How it started
History
In December 2009, Grupo Pão de Açúcar purchased Casas Bahia and transferred its retail units to Globex Utilidades SA, Ponto Frio's parent company which was purchased by the group in June earlier that year.
From the following year, it began operating Nova Pontocom, an e-commerce company that reached an 18% market share in Brazilian online retail. In early 2012, Globex Utilidades officially changed its corporate name to Via Varejo.
In May 2013, it was announced that the Klein family is planning to sell as much as R$ 2 billion (16%) worth of their stake in the company through an IPO. 53.7 million common shares of the family's stake began trading on December 16, 2013.
Through the public offering of shares, Via Varejo raised R$ 2.845 billion, with three-quarters of the amount transferred to the Klein family and the remainder to GPA.
Ownership of the company has changed to GPA with 43.3%, the Klein family with 27.3%, and minority shareholders with 29.3%.
From Wikipedia’s article on Grupo Casas Bahia, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2