Jerónimo Martins Shutters About 200 Ara Stores in Colombia After a Deadly Magnitude 7.4 Earthquake

Jerónimo Martins, the Lisbon-listed group behind Pingo Doce and Recheio in Portugal, said around 200 of its Ara supermarkets in Colombia were closed after a magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck the country on Monday. The quake, one of the most powerful to hit Colombia in years, has left well over a hundred people dead and hundreds injured, and forced retailers, banks and transport operators across affected regions to suspend operations.

For Jerónimo Martins, Colombia is no longer a side project. The Ara chain, launched there in 2013, has grown past 1,500 stores and generated roughly €3.2 billion in sales in 2025 — about a 13% increase on the previous year, and now a meaningful slice of a group that booked €35.9 billion in total sales and €646 million in net profit last year. Ara employs around 16,000 people in Colombia. A temporary shutdown of some 200 outlets is therefore a material operational hit, even if most stores elsewhere in the country kept trading.

A shock in a growth market

The company framed the closures as a precautionary and logistical response — protecting staff and customers, assessing structural damage and restoring supply chains disrupted by the disaster — rather than a permanent retreat. Colombia has been the engine of Jerónimo Martins' international expansion at a time when its Polish flagship, Biedronka, faces a tougher, more competitive market. Analysts will be watching how quickly the affected Ara stores reopen and whether the group flags any financial impact when it next updates investors. Shares in Lisbon, where Jerónimo Martins is a heavyweight on the PSI index, will take their cue from the pace of that recovery.

The episode is a reminder that Portugal's largest companies are increasingly exposed to events far from home. Jerónimo Martins earns the bulk of its revenue outside Portugal, so a natural disaster in the Andes now lands squarely on a Lisbon balance sheet — and, indirectly, on the many Portuguese savers and pension funds with exposure to the stock. It also lands during a stretch of mixed corporate news we have tracked, from record online-gambling revenue to a rejected €2 billion data-centre project.

What This Means for Expats

• At the till: There is no impact on Pingo Doce or Recheio in Portugal. The closures are confined to the Ara network in Colombia.
• If you invest here: Jerónimo Martins is one of the most widely held stocks on the Portuguese market and a fixture in local funds. A one-off disaster in a key growth market is exactly the kind of headline that can move the share price in the short term.
• The wider read: Portugal's corporate champions are now global operators. Weather, politics and disasters abroad increasingly shape results at companies you shop with every day.
• Context matters: Colombia has driven much of the group's recent growth, so a swift reopening would reassure the market far more than the closures themselves alarm it.