Tienda Amiga ER S.A.

What it is

Tienda Amiga began in December 2010 as the first formal home-appliance store in Santa Cruz offering instalment payment plans — a model long established in neighbouring Argentina and Brazil but new to Bolivia at the time.

The company describes itself as Bolivia’s leading retail chain in its category, with more than 3,000 products for the home, letting customers pay cash or in weekly or monthly instalments across televisions, refrigerators, furniture, mattresses, perfumes, computers and more.

It also carries its own private label, Home Tech, and has built broad expertise in the commercial sale and instalment-credit market for appliances and related articles.

Who owns it

Tienda Amiga is listed on the Bolsa Boliviana de Valores and is regulated as a public issuer by ASFI. The exact identity and ownership percentages of its controlling shareholders are not disclosed in the public documents retrieved; the company’s prospectuses confirm all shareholder meetings have been held with 100% participation, suggesting a closely held structure.

External auditing is performed by KPMG S.R.L., consistent with the governance standards expected of a public-debt issuer in Bolivia. No free-float or shareholder breakdown was accessible from the primary sources consulted.

Who runs it

The company’s legal representatives are, individually, the Gerente General (chief executive), or jointly any two of the following: the Gerente Administrativo Financiero, the Gerente de Crédito y Cobranzas, and the Gerente de Excelencia y Planificación.

In July 2024, the company notified Bolivia’s securities regulator of a modification to its organisational structure. The individual names of the current Gerente General and Gerente Administrativo Financiero are not disclosed in the public filings retrieved.

The money, in plain words

At the end of 2023, the company held total assets of Bs 263m (roughly USD 26.7m at today’s rate), financed by a mix of commercial debt and shareholders’ equity of Bs 63m (~USD 6.4m).

Financial borrowings across short- and long-term maturities totalled roughly Bs 123m (~USD 12.5m at 31 December 2023) — our calculation — meaning the business carries substantial debt relative to the equity base, which is normal for a consumer-finance-driven retailer but leaves little cushion if sales fall sharply.

And sales did fall sharply. Revenue dropped 17% in 2024.

The silver lining: the net profit margin improved by about 4.6 percentage points in 2024 — meaning the company cut costs faster than sales fell, so it kept more of each remaining boliviano of revenue. But recovering growth, not just margins, is the real test ahead.

Looking back across 2019–2023, the net commercial margin fell from 5.8% in 2019 to just 1.2% in 2023 — a long squeeze driven by rising import costs and fixed overheads that grew faster than revenues. The 2021 snapshot from the regulator’s own rating report shows a net margin of 4.82% and a return on equity of 13%, a profitable year that the company has since struggled to repeat.

The core risk is structural: Tienda Amiga’s business model relies on extending credit to customers, which it manages through an internal scoring system that evaluates each buyer’s real ability to pay. It hedges currency risk by keeping most of its liabilities in Bolivian bolivianos.

What it is doing now

In September 2024 ASFI authorised a new Bonos Tienda Amiga I bond programme worth Bs 105m (~USD 10.7m), listed on the Bolsa Boliviana de Valores. This was followed by a second tranche (Emisión 2) authorised in late 2025, also on the BBV, confirming the company’s strategy of funding its consumer-credit book with formal capital-market debt rather than bank loans alone.

IDB Invest — the private-sector arm of the Inter-American Development Bank — has also extended a revolving credit line of up to USD 5m to fund imports of home appliances and electronics, aiming to strengthen Tienda Amiga’s supply chain and growth plans.

What to watch

• Revenue recovery. A 17% revenue drop in 2024 is a serious warning. Whether that reflects a one-off downturn in Bolivia’s broader economy or a structural shift in demand will determine whether the margin improvement is a turning point or a consolation prize.
• Debt servicing. Its short-term commercial paper (pagarés) carries the highest credit-quality rating, N-1, from Pacific Credit Rating — but that rating depends on continued cash generation. Watch for any rating review against the backdrop of the revenue slide.
• Ownership transparency. As a public-debt issuer, shareholder disclosure remains limited. Any move toward fuller equity-market listing — or a change in controlling ownership — would be a significant event.
• Bolivia macro risk. The company is exposed to country risk and changes in the regulatory environment. Bolivia’s ongoing foreign-exchange constraints affect importers directly; Tienda Amiga’s entire product range is imported.

This is news, not investment advice.