Operator
Operator
Good afternoon everyone, and welcome to Coca-Cola FEMSA Third Quarter 2007 Earnings Result Conference Call. As a reminder, today's conference is being recorded and all participants are in a listen-only mode. At the request of the Company, we will open the conference up for questions and answers after the presentation. During this conference call, management may discuss certain forward-looking statements concerning Coca-Cola FEMSA's future performance, and should be considered as good faith estimates made by the Company. These forward-looking statements reflect management expectations and are based upon current available data. Actual results are subject to future events and uncertainties, which can materially impact the Company's actual performance. At this time, I'd now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Héctor Treviño, Coca-Cola FEMSA's CFO. Please go ahead Mr. Treviño. Héctor Treviño Gutierrez - Chief Financial and Administrative Officer: Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for joining us today. Our operations generated strong results for the third quarter of 2007. We achieved double-digit operating income growth on a consolidated basis for the third consecutive quarter. Increases in operating income in the majority of our markets produced 11.5% consolidated operating growth for the quarter in real terms. Our total revenues increased 6% driven by close to 5% growth in our consolidated volume and a 1.1% increase in our consolidated average price per unit case. This quarter and going forward, we will refer to volumes of carbonated soft drinks as sparking beverages and the volumes of non-carbonated areas as still beverages. For the quarter, we produced 4.2% consolidated volume growth in the sparkling beverage segment, while our total still beverage volumes were up more than 9% year-over-year. Powerade in Mexico and Central America, juice-based growth in Central America, Brazil and Argentina; Aquarius Fresh in Brazil and the continued strong performance of Nestea in Venezuela contributed significantly to this growth. Our operations outside of Mexico are delivering an important part of our profitable growth. Our abundant diversified portfolio of products and presentations as well as our successful local market initiatives are providing us with more balanced cash flow generations. Colombia, Venezuela and Brazil accounted for more than 80% of our operating income growth compared with third quarter of 2006. For the quarter, our consolidated revenues reached close to 17 million Mexican pesos on the basis, more than $1.5 billion. Our consolidated operating income increased 11.5% to 2.8 million Mexican pesos, approximately $260 million. Our consolidated EBITDA reached almost 3.6 million Mexican pesos or approximately $327 million, resulting in a solid EBITDA margin of 21.5%. Our majority net income increased 4.8%, resulting in earnings per share of 1.2 Mexican peso per share or the equivalent of $0.94. Now let's talk about our operations. Central America; our Central American operations achieved top line results of 1.1 billion pesos, approximately $100 million, posting a slight decline of 0.3%. Our volume growth partially offset lower average price per unit case. Despite a difficult comparison to our strong performance last year and adverse weather conditions, our volume growth expanded 3.4% compared with the third quarter of 2006. The Coca-Cola brand accounted for more than 20% of our incremental volumes and the flavored sparkling beverage segment contributed almost 35% of our incremental volumes. We continue to post strong results from the still beverage segment, fueled by Powerade and Hi-C, which volume grew more than 15% and 18% respectively, during the third quarter. Our ability to grow Hi-C volumes six fold over the last eight quarters reinforces the strength of our beverage models to the [indiscernible] Our growth this quarter was driven mainly by multi-serve presentations, which carry a lower average price per unit case. This was the main reason for the 4% decline in the average price per unit case. Despite our comparably high growth last year, and our declining average price per unit case, we were able to deliver gross profit growth of 1% and a gross margin expansion of 60 basis points, reaching 47% in the third quarter of 2007. These resulted from the operating leverage achieved through lower sweetener costs. On the profitability front, the region operating income declined 9.5%, mainly due to higher labor cost resulting from the fact that we have reasonably viable competition for region in our Central American program... operation. Currently, we are evaluating several revenue management strategies to increase our profitability by improving our average price per unit case. Our Argentine operations volume grew 4.9% for the third quarter. Coca-Cola Zero and our Coke flavored sparkling beverages trends more than compensated for the volume decline in our value protection brand, Tai. As a result, we grew our sparkling beverage volume 4.5% compared with 13% growth in the same period of 2006. In the still beverage segment, excluding bottled water, the strong performance of the juice-based on Cepita draw almost 80% of our volume growth in this category. Consequently, this segment accounted for more than 3% of our Argentine operation's total sales volume compared to 1% in the third quarter of 2006. A favorable achieved in our growth mix driven by the growth of our forward price combined with decline in our low priced value protection brands resulted in better pricing per unique case for requirement. Our double-digit top line growth was subset by higher sweetener costs and labor cost. Moving to Venezuela, we achieved 8% growth in sales volume for the third quarter. Our focus in our core growth combined with our redefined portfolio helped to fuel growth of more than 10% in the sparkling beverages for the quarter. Flavored sparkling beverage accounted for more than 60% of the growth in that category and the Coca-Cola brands accounted for the balance. Strong consumer dynamics combined with our improvements to the value chain, higher operating efficiency and revenue management initiatives delivered powerful results. Despite raw materials cost [ph] and higher labor and trade cost, we continue to supply the market with a greater volume of our core growth supported by our SKU rationalization strategy. Consequently, our Venezuela operations accounted for strong results including almost