Latin American retail giant S.A.C.I. Falabella said that it will merge its Chilean bank affiliate Banco Falabella with its cards business, CMR Falabella SA, in a move that will create Chile's largest credit card issuer.
Under the reorganization, CMR Falabella will become a Sociedad de Apoyo de Giro under Banco Falabella. In order to do this, Banco Falabella will acquire a majority shareholding in Promotora CMR Falabella SA. Both are subsidiaries of Falabella's Falabella Inversiones Financieras SA.
The restructuring, which is subject to approval by financial regulator SBIF, will see Banco Falabella take over around 3 million CMR credit card accounts along with Falabella loyalty program cards, which has about 1.2 million customers. Both entities will retain their separate brand identities, the company said.
"This integration will generate significant synergies resulting from additional revenues due to the acceleration of growth, efficiencies in infrastructure and technology, and the acceleration of the digital transformation," Falabella said in a May 31 statement.
Alejandro Arze, the current CEO of CMR, will head the joint unit after the completion of the integration, while the Banco Falabella CEO Benoit de Grave will take over corporate commercial management of unit Falabella Financiero, according to the statement.
