Mexico's Grupo Coppel to invest over $700 million in 2024 to boost store network

By Valentine Hilaire

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexican retailer and lender Grupo Coppel plans to invest more than 12 billion Mexican pesos ($726 million) this year to boost its store network and reduce its environmental footprint, it said in a statement on Monday.

The company, owned by the billionaire Coppel family, said it would remodel some of its stores and open more than 100 new ones in the country where it has 1,782, as well as create 8,000 new jobs.

The company will also invest an additional 6 billion pesos in the next three years to enhance digital services, it said.

More than 700 stores will have solar panels by the end of 2024, it said, adding the move would offset carbon emissions by 33,000 metric tons.

The conglomerate, which owns department stores and a bank and employs more than 120,000 people, indefinitely postponed a more than $1 billion initial public offering in 2018.

"The operation is not in our organization's plans at this time," a spokesperson from the company said when asked about the postponed IPO plans.

Coppel sells appliances, electronics, furniture, and clothing, and operates a banking arm.

($1 = 16.5330 Mexican pesos)

(Reporting by Valentine Hilaire; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Franklin Paul)