Retail
Key Facts
—The opening. The chain’s first Brazilian store, of just over 140 square metres, opens this month at MorumbiShopping in São Paulo.
—The landlord. Multiplan (B3: MULT3) is spending R$233m ($45m) on the mall’s sixth expansion, adding 40 stores and eight restaurants.
—The maths. That works out at roughly R$31,600 ($6,100) per square metre of new leasable area, about half again the company’s blended expansion cost.
—The lateness. The retailer went abroad fifteen years ago, opening in Dubai, and now has more than 530 international stores across 40-plus countries.
—The asset. MorumbiShopping already delivers the highest sales per square metre in Multiplan’s twenty-mall portfolio.
—The company. Multiplan is the largest real-estate company on the Brazilian exchange by market value.
For years the surest way to spot a Brazilian returning from Miami was the paper bag. The Bath & Body Works Brazil store finally opens this month, and the interesting question is not why it came, but why it took forty other countries first.
The American chain sells scented candles, body sprays and hand soap. It is unglamorous, enormously profitable, and for a generation of Brazilian travellers it has functioned as a compulsory stop between the airport and the hotel.
The first store in the country will occupy a little over 140 square metres at MorumbiShopping, in the south of São Paulo. Pre-sales opened online at the end of June.
The shelves will carry the fragrances that built the brand abroad, among them Gingham, Japanese Cherry Blossom and Champagne Toast. The three-wick candles that anchor the range are advertised as burning for up to forty-five hours.
Why Bath & Body Works Brazil arrives last
The retailer left home fifteen years ago and opened first in Dubai. Singapore and Italy followed in 2015, Mexico and Malaysia have now had a decade of it, and the five-hundredth international store opened in London in 2024.
Brazil, a country of two hundred million people with a deep habit of buying fragrance, waited until store number five hundred and thirty or thereabouts. That is not an accident of taste.
Brazil has been the most desired and most punishing consumer market in the hemisphere for foreign retailers. Import duties, a bewildering tax code, expensive credit and a currency that can erase a year of margin in a quarter have sent more than one global name home again.
What has changed is the landlord’s appetite rather than the entrant’s courage. The wave now arriving, from fast fashion to fragrance, is being pulled in by mall operators competing for names their rivals cannot show.
The investable story is the mall, not the candles
MorumbiShopping is owned by Multiplan, the biggest listed property company in Brazil by market value. Its sixth expansion of the site adds 7,377 square metres of leasable area and reworks another 5,764, lifting the mall to 63,332 square metres.
The bill, announced to the market, is two hundred and thirty-three million reais, about forty-five million dollars. It buys 40 new stores, eight restaurants and a rooftop dining terrace.
Run the division and a number emerges that nobody advertises. Measured against the new leasable area alone, the expansion costs about thirty-one thousand six hundred reais a square metre, roughly six thousand one hundred dollars.
Set that against the company’s own programme of seven expansions, which implied a blended cost nearer twenty-one thousand reais a square metre. Morumbi is being built at about half again that rate.
Part of the gap is the refit of existing space, which the division above ignores. The rest is what a landlord pays to put the highest sales per square metre in its portfolio somewhere even higher.
The expansion runs across three floors and was announced to the exchange in December 2023, with construction starting the following March. Multiplan operates twenty malls in seven states and says its properties draw roughly 190 million visits a year.
Multiplan’s management said as much before the tenants were named. A senior executive told reporters in 2024 that the forty-two-year-old mall needed renewal and would get international brands new to the group and new to Brazil, with the negotiations confidential.
What a foreign investor should take from it
The first reading is currency. With the real near five to the dollar, a shopping weekend in Florida is an expensive way to buy hand soap, and the arbitrage that built the brand’s Brazilian following is closing.
Every one of those bags represented consumption exported. Landing the store locally converts outbound tourist spending into domestic retail sales, taxed and counted at home.
The second reading is the mall itself as an asset class. The store count at Morumbi rises from around 507 by nearly a tenth, in a property already running close to full occupancy.
That is the bet in plain terms. Brazilian consumers are absorbing the highest interest rates in the developed world, and Multiplan is spending to sell them premium candles anyway.
When does the Bath & Body Works Brazil store open?
This month, at MorumbiShopping in São Paulo. The company said an exact date and further events would be announced separately.
Who owns the mall?
Multiplan, listed in São Paulo and the largest real-estate company on the exchange by market value, with twenty malls across seven states.
Will prices match those in the United States?
The company has not published Brazilian prices. Import duties and local taxes normally lift landed consumer-goods prices well above American shelf prices.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Bath & Body Works opening its first store in Brazil?
The first Brazilian Bath & Body Works store is opening at MorumbiShopping in São Paulo, occupying just over 140 square metres. Pre-sales opened online at the end of June ahead of the physical store's launch.
How much is Multiplan spending on the MorumbiShopping expansion that includes the new store?
Multiplan is spending R$233 million ($45 million) on MorumbiShopping's sixth expansion, which adds 40 stores and eight restaurants. That works out to roughly R$31,600 ($6,100) per square metre of new leasable area, about half again the company's blended expansion cost.
How long has Bath & Body Works been operating internationally before entering Brazil?
Bath & Body Works went abroad fifteen years ago, opening its first international store in Dubai. The chain now has more than 530 international stores across more than 40 countries.
This article was drafted with automated assistance and reviewed before publication. How we use AI · Report an error
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