Good morning, and welcome to Alsea's 2026 Investor Day. Thank you for coming, both in person and our video webcast. My name is Gerardo Lozoya, Head of Investor Relations and Corporate Affairs, and it is a pleasure to host you this morning. Before we begin, for those in the room, please note that one of our presentations will be delivered in Spanish. Simultaneous interpretation will be available. Please refer to the slide for instructions and download the Interprefy app to follow the translation. Now, please take a moment to review our forward-looking statements on the screen. Let me briefly walk you through today's agenda. We'll start with our CEO, Christian Gurría, who will present Alsea's strategy and priorities. He will be followed by our brand leaders covering Domino's Pizza, Starbucks, full-service restaurants in Mexico and Spain, and our newest brands, Chipotle and Raising Cane's.
After, Cory Guajardo, our Chief Human Resources Officer, will discuss our people and organizational priorities, followed by Federico Rodríguez, our Chief Financial Officer, that will review our financial performance, outlook, and 2026 guidance. Christian will then return for closing remarks, and we will conclude with a message from Armando Torrado, Chairman of the Board. After the presentations, we will open the floor for Q&A, followed by time to connect during our networking session. With that, we're ready to begin. First, let me show you a video.
Everything meaningful starts with a moment. The smell of fresh coffee in the morning, a conversation that only happens when you slow down, a taste that instantly takes you somewhere special. We're there for the milestones and for the ordinary days in between. The first date, the big presentation, the quick lunch break, the birthday dinner. Millions of people invite us into their daily lives, and we never take that for granted. For us, quality is just the beginning. To stay relevant, we grow with purpose. Not simply to be bigger, but to be closer to our customers, closer to the communities we serve. Behind every brand, there are thousands of passionate people building this business every day. They bring energy and pride each morning, creating more than stores. They create community, consistency, trust.
We constantly innovate, capitalizing on our experience to create value for our communities and for those who believe in us. Every detail matters because every detail shapes how people feel. At the heart of everything we do, there is care. Care for where our products come from, care for the well-being of our teams, care for the future of our planet. Because we believe the only way to truly succeed is to do it responsibly. At our core, we bring people together across cultures, across generations, across borders, and every time we do, a moment begins to bring happiness and experiences full of flavor. We are Alsea. That's what moves us forward.
Gracias, Gerardo. Hello and welcome, everybody. Buenos días a todos. It's a pleasure being here today with you. Today, this is a very special day for us, and the reason we are so excited is because we are at a wonderful moment in Alsea's journey that we want to share with you today. You know Alsea and you know the figures, but today you will have the opportunity to also meet the team that is leading Alsea and, with more than 120 years of experience, you will see today when we move to the next slide, the amount of experience you will see today in this room and also to meet the team and we are gonna be able to share the strategy for 2026 and the years to come within Alsea.
I've been in the CEO role since July 2025, but I've been part of Alsea for 26 years. I can tell you that we are at an inflection point in this Alsea journey of more than 36 years since Alsea started. We have achieved strong growth and meaningful success over the years. Today, we're in a position to further refine our strategy and sharpen our focus. My team and I will walk you through our strategy for 2026 and how we are positioning Alsea for this next phase of growth and value creation. Welcome again. Gracias por acompañarnos. Where do we stand? As you know, Alsea is a major global player in this industry. Over the past 36 years, Alsea has built a strong and consistent track record of growth and value creation.
Today, we operate across three regions in 12 countries, 13 leading brands and a network of more than 4,800 stores. Every year, we serve an estimated 460 million customers, supported by 75,000 team members.
This scale translates into MXN 84.1 billion in revenue, diversified in three regions: Mexico representing 53% of our revenue, Europe 31%, and South America 16%. This diversified footprint, combined with disciplined execution, has positioned Alsea as one of the leading restaurant operators globally. Most important is where are we going? The way I like to say this is rational, organic, and profitable growth. As we look ahead, our focus is clear to continue strengthening Alsea's leadership while driving rational, organic, but most important, profitable growth. Our strategy is built on four strategic pillars that I will take you through in the next moments. Care, build, growth, and capitalize. This is also supported by three main levers, which is talent, culture, and innovation. Together, these elements are how we will achieve our objectives. Now let's talk about care, to begin.
