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With 6,673 layoffs and 28 store closures in six states in May 2026, Grupo Mateus is experiencing the biggest crisis since it evolved from a grocery store in Maranhão to become the fourth largest retail chain in Brazil, while trying to recover from a R$ 1.1 billion stock error
Ilson Mateus Rodrigues was a gold miner in Serra Pelada in the 1980s. He didn’t find gold. He hitched a ride back to Maranhão, heard from an acquaintance about a town called Balsas that was growing with soybeans, and went there. In 1986, he opened a grocery store of 50 square meters. The main source of initial revenue was the sale of cachaça.
Forty years later, Grupo Mateus was the 4th largest food retail chain in Brazil, with gross revenue of R$ 43.5 billion, more than 300 stores spread across nine states, and an IPO that raised R$ 4.63 billion on B3 in 2020, the largest by a northeastern company in the country’s history.
In May 2026, the company announced the closure of 28 stores and the layoff of 6,673 employees in six states.
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While generating revenue of R$ 43.5 billion and recording a profit of R$ 2 billion, Grupo Mateus laid off 6,673 employees in six states in the North and Northeast.
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While Luciano Hang says that Brazilians have gotten used to R$ 600 and Luciano Huck warns about the “dependency” on Bolsa Família, the Brazilian municipality of Bento Gonçalves reduced the number of beneficiaries by 40% by offering job opportunities to families; the city, with an average salary of R$ 5,022, has become one of the country’s biggest success stories.
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New Fiat EV, priced at R$ 77,000, will bring a reinterpretation of the 147 and a consumption equivalent to 70 km/l.
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After criticizing Bolsa Família, Luciano Hang, owner of Havan, offers salaries of up to R$ 5,000 for those willing to leave the benefit and return to work; the proposal targets the elderly and retirees amid a labor shortage that already affects 80% of companies in Brazil.
The cuts no one expected from a company earning R$ 43 billion
The number of employees at Grupo Mateus fell from 47.9 thousand to 41.2 thousand between 2025 and the first quarter of 2026. A reduction of 13.9% of the workforce. The cuts were concentrated in the states of Maranhão, Pará, Piauí, Ceará, Sergipe, and Bahia, exactly the regions where the company built its empire and where expansion had been most aggressive in recent years.
Of the 28 stores closed, 13 were units in the appliances and furniture segment, closed throughout 2025. The others were deactivated in the first quarter of 2026, when the company opened only four new units in the same period. The chairman of the board, Ilson Mateus Rodrigues, stated that more expense reductions are planned, but they will not involve new personnel cuts.
Even after the closures, the group ended the quarter with 306 units in operation, 228 of which are focused on food retail.
The R$ 1.1 billion error behind it all
To understand what led the company to the downsizing process, it is necessary to go back to the third quarter of 2025, when Grupo Mateus revealed a serious problem to the market: the inventories recorded in the 2024 balance sheet were overvalued by R$ 1.1 billion.
The error was in the calculations of the average cost of goods sold, one of the most sensitive points in the accounting of any retailer. The company was recording fewer costs than it should have, which artificially inflated the gross profit and gross margin of previous quarters. When the problem was identified, the value of the inventories dropped from R$ 6 billion to R$ 4.9 billion.
The impact was immediate and severe. The company’s net worth shrank by R$ 695 million. Profit reserves fell by 84%, from R$ 824 million to R$ 130 million. The shares of GMAT3 plummeted 16.5% in six months, erasing R$ 1.9 billion in market value. The company hired a new audit to rebuild investor confidence.
“They reported a merchandise cost of R$ 80, for example, and in fact, it was R$ 100. And then, if you don’t calculate this correctly, the selling price is wrong too, and you’ll only know this when doing the inventory,” a sector source told the newspaper O Liberal. The problem, according to the same source, was that the company also had delayed inventories.
What the CEO said about the current scenario
During the first quarter 2026 earnings conference call, released in May, the CEO of Grupo Mateus was direct about the company’s situation.
“We notice that the market unfortunately slowed down a lot,” said the executive, explaining that the pressure on margins has three main sources: the slowdown in consumption in the North and Northeast regions, the deflation of food commodities that reduced the average ticket, and the costs of the restructuring itself.
The numbers for the quarter confirmed the diagnosis. Net profit fell 22% year-on-year, to R$ 213 million. Ebitda dropped 18.2%, reaching R$ 400 million compared to R$ 489 million in the same period of 2025. The Ebitda margin fell by 1.6 percentage points, reaching 4.3%. The CEO indicated that the second quarter remains “quite challenging.”
On the other hand, net revenue advanced 12.9% year-on-year, totaling R$ 9.4 billion in the quarter. However, the growth came almost entirely from physical expansion and not from the performance of existing stores. Sales in the same stores fell 1.1%, a sign that organic growth has lost strength.
The competition that is changing the rules of the game
Behind the numbers of Grupo Mateus, there is a structural transformation in Brazilian food retail that goes beyond the company’s internal issues. The traditional supermarket model, which was the foundation of the growth of the Maranhão-based chain, faces increasing competition from the cash and carry format, operated by giants like Assaí Atacadista, Atacadão, and Fort Atacadista.
These chains arrived in the North and Northeast with lower prices, smaller margins, and a direct appeal to low-income consumers, precisely the audience that Grupo Mateus had captured over decades. The cash and carry model allows consumers to buy in both small and large quantities, without needing a separate store for each format.
Grupo Mateus noticed the movement and tried to adapt in the 2010s by implementing the cash and carry system in Mix Mateus. But the advance of specialized competitors was faster than the network’s adaptation. The downsizing of appliance stores and the focus on the more profitable food retail units are part of this late response.
What analysts say
Despite the difficult scenario, the largest analysis firms in the country maintain a positive recommendation for Grupo Mateus shares. BTG, XP, and Itaú BBA recommend buying or “outperform” for the GMAT3 stock. Only Santander maintains a neutral rating.
The logic of the favorable analysts is that the market’s reaction to the accounting error was exaggerated in relation to the real impact on operational results. The company continues to generate cash, has controlled debt, with a net debt/Ebitda ratio of only 0.41 times, and still maintains a leadership position in the regions where it operates. According to Bendorf Research, the shares are being traded at a price that does not reflect the company’s real financial position.
What is at stake now is the company’s ability to stabilize margins, restore investor confidence after the accounting episode, and find a balance between operational efficiency and maintaining the regional presence that made it great.
Back to the beginning
The story of Grupo Mateus is, in many ways, the story of retail in the North and Northeast of Brazil. A company that grew along with the regions where it operates, that knew the local consumer like no one else, that went from a grocery store in Balsas to the largest IPO in the history of the Northeast.
Ilson Mateus returned from mining without gold, but with what most miners do not find: a business idea and the willingness to execute it. He transformed 50 square meters into R$ 43 billion in annual revenue.
The closure of 28 stores and the dismissal of 6,673 employees do not erase this history. But they mark the end of a phase of accelerated expansion and the beginning of something more challenging: growing efficiently in a changed market, with larger competitors, high interest rates, and consumers more pressured than before.
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