Os planos da Americanas depois da RJ

Three years after the discovery of a R$20 billion accounting fraud that shook the nation, Americanas emerged from its inevitable judicial recovery process, with the 4th Commercial Court of Rio de Janeiro ruling to end the case on Monday at the company's request. The company's stock surged 15.58% on Monday, closing at R$6.90. Americanas' market capitalization is now R$1.4 billion.

CEO Fernando Soares told Brazil Journal that the company that emerged from the other side is a new one, having abandoned its massive digital operation which once accounted for more than 50% of revenue to focus on physical retail, which now makes up 95% of sales. "We are a new company that uses two unique assets: 50 million monthly customers and a vast physical store network," Soares said.

"Our new value proposition is delivering the brand experience in-store, the joy of picking up a product and seeing new offerings." Americanas has 1,448 stores in over 800 municipalities across all states. Soares believes the operational adjustments have been made and expects to accelerate growth from here on out. "The biggest change will be in store technology and assortment," he said.

The 50 million consumers who frequent the stores every year were not identified until recently. Now, the company has started to register them to know when they come to the stores and what they buy, using the data to maximize business. Additionally, Americanas has resumed issuing credit cards, its loyalty program, and rebuilt its product offerings, listening to consumers.

The assortment is now divided into five fronts: confectionery, where Americanas is a leader; personal care, personal care, children's products, and comfort fashion. On average, each store has 14,000 SKUs, with increasingly curated and new offerings, according to Soares. "For example, we identified that consumers want cosmetics in 'personal care', and we are testing the sale of these products in a store in Rio.

In Recife, we are introducing sports nutrition," Soares said. "There is a lot of change happening at the request of consumers and with our curation, to continue growing in frequency, average basket, and conversion." Americanas has not abandoned its digital operation, which has been rebuilt from the physical stores - using inventory to meet consumer demand, who can now take the product to the store.

Soares says that during Easter, this channel accounted for 10% of sales; and during Christmas, it reached 20%. Americanas still operates at a loss and consumes cash, but sales per square meter and operating results have been improving: in 2024, the company lost almost R$1.5 billion in operating results; in 2025, it was R$700 million; and in the first half of this year, close to R$300 million.

When the company decided to focus on e-commerce, more than half of the physical units were still losing money; today, all are in the black after adjustments that included store closures and size reductions. Now, the exit from the judicial recovery should free the company for more business, Soares said. "We have delivered impressive growth in some categories, such as cleaning (70%) and beverages (50%), as well as import lines.

But this growth was limited by some partners who said they couldn't increase credit limits while we were in RJ," Soares said. "It will be very interesting to see how far we can go without these restrictions in the coming months." CFO Sebastien Durchon said that even before the RJ, the company had seen signs of improvement in how partners viewed it: it had managed to increase payment terms with several suppliers and issued a R$100 million commercial note in July of the previous year.

There are no plans to enter the market in the short term. "The confidence of third parties that was destroyed by fraud does not recover overnight, but we are working with humility and patience to regain it," Durchon said. Last week, the Federal Court of Rio accepted a complaint from the Federal Public Ministry and made 12 former executives of Americanas parties in the billion-dollar fraud case that led the company to RJ.

Fabio Medeiros, Americanas' VP of legal affairs, said the decision is a victory for the company. "The acceptance of the complaint means there are elements demonstrating that they committed market manipulation, ideological falsity, and criminal association crimes. There are other ongoing processes. In practice, this helps in arbitrations against the company and strengthens actions for administrative responsibility and measures that can be taken in Brazil and abroad for reparations and asset blockage."