The Intercorp holding company is the supermarket business leader in Peru, with a 40% share. Its owner has been listed among the richest people in the world.
The giant renowned Peruvian holding company Intercorp has taken control of the Chilean retail chain Erbi, which has 39 shops and supermarkets in the Valparaíso, Metropolitan and O’Higgins regions that operate as discount or hard discount stores.
The details of the operation are not yet known, but the arrival of the company from neighboring Peru could mean that pieces are moved around on Chile’s supermarket industry chessboard. It would be the entry of a stakeholder that leads the market in its own country with a 40% share, above competitors such as Cencosud and Falabella.
The company already has experience in Chile as it controls the Cineplanet cinema chain, which it bought from Hoyts in 2013. In order to complete this operation, it beat the US company Cinemark. Before that, in 2005, it had acquired another Chilean company: Movieland.
Intercorp is engaged in a wide range of businesses, including financial lines, retail, health and education. In Peru alone, it has more than 30 companies employing more than 100,000 workers. Among its companies are Interbank, one of the largest banks in the country; Izipay, a payment processor; Inkafarma, one of its pharmacies; and the Universidad Tecnológica del Perú.
Among its supermarkets are Plaza Vea Hiper, Plaza Vea Super, Vivanda, Makro and Mass. The company also controls the Real Plaza shopping centers; the Oechsle technology, fashion and decoration stores; and the Oslo logistics establishments. Promart Homecenter, which sells home products, also belong to Intercorp, as does InDigital, which offers digital solutions.
The total number of stores that the holding company has in Peru, considering all of its businesses, exceeds 3,500. All of this is reflected in its revenues, which currently reach nearly US$10 billion. The company’s figures in the retail area showed that 2023 was a successful year. They closed with a 5.5% growth in their turnover and had revenues of around US$5.6 billion, more than 5% above the result of the previous year, according to Perú-Retail, a media company that specializes in the market in the neighboring country.
The billionaire behind the Peruvian group is well-known businessman Carlos Rodríguez-Pastor. In 2023, Forbes included him on the list of the world’s top billionaires in 648th place. At that time his fortune was estimated at US$4.2 billion. In 2024, he no longer appeared on the list, although he took his place on another one: the 500 most influential people in Latin America, compiled by Bloomberg.
He is also well-known in his country of origin. The IPSOS Power Survey, which is carried out annually in Peru, placed him as the most powerful businessman in 2024, for the fifth consecutive time. In that ranking, President Dina Boluarte reached 76%, while Rodríguez-Pastor reached 20%. Although the gap appears wide, Rodríguez-Pastor surpassed the president of the Judiciary, Javier Arévalo, who reached 6%, and the writer Mario Vargas Llosa, who reached 4%.
Rodríguez-Pastor was born into a wealthy family. In fact, his father was a businessman and Peru’s Economy Minister, which is where he inherited a taste for numbers and business. He studied at
the University of California, Berkely and earned a Master of Business Administration from Dartmouth College. He then worked for a time on Wall Street, before returning to Peru in 1994. After his father’s death, he took over the reins of his companies, becoming head of Interbank and trying to diversify the business.
In 2003, he acquired the Santa Isabel supermarket chain and created Supermercados Peruanos. That year, he also founded the Casa Andina hotel chain, and from then he did not stop. He restructured what is now known as Intercorp and founded InRetail, the parent company that manages supermarkets, shopping centers, pharmacies and stores.
Source: Emol.