Grupo Mateus S.A

What it is

Grupo Mateus runs two parallel businesses: a wholesale arm — selling in bulk to small shopkeepers and food-service operators under the Mix Atacarejo and Armazém Mateus banners — and a retail arm of supermarkets, hypermarkets, convenience shops, and appliance stores. By March 2026 the network spanned 306 total units, 18 distribution centres, 132 cities, and nine states, with over 47,000 monthly business-to-business wholesale clients.

The company started as a small venture in Maranhão in 1986 and expanded by leveraging deep local market knowledge. It remains a regional story — all its stores are in Brazil’s North and North-East, the country’s poorer, faster-growing half, where formal supermarket chains are still displacing street markets and small independents.

Who owns it

The company was founded by Ilson Mateus Rodrigues in 1986. Insiders — effectively the Mateus family — hold 79.6% of shares (EODHD), leaving a free float of roughly 20%; institutions hold 19.0% of the total.

Ilson Mateus Rodrigues serves as chairman of the board, with his son Ilson Mateus Rodrigues Junior as vice-chairman. This is a family-controlled business in every meaningful sense: minority investors ride alongside the founding family, not ahead of it.

Who runs it

Ilson Mateus stepped back from day-to-day management to chair the board, handing the CEO title to Jesuíno Martins Borges Filho. Martins began his career inside Grupo Mateus in 1997 and has worked through management and director roles across the group ever since — a career-long insider rather than a hired hand.

Túlio José Pitol de Queiroz serves as Vice-President of Finance and Investor Relations, the external hire brought in to sharpen governance after the IPO.

The money, in plain words

Annual sales have grown by roughly 20% each year for two consecutive years — from R$26.8bn (US$5.2 bn) in FY2023 to R$32.1bn (US$6.2 bn) in FY2024 to R$38.4bn (US$7.5 bn) (~$7.5bn) in FY2025 (our calculation). The company keeps about 4.5 cents of profit from every real of sales — a net profit margin of 4.49%, thin but normal for food retail, where volume is the game.

For every real of shareholders’ equity, Grupo Mateus earns roughly 16 cents a year back — a return on equity of 16.0%, solid for the sector. The stock trades at just 4.9 times earnings (a price-to-earnings ratio of 4.9×), meaning the market is pricing in meaningful risk, not paying for growth.

The dividend yield of 4.93% offers investors real income while they wait.

The balance sheet carries net debt of R$5.0bn (US$971 mn) (~$967m) — total borrowings of R$6.8bn (US$1.3 bn) minus R$1.8bn (US$350 mn) in cash (our calculation). The cash-conversion cycle improved by 16 days in Q1 2026, and financial leverage fell to 0.33× pre-IFRS 16, suggesting the debt load is manageable, not alarming.

What it is doing now

In Q1 2026, revenue rose 12.9% to R$9.4bn (US$1.8 bn) (~$1.83bn), driven almost entirely by the absorption of Novo Atacarejo — a cash-and-carry chain merged in late 2025 — plus wholesale B2B growth and the appliances segment. Net profit fell 21.8% year-on-year to R$212.9m (US$41 mn) (~$41m).

Between 2025 and early 2026, the group closed 28 unprofitable stores and cut approximately 6,600 jobs, shifting from territorial expansion toward protecting margins. The Novo Atacarejo merger gave it a 37.7% market share across Pernambuco, Paraíba, and Alagoas, and a 44.5% share in the cash-and-carry segment in those three states.

What to watch

• Same-store sales recovery. Organic same-store sales fell 7.3% in Q1 2026, as Brazilian consumers shifted to lower-ticket baskets amid food deflation and high household debt; the legacy states ran at −6.3% and Novo Atacarejo states at −10%. A sustained reversal here is the single most important signal.
• Novo Atacarejo integration. The merger carries potential synergies in purchasing, logistics, and operations that could improve profitability — but they need to materialise.
• Margin recovery vs. expansion pace. Management targets roughly 30 store openings in 2026, even after the restructuring. Every new store dilutes margins before it matures.
• Family control discount. With 79.6% insider ownership, minority investors have limited leverage. Good governance disclosures matter more here than at most peers.

This is news, not investment advice.