This is our first pillar, caring for our people, of our customers, and of our resources. At Alsea, we believe that great customer experiences start with great teams. That is why we are focused on attracting, retaining, and developing the best talent in the industry, while strengthening culture that drives engagement and accountability. At the same time, our deep understanding of our customers gives us a significant competitive advantage that allow us to design relevant and differentiated experiences and campaigns across markets and brands. We track rigorously through key indicators as eNPS, which is Employee Net Promoter Score, which measures engagement, and NPS, which is the most accurate way to track our customers, which is Net Promoter Score. Ensuring that both team members and engagement and customer satisfaction remains at the center of our performance.
This pillar strengthens the foundation of our operating model and the quality of our customer experience, as well as the right allocation of our resources. Our second pillar is build, and I always like to say this way, the right brands in the right geographies within the right locations. We are continuously optimizing our portfolio of brands, geographies, and stores, applying a strict discipline to capital allocation while positioning the company to capitalize on attractive growth opportunities and the significant white space available across our markets. This approach has led us to make selective divestments while also incorporating high-potential brands that strengthen our position across our different markets and in different segments. Recent additions, such as Chipotle in the fast casual segment and Raising Cane's in the chicken segment, strengthen, expand our brand portfolio and diversify our growth opportunities.
At the same time, we continue building a more efficient and agile organization, simplifying structures and improving processes across the company. Together, these efforts ensure that our portfolio is better aligned with the long-term growth and profitability. Now, let's deep dive in the white spaces or market holding capacity that we see ahead of us. After optimizing our portfolio under the build pillar, the next question is, how much room do we have to still growth? The answer is a very significant one. Across our brands and markets, we have identified a potential of approximately 3,400 additional stores within the geographies where we already operate. This represents a clear runway for discipline and profitable expansion, guided by simple principle, the right brands, the right markets, in the right locations.
Importantly, this opportunity will be executed under a disciplined capital allocation framework, ensuring that expansion continues to deliver strong and sustainable returns. This gives us confidence that Alsea still has significant runway to expand within the markets we know best. At the same time, our third pillar is growth. If you see the head of the slide, driving higher traffic and transactions across our existing store base of more than 4,800 stores. Our priority is not only to grow organically, but also to grow through our same-store sales through our 4,800 stores portfolio. How do we drive traffic across these networks of stores? For that, we have three main levers that are going to help us drive this incremental traffic. The first one is store remodelings.
Store remodelings require a lower investment, and at the same time have very positive impact on same-store sales traffic. We see examples that when you remodel a Starbucks stores, you grow from 5%-10%, or when you remodel a casual dining or food service restaurant stores, you grow between 10%-15%. Not only the impact is on traffic, the impact is also on the customer experience, which takes me to the second lever that we're gonna be pushing to drive additional traffic to our existing stores, elevating the customer experience through product innovation and technology, ensuring that every visit delivers greater relevance, convenience, and engagement for our customers. What I would...
The third one, which could be very obvious, but for me is one of the most significant ones, is how do we cultivate high-impact operational talent that can drive this additional traffic? Because at the end of the day, it all happens in the stores. No? We have a clear program to elevate our store managers, district managers, and regional and operators to make sure we can drive this additional traffic to the stores. Together, these levers allows us to unlock growth within our existing platform while improving returns on invested capital. Then our third pillar, fourth pillar, I like to say this is the result of doing the other three in the right order. How do we maximize returns from our existing assets? This pillar is capitalize.
