Chile's Cencosud eyes $6.8 bln '07 sales

SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Chilean retailer Cencosud said on Friday it viewed a goal of $6.8 billion in sales for 2007 as reasonable.

Cencosud CEN.SN chief executive Laurence Golborne told the Reuters Latin American Investment Summit in Santiago that the company board has yet to decide whether Cencosud should bid in an auction for a stake in Colombia's largest supermarket chain, Almacenes Exito IMI.CN.

Cencosud, with operations in Chile and Argentina, is looking for a way into the Colombian market in the near term, Golborne said.

"There are no dark clouds on our horizon in the medium term," he told the Reuters Summit. "We are effectively budgeting for consolidated sales in the order of $6.8 billion, which we see as reasonable."

Cencosud, looking for alternatives to expand in Latin America and which had 2006 sales of $5.850 billion, is eyeing the auction in Colombia for a 25 percent stake in Exito, but must await a board decision before taking action.

"This is an issue that we will evaluate in due course. It's an auction that will probably happen in or April or early May, so there is still time to define our position," Golborne said.

(For more on the Reuters Latin American Investment Summit, see ID:nN15302956)

(Additional reporting by Monica Vargas, Pav Jordan and Rodrigo Martinez in Santiago)