Monterrey, Mexico, October 28, 2020 — Fomento Económico Mexicano, S.A.B. de C.V. (“FEMSA”) (NYSE: FMX; BMV: FEMSAUBD) announced today its operational and financial results for the third quarter of 2020.
Eduardo Padilla, FEMSA’s CEO, commented:
“The third quarter was again challenging across our operations, but it appears we hit the lockdown-driven bottom in the middle of the second quarter, and from there we are seeing consistent, if gradual, improvement across our business units. At OXXO, same-store sales for the third quarter were still lower than last year but sequentially they show a better picture and trend than what we saw three months ago. This reflects a strong average ticket but still a double-digit contraction in average traffic as mobility remains depressed, and regulatory restrictions are still broadly in place across Mexico. Our Health Division had a strong quarter, including a standout performance from our Mexican drugstores, and OXXO Gas saw a sequential improvement in its recovery from a deep trough. For its part, Coca-Cola FEMSA also saw better sequential performance across its operations, delivering growth in its consolidated operating income and showing improved profitability in several key markets.
As a result of these incipient recovery trends, and after focusing on “defense” for the past two quarters, we are again beginning to think in terms of medium and long-term growth opportunities and are cautiously putting together some plays on “offense”. These include rekindling our store expansion strategy at FEMSA Comercio, accelerating our digital initiatives across our platform, and very selectively considering small bolt-on acquisitions in some of our existing business verticals.
Once again, I want to highlight the superb job done by our employees and management teams in navigating such a profound and disruptive crisis so well. We are not out of it yet, and we expect to face a prolonged economic downturn across markets in the coming quarters, but I take this opportunity to recognize the commitment, resilience, flexibility, and agility shown across our organization in the past seven months.”
About FEMSA
FEMSA is a company that creates economic and social value through companies and institutions and strives to be the best employer and neighbor to the communities in which it operates. It participates in the retail industry through FEMSA Comercio, comprising a Proximity Division operating OXXO, a small-format store chain, a Health Division, which includes drugstores and related activities, and a Fuel Division, which operates the OXXO GAS chain of retail service stations. In the beverage industry, it participates through Coca-Cola FEMSA, a public bottler of Coca-Cola products; and in the beer industry, as a shareholder of HEINEKEN, a brewer with operations in over 70 countries. Additionally, through its Strategic Businesses unit, it provides logistics, point-of-sale refrigeration solutions and plastics solutions to FEMSA’s business units and third-party clients. FEMSA also participates in the janitorial and sanitation distribution industry in the United States. Through its business units, FEMSA has more than 320,000 employees in 13 countries. FEMSA is a member of the Dow Jones Sustainability MILA Pacific Alliance, the FTSE4Good Emerging Index and the Mexican Stock Exchange Sustainability Index, among other indexes that evaluate is sustainability performance.