This pillar focuses on maximizing returns from the assets we already built. We do this by increasing sales on our 4,800+ stores portfolio, maximizing capacity utilization across our manufacturing and production centers, which also gives us a competitive advantage because they work only for our brands, and continue to optimize our corporate structure in line with this strategy that we have been sharing with you today. By improving efficiency and this asset productivity, we can strengthen our operating leverage and capital discipline. This enable to deliver strong returns while supporting sustainable long-term growth. Just for this part of the presentation, some remarks. Together, these four pillars provide a clear roadmap for Alsea's next phase of growth. Focus on disciplined expansion, operational excellence, and sustained value creation for our shareholders.
Now, the team will share with you how this strategy comes alive in each one of our brands. Now, thank you very much. Now let me introduce Cosme Torrado, Managing Director for Domino's Pizza Alsea. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Christian. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for being here. My name is Cosme Torrado, and I'm the director for Domino's Pizza Alsea. Today, I'm gonna highlight with you the key drivers that continue to strengthen the Domino's position within Alsea's portfolio. Domino's continues to grow from a position of market leadership. At Alsea, we hold the master franchisee agreements to develop and operate the brand in four different countries. Currently, we are the third largest operator in the world with a total of 1,549 units. 63% of those units are in Mexico, 26% of them are in Spain, and the remaining 11% are in South America between Colombia and Uruguay.
Out of our total network, 61% of our stores are corporate-owned, and 39% are managed by our sub-franchisees, reflecting a balanced and scalable growth strategy across our owned and operated units. Across all of our markets, we serve more than 90 million customers every year. We are executing our revenue growth strategy across all of our channels with refreshed brand communications, strengthening our presence and driving performance across our in-store, phone, online ordering, and aggregator platforms. Currently, our sales mix is divided in four different channels. In-store represents 38% of our business, phone 16%, online ordering 30%, and the remaining 16% comes via aggregators with a total digital tender of 47%. We have also expanded to 3.8 million digital customers, generating a strong growth momentum and improved customer satisfaction with a 42% conversion rate.
We are also accelerating product innovation to drive growth, new recipes, improved dough, protein-oriented products, and seasonal or limited time offerings to keep our menu relevant and appealing to our customers with a wave of innovation of 9%. Now let me talk to you about growth, where we stand, and how the future looks like. Our long-term objective is to reach 2,000 stores, supported by a healthy and balanced mix between our corporate stores and our sub-franchisee stores. Based on our historical performance on our current footprint, we believe we can sustainably deliver a CAGR between 5%-7% in the upcoming years, supported by a very disciplined growth strategy and balanced portfolio in the right locations and in the right formats. Our franchisee has a MXN 75,000 EBITDA per store.
This is a clear metric to show how engaged and committed our franchisees are, and they want to keep growing. They have an average payback of 3.2 years on that investment. With our existing markets, we have approximately 25% white space across our total portfolio. This provides a significant expansion runway and allows us to grow efficiently within the markets we already understand and operate successfully. We plan on hitting $1.3 billion in sales this 2026. We have also introduced our cutting-edge operations, an umbrella of tools to revolutionize our in-store operations, including DSS, Digital Shoulder Surfing, our inventory app, and our GPS solution. From an operational standpoint, we will continue to invest in in-store technology while exploring new business models and driving value optimization across our entire operation. Regarding capitalize.
At Domino's, over 45% of our business now comes through digital channels, and we are fully committed to staying at the forefront of technology and innovation. We are constantly exploring new ways to elevate the pizza ordering experience for our customers. That is why we've launched Domino's Cloud. Bringing the same end front user experience than in the US. It is not only more user-friendly and easier to operate, but it is significantly much more reliable, ensuring that every order is delivered on time and with exceptional quality. With this platform, we're setting a new standard for digital convenience and operational excellence. Regarding care. People remain at the core of our strategy. Training, development, agility, and change management are key priorities to strengthen capabilities across all of our levels within the organization. Today, our turnover rate stands at 74%, and manager stability is at 50%.
