Chile: Tottus beefing up its role within Falabella

Chilean retail giant Falabella now earns 7% of its revenue from its
supermarket chains Tottus and San Francisco and it plans to open 31
more Tottus outlets in Chile and another seven in Peru for 2009. Marcelo
Fernandino, general director of Tottus, expects to raise his firm's
contribution to Falabella's total turnover from 4% to 6% this year. In
2007, ten stores will open thanks to investment of US$50mil. Before then,
this very month, two new Tottus supermarkets will open, one in
Santiago and another in Antofagasta.

Organic growth has been spruced up with the power centre concept that
sees a retail complex set up featuring all the group members, Sodimac,
Homecenter and Falabella as well as Tottus. When Falabella and San
Francisco unified in 2004, the aim was to acquire a 10% supermarket
sector share in five years; that aim should be attained slightly earlier.
Joint sales for Tottus and San Francisco reached US$276mil in 2005;
Fernandino expects to reach almost US$350mil this time around.