Colombian retail is entering a new era. Tiendas D1 continues to grow, but is profoundly changing the form in which it creates value. In 2025, D1 achieved a turnover of 21,56 billion Colombian pesos, with an increase of 11,1% compared to the 19,4 billion of the previous year. However, the truly relevant figure is another: net profit rose to 418.933 million pesos, with an increase of 42,2%.
This clearly indicates that the model is transitioning from a phase of expansion to a phase of optimization, and when a retailer enters this stage, it radically changes its relationship with the suppliers.
But there is an element that is often underestimated and that is key to understanding where D1 goes: the quality and power of its operational structure.
The main shareholder is Valórem, holding company of the Santo Domingo family, which controls 60,2% of the company. It is not a bigger investor: Valórem is one of the most influential business groups in Latin America, with interests in retail, communications, energy, logistics and services. In 2024, the group generated operational revenue of 24,46 billion pesos, of which 79,3% came from D1. This data is fundamental: D1 is not a single unit inside the portfolio, it is a central element of the system.
Worthy of note is the Santo Domingo Group, one of the most relevant business families on the continent. According to Forbes, the combined assets of my principals —Alejandro, Andrés, Vera and Beatriz Dávila— stand at around 9.200 million dollars. Even more significant is its global position, with participations in companies such as Anheuser-Busch InBev, Kraft Heinz and Keurig Dr Pepper, as well as emblematic inversions such as Château Pétrus.
This structure includes two top-level international institutional investors: Ihag Retail Holding AG, with headquarters in Switzerland (20,4%), and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (19,3%), one of the largest investment funds in the world, with active management of hundreds of thousands of dollars: this combination completely redefines the naturalness of the D1.
The company cannot be interpreted solely as a rapidly growing local retailer. It is, moreover, an industrial platform supported by global capital, with increasing demands in terms of efficiency, return and operational discipline.
Access to the line does not depend exclusively on the price, it requires solid industrial capabilities, continuity in the administration, rigorous control of costs and the ability to operate on a large scale with constant standards. The retailer, supported by international investors, adopts a logic more and more oriented towards the return on capital, rotation and optimization of the margin.
The current phase is not exclusive to the local industry, but it obliges it to evolve, those companies that are being structured can become strategic partners within an expanding system. Those who remain in a tactical and opportunistic logic make it possible to seek out one of the most dynamic models on the continent. D1 is about to be solely a distribution channel to convert into an integrated industrial platform, and for the South American industry, the real transformation is underway now.
