Havanna's Brazil operator joined a R$127M restructuring with 97% of stores in malls

Café del Plata, the company operating Argentina's Havanna café chain in Brazil, joined five related companies in asking São Paulo's justice system to approve an extrajudicial recovery plan renegotiating R$127 million in debts with financial creditors. The group — which has worked for over 30 years in cosmetics, perfumery, personal hygiene and food — argued the companies operate in an integrated way, share guarantees, have common control and maintain financial relations, so they needed to restructure together.

The chain's model concentrated the risk: about 97% of Havanna Brasil's 250 units sit inside shopping malls, and the petition said more than 90% of the group's points of sale were in malls, a segment suffering falling foot traffic. Founding partner and growth director Adriana Villela had already told Valor that occupancy cost was the operation's biggest problem — 'the rent' — and that 2026 had been about surviving, with cautious franchisees and holidays keeping shoppers away.

The financial mechanics made it worse: much of the debt was contracted when the Selic basic rate was below 3%, and the subsequent tightening to above 12% ballooned finance costs, compounded by pandemic-era borrowing and customer and franchisee defaults. The company postponed its 500-store target from 2026 to 2028 and cut its 2026 revenue projection to R$450 million, while claiming in court papers that Café del Plata itself was 'in constant ascension' — and, in a later statement, still targeting more than 700 points of sale by 2030.

Putting 97% of stores in shopping malls chained the chain's fortunes to a single struggling real-estate format and its rental costs.

The group borrowed heavily while Selic was under 3%, then watched interest above 12% turn routine leverage into a solvency problem.

Franchise-led expansion (only three of 250 stores are company-owned) spread the model quickly but left the operator dependent on franchisee cash flows and mall landlords.

The company publicly cut its own growth targets even as it told the court the business was ascending — a gap between narrative and numbers.

Expanding almost entirely on rented mall space with cheap-rate debt leaves a franchise chain paying for two cycles at once: the rent and the interest.

The petition was awaiting homologation by São Paulo justice; Havanna Brasil said the process stems from obligations contracted by other group companies and that the restructuring is meant to protect its operations, suppliers and franchisees. It did not disclose how much of the R$127 million is attributable to Café del Plata.