FEMSA Announces Second Quarter 2015 Results

MONTERREY, MEXICO--(Marketwired - Jul 23, 2015) - Fomento Económico Mexicano, S.A.B. de C.V. ("FEMSA") (NYSE: FMX) (BMV: FEMSAUBD) (BMV: FEMSAUB) announced today its operational and financial results for the second quarter of 2015.

SECOND QUARTER 2015 HIGHLIGHTS:

• FEMSA consolidated total revenues increased 5.9% and income from operations grew 4.7% compared to the second quarter of 2014, driven by solid growth at FEMSA Comercio. On an organic basis¹ total revenues decreased 1.2% and income from operations grew 4.4%.
  
  
• FEMSA Comercio achieved total revenues growth of 31.4% and income from operations growth of 21.3% compared to the second quarter of 2014, reflecting the incorporation of OXXO Gas operations and 5.3% growth in same-store sales. On an organic basis¹ total revenues and income from operations grew 13.5% and 20.9%, respectively.
  
  
• Coca-Cola FEMSA total revenues decreased 11.8% and income from operations decreased 2.0% compared to the second quarter of 2014, reflecting the negative translation effect from the Venezuelan operation as well as the devaluation of the Brazilian real and the Colombian peso.  On a currency neutral basis and excluding Venezuela, total revenues and income from operations grew 8.3% and 18.8%, respectively.
  
  

Carlos Salazar Lomelín, FEMSA's CEO, commented: "Looking at our second quarter results, there are many reasons to be optimistic. At FEMSA Comercio, the trend of same-store sales for OXXO continues to improve gradually, and it increasingly reflects a better mix of ticket and traffic. And we continue to grow at healthy rates across formats, including drugstores where we closed our acquisition of Farmacon during the quarter, and gasoline stations where we are making progress according to plan. At Coca-Cola FEMSA, we continue to face challenging environments in several key markets. However, once you look beyond the extreme volatility of exchange rates, particularly in Venezuela and to a lesser extent in Colombia and Brazil, you find healthy operating dynamics in several of our markets, starting with Mexico where we are able to implement positive pricing and capture solid margin expansion, and continuing to most of our territories where we are achieving market share gains as we focus on generating incremental transactions and on optimizing our portfolio strategy."

This report may contain certain forward-looking statements concerning our future performance that should be considered as good faith estimates made by us. These forward-looking statements reflect management's expectations and are based upon currently available data. Actual results are subject to future events and uncertainties, which could materially impact our actual performance.

FEMSA is a leading company that participates in the beverage industry through Coca-Cola FEMSA, the largest franchise bottler of Coca-Cola products in the world; and in the beer industry, through its ownership of the second largest equity stake in Heineken, one of the world's leading brewers with operations in over 70 countries. In the retail industry it participates with FEMSA Comercio, operating various small-format store chains including OXXO. 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.

¹ Excludes non-comparable results from gasoline operations and acquisitions at FEMSA Comercio in the last twelve months.