The Soares dos Santos Family and the Value of Waiting

If you want a single argument for family ownership in public markets, it is Biedronka. No listed company answering to quarterly earnings expectations would have committed the capital, and sustained the losses, required to build the dominant food retailer in a foreign country over three decades. This case study examines how the family exercises control and what the model costs. It is part of the Portugal Company Stories hub.

Where does the company come from?

From a Lisbon grocery shop founded in the nineteenth century, which grew into a food distribution and manufacturing business over generations. The Soares dos Santos family took control in the twentieth century and has led it since, through periods when the company was a domestic distributor with joint ventures in manufacturing and consumer goods.

The decisive strategic shift came with modern retail. The company built Pingo Doce as a supermarket chain and Recheio in cash and carry, establishing leading positions in a Portuguese market that was modernising rapidly after European accession.

Portugal alone, however, could never absorb the group’s ambitions. A country of ten million with two dominant grocery groups reaches saturation quickly, and the choice facing management by the 1990s was international expansion or stagnation.

Why Poland, and why then?

Because it was early, large and underserved. Poland in the mid-1990s had recently exited central planning, had a population nearly four times Portugal’s, had almost no modern food retail, and had consumers who were highly price-sensitive as incomes began rising.

Western European retailers were focused on richer, more familiar markets. Jerónimo Martins acquired a small chain called Biedronka and rebuilt it as a hard discounter, which fitted Polish demand precisely and gave the company a decade of expansion before serious competition arrived.

The result is documented in the Biedronka case study: more than 3,800 stores, sales exceeding €25bn in 2025, and a position that could not be bought today at any price.

What did the Colombian venture cost?

Roughly a decade of losses, which is precisely the point. Ara entered Colombia in 2013 into a market with large informal retail, difficult logistics, currency volatility and established competitors, and it spent years building density and consumer acceptance before the economics worked.

In 2025 the focus shifted to protecting gross margin and controlling costs, and the banner showed significant margin improvement. Whether it ultimately justifies the investment will be clear only over another decade.

The relevant observation is not whether Colombia succeeds but that the company was able to try. A management team facing activist shareholders or quarterly earnings pressure would have been forced to exit years earlier, taking the losses and forgoing the option.

How does the family exercise control?

Through a controlling shareholding in a listed company, with the family represented at board level and involved in strategic direction rather than daily operations. The company reports publicly, is subject to market scrutiny and has professional management running the businesses.

That configuration — family control, public listing, professional management — is the structure most consistently associated with successful multigenerational businesses in Europe. It preserves long-horizon decision-making while importing the discipline of external reporting.

It also means minority shareholders participate in the returns of the family’s strategic choices without any ability to influence them. Investors in Jerónimo Martins are, in effect, backing the family’s judgement, and the historical record of that judgement is the investment case.

What is the group’s biggest risk?

Concentration, and it is entirely a product of the strategy’s success. Roughly 70% of sales and 80% of EBITDA come from one banner in one country, exposed to Polish wage inflation, retail regulation, consumer confidence and the zloty.

The Slovakia entry in 2025 is the first structural answer to that, extending Biedronka beyond Poland for the first time with a deliberately small initial footprint. It is a hedge rather than a solution.

The deeper issue is that no diversification available to the group can match Poland’s contribution within a reasonable horizon. Portugal is mature, Colombia is slow, and Slovakia is small. The company will remain Polish for the foreseeable future, and that is a risk to be managed rather than removed.

How does the group handle the Portuguese business?

As a mature cash generator rather than a growth engine. Pingo Doce is the leading supermarket chain in Portugal and Recheio leads cash and carry, both competing intensely against Continente in one of Europe’s most promotionally driven grocery markets.

Portugal supplies stable cash flow, a management and talent pipeline, and the corporate headquarters. It does not supply growth, because a market of ten million people with two dominant operators reached saturation years ago.

That division of roles — a mature home market funding an emerging one — is the classic structure for companies from small economies, and it recurs across the Portuguese groups in this hub from banking to hotels to consumer goods.

What does the group’s philanthropy involve?

Foundations operating in both core markets, with programmes in Poland focused on poverty and malnutrition among older adults and in Colombia reaching tens of thousands of people. The group has also set concrete environmental commitments on emissions and food waste.

For a retailer that is a dominant employer and food supplier in the markets it serves, this is not incidental. Social licence affects planning permissions, labour relations, regulatory treatment and consumer sentiment in ways that matter commercially.

The food waste target is the most operationally significant: reducing waste improves gross margin and emissions simultaneously, which is why it is one of the few sustainability commitments that survives budget scrutiny in a downturn.

What does the Slovakia entry tell us about the family’s method?

That the same patience is being applied again, deliberately and at small scale. Biedronka entered Slovakia in 2025 closing the year with fifteen stores and one distribution centre — a footprint designed to learn rather than to seize share.

That is precisely how Poland began: a small acquisition, years of adaptation, then expansion once the model was proven locally. The company is not attempting to replicate Biedronka’s scale in Slovakia quickly; it is running the same experiment with three decades of accumulated knowledge.

For observers the useful signal is what the family does not do. There has been no large acquisition in a major Western European market, no diversification outside food retail, and no attempt to buy growth. Consistency of method across thirty years is itself the strategy.

How does the group compare with its Portuguese peer?

The two largest Portuguese retail groups have chosen opposite strategies. Jerónimo Martins concentrated overwhelmingly on one format in one foreign market and built dominance; Sonae diversified across categories and geographies while remaining Iberian in its core.

The results have been comparable in quality and entirely different in shape. One group derives 70% of sales from a single foreign banner; the other spreads risk across food, electronics, beauty, pet care and real estate.

Which is better depends on what you are optimising for. Concentration produced far greater scale; diversification produced far lower single-point risk. Both families made a defensible choice and both have been vindicated so far, which is a reminder that there is no single correct structure.

What does the group’s scale mean for suppliers?

Considerable buying power in every market it operates in. A retailer with more than 6,500 stores and around €36bn of sales negotiates from a position few suppliers can match, particularly where private brand accounts for 38% to 41% of sales in its main banners.

For suppliers that is both an opportunity and a dependency. Winning a private-brand contract delivers volume no other customer can provide, and losing it removes a large share of revenue with little notice, which is why supplier concentration is the standard risk in food manufacturing.

The group has invested substantially in supplier development, particularly in Poland, building capability among local producers rather than importing everything. That is commercially self-interested and genuinely valuable, and it raises the cost of entry for any competitor attempting to replicate the supply base.

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