Disseminated on Behalf of: PesoRama Inc.
- PesoRama has opened 18 stores since February, nearly double its total for the previous three years combined.
- PesoRama operates 49 stores today, expects to reach 61 by year end, and plans to double again to between 125 and 130 in 2027.
- Total sales increased 59 per cent in the second quarter.
- Gross profit increased 46 per cent in the second quarter.
- Average traffic increased 37 per cent in the second quarter.
- Atrium Research initiated coverage in September with a BUY rating and a $1.60 target price.
Nearly every major economy has produced a dollar-store champion, from Dollarama in Canada to Dollar General and Dollar Tree in the United States, Daiso in Japan and Poundland in the United Kingdom. Mexico is the next market in line, with 133 million people and fewer than 100 true dollar stores today. Per million residents, Mexico has fewer than one, against 54 in Canada and 112 in the United States. PesoRama Inc. (TSXV: PESO | OTCQX: PSSOF | FSE: ZE6) puts the long-term opportunity at more than 14,800 locations, a market it values at roughly C$25 billion.
That opportunity is still largely untouched, and the Canadian company behind the JOi Dollar Plus banner is moving quickly to take it. Under founder and chief executive Rahim Bhaloo, the company has raised more than $85 million and established Mexico’s first national dollar store operation. PesoRama now operates 49 stores across Mexico City and four surrounding states, selling roughly 6,000 products at prices no higher than 100 pesos, or about C$8, with approximately 80 per cent of the range priced below 50 pesos, or about C$4.
Eighteen stores in eight months
The clearest evidence of what has changed inside PesoRama is the opening pace. The company entered its current fiscal year on February 1 with 31 stores and has opened 18 since, nearly double the 10 it opened across the preceding three years combined. That rate has taken the network to 49 today.
Management expects to finish the fiscal year with 61 stores, double where it started. In 2027 the plan is to double again, reaching 125 to 130 stores. The longer-term ambition is 500 stores, and even at that size PesoRama would be serving less than 4% of the opportunity it has mapped. The runway extends well past the target.
Behind those targets sits a development pipeline of more than 40 additional locations, each at a different stage of the expansion process. Some are already under construction, others are on signed leases or executed letters of intent, and the remainder are under negotiation.
Economics that improve with every cohort
The economics of a single store determine how quickly the network can scale, and PesoRama’s are built to be repeated. A new JOi store occupies about 5,000 square feet and requires C$450,000 to $500,000 in leasehold improvements and fixtures, less than half of what North American peers spend to open a comparable location.
Each store generates roughly C$1.3 million in annual sales within 18 months of opening, at product gross margins near 46 per cent and four-wall EBITDA margins around 15 per cent. That combination returns the build cost in two to three years, and the company reports that the payback period is compressing with each successive group of openings.
Each new group of stores is also opening stronger than the last. PesoRama’s most recent cohort is launching at roughly twice the first-year monthly revenue of its earliest stores, a pattern management attributes to disciplined site selection and a refined product assortment, which together have built growing brand recognition.
A team that has scaled this before
Execution at this pace depends on people who have done it before, and PesoRama has hired for exactly that.
Chief Operating Officer Rodrigo Castañón opened more than 1,100 stores in four years at Tiendas D1, building it into Colombia’s leading discount retailer. At PesoRama he leads site selection, store operations, supply chain and the expansion program.
Merchandising Vice President Yolanda Lambrey helped open the first Walmart in Mexico and spent more than three decades with the company as it grew to 3,000 stores, building expertise across merchandising, imports and buying. She now leads product mix and merchandising strategy, developing the private label assortment.
Chief Financial Officer Eduardo Fernández was previously Chief Financial Officer for Mexico and Latin America at WeWork, where he managed an annual budget of $200 million across four countries, following senior finance roles at Kraft Heinz. He oversees finance, treasury, capital markets and reporting.
Founder and Chief Executive, Rahim Bhaloo, has built and successfully exited two previous businesses, including a retirement-home portfolio developed in partnership with CDPQ, one of Canada’s largest institutional investors. He oversees capital strategy, investor relations and the company’s long-term growth objectives.
Bhaloo points to that group as the reason the opening pace has changed so sharply. “It is all about the team,” he said. “We now have a very experienced management team in terms of executing, from our site selections to construction to store openings. Our COO is used to opening 300-400 hundred stores a year in previous roles. We now have the team and we have the capital to keep up with that growth.”
The infrastructure behind the expansion
Logistics is usually the constraint on a rollout at this speed, but not for PesoRama. The company works with one of the largest contract logistics providers in the world, operating from a single distribution centre in the Valle de México that serves the entire network within one day. The facility can scale to support up to 150 stores as the network grows.
Geography works in the company’s favour as well. Around 38 million people, close to 30% of Mexico’s population, live within a single day’s delivery of that distribution centre, concentrated in about 5% of the country’s land area. The company has also expanded its sourcing reach, with an established office in Asia and a second in Turkey now in development.
Capital has followed the same pattern. PesoRama has raised more than C$31 million over the past six months to fund the build-out. In August, the company obtained its listing on OTCQX Best Market, trading under PSSOF, a step management framed as broadening its United States shareholder base.
The company has also gained a strategic shareholder with deep roots in the Mexican market. The Coppel Group, one of Mexico’s largest conglomerates with roughly 1,900 department stores, took a stake in PesoRama and now provides the site-selection analytics that inform where new stores open, along with introductions to major landlords and first look at locations inside an existing network. That is real-estate access and local operating judgement a new entrant would have to build from scratch.
Where the growth leads
Mexico remains a wide-open market for organized dollar store retail, and PesoRama is the first Mexican-based company building one at national scale.
The opportunity to build 14,800 stores is real.
About PesoRama Inc.
PesoRama Inc. (TSXV: PESO | OTCQX: PSSOF | FSE: ZE6) is a Canadian company operating value dollar stores in Mexico under the JOi Dollar Plus brand. Launched in 2019 in Mexico City and surrounding areas, the company targets high-density, high-traffic locations and currently operates 49 stores. Its assortment spans household goods, pet supplies, seasonal products, party supplies, health and beauty, snack foods and confectionery, with 24 in-house private label brands covering every product category. PesoRama’s convertible debentures trade on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol PESO.DB.
To learn more about Pesorama, visit their website here.
For the latest updates, follow the company on social media: LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
Store count includes stores publicly announced that will open in September 2026.