three-fourth growth in operating income compared with a small base in the third quarter 2006. After posting double-digit top line growth over the last four quarters, our Columbian operation is now starting to face tight comparison, moderating year-over-year growth. High average price per unit case more than offset a slight decline in margins. As a result, our Columbian operation posted 1.6% increase in revenue, reaching 1.7 billion Mexican Pesos for the third quarter of 2006. Brand Coca-Cola continues to outperform the rest of our sparkling beverages for the quarter and with growth in the bottled water segment partially offset by the decline in the flavored sparkling beverages segment. Columbia is one of our most consistently growing markets posting double-digit operating income growth for a two year period now. We grew our operating income for the third quarter by 38% and we expanded our operating margin by 540 basis points to 21%, mainly driven by 15% appreciation of the Columbian peso applied to our dollar denominated raw materials, lower sweetener costs and combined that with a favorable operating structure. This quarter we recorded our Columbian operation's highest EBITDA margin, reaching more than... slightly more than 25%. Now let's move to Mexico, our largest cash flow generator. After four quarters, our Mexican operations got returned to the path of growth and profitability. Our volume growth has started to translate into higher operating income. This quarter, our Mexican operations delivered almost 5% volume growth, which compensated for lower average price per unit case due to the growth of our bottled water business, which as you know carried lower price per unit case. In the third quarter, our Mexican operations increased revenue by more than 3%. Our portfolio continues to show the strength of brand Coca-Cola in Mexico, volume for this brand grew almost 5% representing almost 60% of incremental volumes in the third quarter. Our single-serve bottled water presentations recorded double-digit volume growth during the quarter, consistent with our strategy to aggressively expand the category. We are continuing more aggressively in this category, seeking higher market share by improving our execution at the point of sales and increasing progress in our third quarter. In the third quarter, bulk water posted double-digit volume growth and represents more than 35% of our incremental volumes, mainly due to a strong performance in our territories located in the Gulf of Mexico region In the still beverage segment, we continue to post strong results; for example Nestea and Powerade grew more than 90% and 65% respectively. The average price per unit case of our sparkling beverage improved year-over-year, recording a slight price increase in real terms mainly as a result of tactical price movement and growth in brand Coca-Cola in long turnover practices, which carries higher price per unit case. As we anticipated, the pricing environment in Mexico is stabilizing; this has led us to evaluate our near term revenue management opportunities as of to our translation cost. On the gross profit front, a decrease in rates and [ph] prices compensated for an increase in sweetener cost and concentrate prices. Consequently, our gross margin expanded by 10 basis points, remaining the highest of all of our operations. Our operating income increased 3.4% to 1.7 million pesos or approximately $158 million. This is the first quarter with operating income growth after one year. We are optimistic in our ability to increase top line in our multi-segmentation and revenue minus strategy combined with our growth capturing in our beverage portfolio that's based into profitability. Our Brazilian operations reported important top line growth and double-digit bottom line growth. This quarter, the main drivers of our results were lower sweetener cost combined with higher sales volume and improved procurement strategy. Excluding beer, our volume rose 7.7% during the third quarter, with Coca-Cola brand accounting for 80% of these volumes, mainly driven by the successful performance of Coca-Cola Zero. This quarter, on a combined basis, our volumes of Coca-Cola Zero and Coca-Cola Light have increased by almost 50% versus the third quarter 2006. The still beverage segment excluding bottled water expanded almost 70%, mainly driven from the introduction of Aquarius Fresh. Moving onto beer, as I mentioned in our previous conference call, we have continued our efforts to build brand equity and recapture customers in the markets. Launched this year, small serve of 250 milliliters presentation of our beer has not only captured new customers, but also intensify our constant product innovation in our beer portfolio. For the third quarter of 2007, our Brazilian operations revenue increased more than 7%, excluding beer as a result of our sales volume growth. On the profitability front, we post 22% growth in operating income, mainly due to the lower price of sweeteners and better procurement negotiations on pricing. We also achieved 17% EBITDA margin for the quarter, an improvement of 170 basis points year-over-year. Now, let me talk finally about our financial performance for the quarter. During the quarter, we paid down approximately $72 million of debt. Our tax position at the end of the quarter was 8.1 m pesos approximately $748 million. This will allow us to cover our share to buy for the value next month and the acquisition of the new franchise, [indiscernible] in Brazil at the beginning of next year. As of September 30, our net debt to EBITDA was below 1%, highlights the strength of our balance sheet. As shown by the performance of the first nine months of the year, our consistent operations of Federal Mexico continue generating the majority of our consolidated growth and now Mexico is reporting its profitability. As you already know, on October 10th Mexico will launch the public tender offer to buy the shares of BD [ph].This offer extends through the first days of November, after that we expect to take control of the company and integrate value in our portfolio products. This transaction will continue to increase our footprint in the fast growing segment of still beverage. As soon as possible, after we start taking control of the company, we will invite the rest of the Coca-Cola bottlers to take part in new things to leverage the Coca-Cola Company. With these comments, now I would like to open the call for any questions that you might have. Question And Answer