Femsa, the largest Coca-Cola bottler in the world, has taken a surprising turn for the market: far from diversifying its business lines, it has focused only on the most profitable niches and has decided to exit the beer business. The corporation has informed the Mexican Stock Exchange this Wednesday that in a period of two to three years it will place 14.8% of the titles it owns of Heineken beer on the market and the future of its logistics operations will be analyzed. . The company has detailed that as a result of these changes, it will have resources to pay debt, maintaining a solid capital structure, and finance future growth, through greater capital investments.
Jose Antonio Fernandez Carbajal, executive president of the Board of Directors of Femsa, assured that these actions will simplify the corporate structure of the company, giving it a greater strategic focus. In this same sense, the CEO of the firm, Daniel Rodriguez, added that “the best way to continue creating value is through a structure focused solely on the businesses that are key to us.” The divestment in Heineken will mean that the directors appointed by Femsa will resign from the Boards of the Dutch brewer. In addition, the firm prepares an evaluation of Envoy Solutions, its distribution business in the United States.
With these actions, reports the corporate, its existing debt will be reduced to maintain a solid investment grade credit rating and the excess capital will be used for the organic growth of the main business verticals, which it identifies as the retail through its network of more than 21,00 Oxxo stores, its 4,000 pharmacies, 568 gas stations, Coca Cola, and digital services through products such as Spin. The company currently employs more than 354,000 people.
The former brewery is today a bottler, gas station and, increasingly, a large retail grocer. It is difficult to walk through a Mexican city and not run into an Oxxo store within a few minutes. There are already more than 21,000 in Mexico and within a maximum period of 36 months, the brewery that began 132 years ago in the industrial city of Monterrey, with 70 workers, is about to embark on a new business route.
