian Retailers Punish Deforesting Ranchers

Posted by Rachel

This week, Brazil’s three biggest retailers announced that they will not purchase beef from blacklisted ranchers in the Amazon. According to a recently released report from Greenpeace, certain ranchers in the state of Pará are responsible for deforesting the Amazon and are causing destruction at a rapid rate. In fact, the report shows that ranching is the number one cause of Amazon deforestation.

In turn, CBD (the Pão de Açucar chain), Carrefour, and Walmart, along with 72 other retailers will stop buying meat from the offending ranchers. Also, the big three companies have decided to monitor their beef shipments closely and to conduct an assessment to make sure no meat comes from the deforesting ranchers. CBD reported a total of 11 banned companies.

The Greenpeace faults the Brazilian government for failing to live up to its commitment to reducing Amazon deforestion.

 

Major Brazilian Retail Merger Announced

Posted by Rachel

This week, the Brazilian retailer group CBD, which owns the Pao de Acucar supermarket chain, announced that it would buy electronics and home appliance store chain Ponto Frio. The merger makes Pao de Acucar the largest retail chain in the country, with annual sales estimated at 26 billion reais, overtaking the previous leader, French retail chain Carrefour.

CBD plans to make the purchase partially in cash (R$373.4 million) and partially in installments (R$451.1 million). Another part of the deal will be made using stock. The total cost of the purchase will come to R$824.5 million (US$421 million).

Owned by the Brazilian Diniz family based in Sao Paulo and Casino Guichard Perrachon SA, a French company, CBD will overtake its main domestic competitors with the merger, including Carrefour and Walmart.