Owns shopping centers in South America where its own parent company's stores are the anchor tenants.
At a glance
- Depends onDownstream position: depends on 13 industries, supplies 5
- ScaleMarket cap is above the global median
Owns shopping centers in South America where its own parent company's stores are the anchor tenants.
Cencosud Shopping S.A. owns and operates shopping malls across Chile, Peru, Colombia, and Argentina, where the anchor tenants — the supermarkets and department stores that draw most of the foot traffic — are supplied by its own parent company, Cencosud Group. Because the anchor occupancy is an internal coordination decision rather than a leasing negotiation with an outside party, Cencosud Shopping can guarantee a filled anchor space before construction even begins, which is what convinces international fashion and electronics chains to sign leases of ten to fifteen years — commitments they would not make with a landlord whose anchor tenant could simply walk away. Those long-term smaller-tenant leases are what make the financing close and the development happen in the first place. The arrangement runs in reverse if Cencosud Group's own retail operations weaken: the smaller tenants signed because the anchor guaranteed foot traffic, so if a supermarket or department store vacates, the occupancy logic unravels and the parent's operational problems become the subsidiary's vacancy crisis.
How does this company make money?
The company collects a base rent from every tenant each month. On top of that, once a tenant's sales cross a minimum level, the company takes 3–6% of whatever the tenant earns above that threshold. It also charges all tenants a fee to cover the cost of running shared spaces like corridors and restrooms, and it collects revenue from shoppers who park at the centers.
What makes this company hard to replace?
International retail chains signing 10–15 year leases with renewal options have a strong reason to stay — smaller mall operators cannot offer the same lease length because they cannot secure construction financing without the anchor guarantee that Cencosud Shopping Centers provides. Retailers that used Cencosud's centers to enter Latin American markets have also built their store networks and supply chains around those locations, making relocation costly.
What limits this company?
To build a new center, the company needs a large urban plot in Chile, Peru, Colombia, or Argentina that has the right zoning, enough nearby residents, and highway or transit access. Getting municipal approval for that kind of site takes 2–4 years per city, the process is different in every jurisdiction, and the local political relationships required in one country do not carry over to another.
What does this company depend on?
The company cannot operate without five things: municipal zoning approvals and construction permits from local governments in Chile, Peru, Colombia, and Argentina; lease commitments from Cencosud Group's own department stores and supermarkets to fill anchor spaces; construction and refinancing loans from Latin American banks in local currencies; connections to water, electricity, and telecommunications infrastructure; and road or public transit access that brings customers to each site.
Who depends on this company?
Fashion and electronics retailers inside the centers lose meaningful sales volume when daily visitor counts fall below 10,000 per center. Food court operators see revenue drop when the centers can no longer draw evening and weekend crowds. Local municipal governments lose property tax income and jobs when centers cut operating hours or anchor spaces go dark.
How does this company scale?
Property management systems and the processes for coordinating with tenants can be reused across multiple malls in the same city at relatively low added cost. What does not get cheaper or faster with size is finding and approving new sites — every new city means a fresh round of permit applications, different rules, and local relationships that have to be built from scratch.
What external forces can significantly affect this company?
When Latin American currencies fall against the US dollar, the cost of imported construction materials and equipment rises, making new developments more expensive. E-commerce growth pulls shoppers away from physical stores, which puts downward pressure on foot traffic across all centers. On the positive side, rising middle-class incomes in Colombia and Peru are increasing demand for the kind of international retail brands that fill these malls.
Where is this company structurally vulnerable?
If Cencosud Group's supermarkets or department stores perform poorly and vacate anchor space in one or more centers, the logic that held everything together reverses. Smaller tenants signed their leases because the anchor-driven foot traffic was guaranteed. When the anchor leaves, those tenants lose their reason to stay, and the parent company's retail troubles become a vacancy crisis for the subsidiary.
Sign in to view price data.
Sign inScreen for dividend patterns
Find other stocks with similar dividend characteristics in the screener.
Structural observations derived from financial data, industry benchmarks, and supply chain position.
Companies that share the same coordination system — how they create, deliver, or capture value.
Companies that share active interpretations — structural patterns currently present in both stocks.
CompanyGraph