Monterrey, Mexico, April 30, 2015 — Fomento Económico Mexicano, S.A.B. de C.V. (“FEMSA”) announced
today its operational and financial results for the first quarter of 2015.
Given current operating conditions in Venezuela, and in order to more accurately reflect the contribution of this operation to Coca-Cola FEMSA and FEMSA’s consolidated financial results, we are now using the SIMADI exchange rate to translate this operation’s first quarter 2015 results into our reporting currency, the Mexican peso. For this period, the SIMADI rate was 192.95 bolivars per US dollar, compared to an exchange rate of 10.70 bolivars per US dollar used for the comparable quarter of 2014. Consequently, Venezuela’s contribution to our reported results adjusted importantly. Despite the difficult operating environment in Venezuela, Coca-Cola FEMSA remains committed to the market and will continue producing, selling and distributing the products that its Venezuelan consumers enjoy on a daily basis.
Carlos Salazar Lomelín, FEMSA’s CEO, commented: “The first quarter results give us reasons to be optimistic. At FEMSA Comercio, we continued to see an improving trend in comparable sales, which together with strong expense containment drove healthy profitability gains. We are also encouraged by the performance of the drugstore operations and by the new opportunity of our recently incorporated gas station business. At Coca-
Cola FEMSA, increased efficiency and execution also generated improved operating margins even in the face of a tough foreign exchange environment, challenging weather dynamics in Mexico and soft consumer demand in
Brazil. And we now have both our new state-of-the-art bottling plants up and running in Brazil and Colombia, which will further increase our flexibility and capabilities in those key territories. So as you can imagine, we are
excited by what lies ahead for our company, and we appreciate your continued interest in FEMSA”.