At the age of 12, Alexandre Café Birman was using a shoe beveling machine, a piece of equipment that cuts, refines and creates angles on the edges of leather or synthetic material to give a uniform finish to the piece. “It’s a small machine that has a roller, with a knife, to pass over the material. Once my finger was in the middle,” says the 49-year-old businessman, son of the founder of Arezzo, Anderson Birman. Did it hurt very much? “Nothing. Just a steak.”
The naturalness with which Birman recounts an episode that could have been traumatic for his young age at the time is the same with which he responds to the virtual end of the union between Arezzo&Co and Soma, which gave birth in February 2024 to Azzas 2154, of which he is president, one of the largest fashion groups in Latin America. Announced as the biggest merger since the creation of RD Saúde, which brought together pharmacy chains Droga Raia and Drogasil in 2011, the company almost collapsed in the first half of this year, due to the difficulty of reconciling different cultures and management styles.
“The merger is complete,” he assures. “But it takes several moments to evolve and mature. I learned to give more power to the top (of the organizational hierarchy), to work with less market share control.” Asked by the report if he considers himself a centralizer, one of the reasons given behind the scenes for the possible end of the affair with his associate Roberto Jatahy, Birman replied that he is “active”.
“I’m very close to the operation, I’m an operational founder, there are several examples of founders who are very close to the company and who follow the operation in a way that, yes, they have control and know how to make decisions. If that means being centralized, that’s your judgement.”
The businessman who created his own shoe brand, Schutz, at the age of 19, and in 2008 the Alexandre Birman brand, presents himself as a “shoemaker”, a profession in which sewing is essential to join the sole to the different parts of the upper (the upper part of the shoe). “The eiro is the one who makes it with his hands: mason, baker, nurse. I am an eiro, I am proud to say it. I know how to make an entire shoe with my own hands,” he says, who did not finish business school.
In 2026, Birman will have to use all his sewing skills to consolidate the company after the portfolio is reduced from 34 to 25 brands. After 22 months of merger, which led to several changes in the composition of the board of directors and management, including the departure of the founders of certain brands — such as Thiago Hering, of Hering, and Rony Meisler, of Reserva — the company must stop discussing governance and focus on competition.
It is necessary to make the operation more agile in its relationship with suppliers, unify distribution centers and advance online sales, in addition to using artificial intelligence to strengthen relationships with consumers. “We must carry out a very broad customer integration, it is a still unexplored asset, which totals 12 million CPF,” explains Birman, whose main objective in the years to come is to accelerate the clothing supply chain.
“Today, it’s a chain that has a longer ‘leive time’ (total time between order and final delivery of parts), from six to nine months. We want to increase it to a time frame of between three and six months. But it’s not a process that can be changed overnight, it must be completed in five years,” he says. Also on the agenda is the unification of the five current distribution centers to achieve greater agility in online order fulfillment.
The idea is to “solidify the fashion sector,” says Birman, to gain a greater market share. This without neglecting shoes: the businessman notes a growing trend for the market of sneakers and sports shoes in general. “We have brands whose sneaker (sales) percentage already reaches 40%, like Anacapri,” he says, referring to the brand that has become famous for its sneakers. “At Schutz, sneakers represent 25% and in Arezzo, they are a great opportunity to explore,” explains Birman, who distributes the American brand Vans in Brazil.
Another behavioral change underway involves peak times for in-store shopping. “There is a big debate about whether the mall should be open until 10 p.m., as well as on Sundays,” he says. According to him, there was a premise in retail that after 5 p.m. sales doubled compared to the rest of the day. “But that doesn’t happen anymore,” he said, believing that stores could open earlier. “A lot of women, especially from class A, go to the gym and then want to take the opportunity to go to the mall to solve a problem, to go shopping. But the stores are still closed.”
On the other hand, he says, there is an increasing sale at lunchtime. In the group, 50% of sales are made in its own stores and on e-commerce; 20% comes from franchises and 30% from multi-brand stores.
Birman, who gave up being an heir to create his own shoe brands – Schutz only merged with Arezzo in 2007 to create Arezzo&Co – speaks with pride of the eldest of his three daughters, Olga, aged 14. “She’s a lot like me, she’s very fashion conscious,” he says. “He has already started his own jewelry business, he sells Arezzo to his colleagues and receives commissions, he visits the group’s stores in shopping centers and sends me photos,” he says, and he wants to leave Olga, Vera and Pilar the example of constant work, which he learned at home.
“My father’s greatest legacy is his tireless work,” says the businessman, born when Arezzo, founded by Anderson Birman and his brother Jefferson, in the garage of their father’s house in Belo Horizonte, was barely four years old. Anderson left the company in 2016 and is now dealing with Parkinson’s disease. His son, who at the age of five was already playing assembling shoe boxes and working part-time in the factory at the age of 12, took over Arezzo&Co in 2013. “There are criticisms about why people work hard. But it’s part of our life, we love it, it’s what motivates us.”
AZZAS GROUP 2154 X-RAYS
Foundation: 2014
Thirsty: Belo Horizonte
Employees: 25 thousand
Brands: Arezzo, Schutz, Anacapri, Alexandre Birman, Vans and Vicenza (shoes and bags); Farm Rio, Animale, NV, Cris Barros, Maria Filó, Carol Bassi, Fábula and Off Premium (women’s fashion); Reserva, Oficina, Foxton, Reserva Mini, Reserva Go and Reserva Ink (men’s clothing); Hering, Hering Kids, Hering Sports, Hering Shoes and Hering Intimates (basic fashion)
Presence: 2,033 stores (in all states and the Federal District, in addition to the United States and Europe), 7 factories and 5 distribution centers
Main competitors: Nike, Adidas, Luz da Lua, Santa Lolla, Mr. Cat, Le Lis, Dudalina, John John, Bo.Bô, Renner, C&A, Riachuelo, Lupo, Malwee
Turnover in 2024: 14.1 billion reais
2026, HOW TO USE
New series of Leaf offers weekly interviews in text and video, presenting the expectations, fears and strategies chosen for 2026 by the main leaders of ten different segments: supermarkets, retail, consortia, textiles, footwear and clothing, air conditioning, technology, telephony, financial services and mobility. All companies in the series earn more than 1 billion reais per year.