Discount Retail Chain Tiendas 3B, owned by Anthony Hatoum and Quilvest Capital Partners, has picked a trio of Wall Street banks for a potential initial public offering in the US, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
The company is working with JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Corp. on a potential listing as soon as in the first half of the year, said the people, who asked not to be named because the information isn’t public. No final decision has been made and plans could still fall apart, they added.
Tiendas 3B didn’t reply to messages seeking comment. Representatives for the banks declined to comment.
Despite a drought of IPOs since 2018, Mexico equity sales have rebounded thanks largely to follow-on offerings by industrial property firms taking advantage of last year’s factory boom. The so-called nearshoring trend has also created jobs, which combined with increasing government cash aid programs and higher salaries has driven higher consumption and growth in Latin America’s No. 2 economy.
Mexico City-based Tiendas 3B was founded by Anthony Hatoum, a Lebanese-American who moved to the Latin American country about two decades ago. It currently operates over 1,500 stores across about a dozen states in Mexico. Following the business model of German discount chain Aldi, 3B stocks a limited variety of products ranging from snacks and pet food to cleaning products and diapers at competitive costs. The 3B stands for “bueno, bonito y barato,” or “good, pretty and cheap.”
One of Tiendas 3B’s early backers was Quilvest Capital Partners, a private-equity fund owned by the Bemberg family, which founded the beermaker Quilmes.
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