Cencosud Shopping SA

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What it is

Cencosud Shopping S.A. owns and operates shopping centres across Chile, Peru, and Colombia, leasing space to retailers, restaurants, hotels, and corporate tenants. The company was formerly known as Costanera Center S.A., changed its name in October 2018, and was incorporated in 2005, based in Santiago.

Across the Cencosud group, the shopping-centre portfolio spans more than 50 malls with roughly 794,590 square metres of space available for lease. The business model is simple: it does not sell goods itself but charges rent — and that rent-heavy model explains why profit margins dwarf those of ordinary retailers.

Who owns it

Cencosud Shopping S.A. operates as a subsidiary of Cencosud S.A., the broader retail conglomerate. Cencosud S.A. itself is 56.16% controlled by the Paulmann family, who hold that stake through a vehicle called PK One Limited.

Inside Cencosud Shopping specifically, insiders (led by Cencosud S.A.) hold 71.6% of the shares and institutions hold a further 24.0% — leaving a free float of roughly 4% (EODHD data). The board chair of Cenco Malls is Manfred Paulmann, son of the late founder Horst Paulmann, who died in March 2025.

Who runs it

Sebastián Bellocchio Fioretti is CEO, promoted from the company’s own commercial team. He took the role on 1 March 2024 when his predecessor, Rodrigo Larraín, was elevated to CEO of the parent, Cencosud S.A.

Bellocchio, 46, is a commercial engineer from Universidad Finis Terrae and joined the predecessor business in 2010, playing an active role in the company’s stock-market listing in 2019. The company’s governance page confirms a seven-member board that oversees him.

The money, in plain words

Revenue has grown steadily: from CLP 315 billion (USD 347 million) in 2023 to CLP 378 billion (USD 417 million) in 2025 — a gain of 20.1% over two years (our calculation). Net profit in the same period nearly doubled, from CLP 187 billion (US$206 mn) to CLP 304 billion (US$335 mn), as the company controlled costs on a largely fixed asset base (our calculation).

In 2025 it kept about 80 cents of operating profit from every peso of revenue — a net margin of 80.4% (our calculation) — exceptional even by global mall standards. For every peso of equity shareholders have put in, it returned about 11 cents last year — a return on equity of 11.3% (EODHD) — reasonable for a capital-heavy real estate company.

At a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.35× and a dividend yield of 3.09%, the stock sits at an undemanding valuation relative to its earnings power.

What it is doing now

On 3 June 2026, Cenco Malls closed the acquisition of a 51% indirect stake in Plaza Central, one of Bogotá’s largest shopping centres, for USD 125 million. Plaza Central has 76,520 square metres of leasable area and occupancy of approximately 95%.

A five-year investment plan of USD 500 million running from 2023 to 2027 includes expansions at Cenco Costanera, Alto Las Condes, and Florida Center in Chile, plus new projects in Rancagua and Temuco. For Peru, two entirely new malls are planned for Lima — one in Miraflores and one in San Juan de Lurigancho, the latter projected at 80,000 square metres.

What to watch

• Free-float thinness: with roughly 4% of shares freely traded, this stock moves on little volume — a risk for any investor trying to buy or sell in size.
• Colombia growth: the Plaza Central acquisition puts fresh capital to work in a market where the company was small; execution and lease-up pace will signal whether the Andean expansion thesis holds.
• Founder succession: Horst Paulmann, the founder and guiding force behind Cencosud, died in March 2025. How the Paulmann family governs the next chapter is an open question for all group entities.
• FX exposure: all revenue is in Chilean pesos, Peruvian soles, and Colombian pesos — any depreciation against the dollar trims the USD value of earnings for international investors.

This is news, not investment advice.