These indicators are the best results we've ever had in the past 35 years. Just to give you some context, the industry stands at a 120% turnover. Cori will get into the details later in her presentation. We're also developing a new labor management tool to improve productivity and workforce planning. In addition, we are enhancing salaries and compensation packages to attract, retain, and motivate top talent, reinforcing stability and long-term organizational performance. Our success goes beyond operations. It is driven by purpose, inspired, performance-focused people who live our values every day. Let me close with three simple takeaways. We are hungry for more. More stores. We will continue to open new stores in the right places and with the right formats. More sales. Through our commercial strategy, innovation, revenue growth management, we will continue to increase our share of market in every country.
Finally, and most importantly, more profit driven by scale and operational efficiency. Now, let me introduce you to Francisco Toso, our Managing Director for Starbucks. Thank you.
Thank you, Cosme. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for being here today. My name is Francisco Toso. I have been part of Alsea for the past seven years. Today, I have the privilege to lead in the Starbucks business within the company. Over the past two decades, Alsea has built a very strong Starbucks platform across multiple markets. The next few minutes, I will walk you through the scale of the business, the strategy that guides our decisions, and the actions that we are taking to continue accelerating growth, creating value going forward. Let me start by putting the scale of this business into perspective. Starbucks is the leading coffee brand globally, operating more than 90 countries, over the 41,000 stores worldwide.
That global system, Alsea is the second-largest Starbucks operator in the world, and the business is on track to surpass $2 billion in revenue in the coming years. Today, across our markets, we operate approximately 2,000 stores in 12 countries and serving more than 200 million customers every year. This scale reflect not only growth, but also the strong partnership that we have built with Starbucks over more than two decades. One of the key strengths of the Starbucks business within Alsea is the structure of the regional portfolio. Today, our revenue is well diversified across regions. Mexico represent approximately 62%, Europe 23%, and South America about 15%. This geographic diversification provide both stability and significant runway for growth. Across our regions, we see the potential to approximately double our current store footprint over time.
This opportunity is supported by what we call a local approach. We combine the strength of a global brand with a deep understanding of local customers and market dynamics, allowing us to adapt the Starbucks experience to each market while maintaining brand consistency at scale. This platform is a result of more than two decades of disciplined expansion. Over the past 23 years, we have progressively entered new markets, building scale step by step and strengthening the Starbucks brand across our geographies. As a result, the business is expected to surpass MXN 35 billion in sales by 2026. This disciplined approach has translated into a very strong track record with 23.4% CAGR over the past two decades. This growth has been built on solid fundamentals, strong local capabilities, operational discipline, a highly scalable platform.
This foundation give us confidence in our ability to continue expanding in the years ahead. This long-term record give us a confidence as we look ahead. Our strategy is clear and focusing four pillars that drive sustainable growth and long-term value creation. Partners, customers, growth, and profitability. First, partners. Our people are the heart of the Starbucks experience. We invest in them, and that translating to a stronger service and better operational execution. Second, customers. We continue strengthening our connection with customers to ensure Starbucks remains the most trusted and loved coffee brand in our markets. Third, growth. Our priority is driving consistent same-store sales growth, supported by customer engagement, innovation and disciplined revenue management. At the same time, we continue expanding our store network where we see attractive long-term opportunities. Fourth, profitability. We leverage scale, operational efficiencies and disciplined execution to continue extending margins.
Importantly, this strategy is fully aligned with the Starbucks framework, care, build, growth and capitalize. Being part of Alsea allow us to leverage the group's scale and capabilities while staying focused on what matter most, strengthening the Starbucks brand and delivering a consistent customer experience. We have developed a clear strategy, plan, focus, and coordinate initiatives across the Starbucks business within Alsea. Our approach combine multiple action across our four strategic pillars. We track a set of key performance indicators that show consistent improvement over time. We are seeing a steady progress in areas such as partner engagement, customer perceptions, sales growth, and operational efficiency. These initiatives reinforce one another across the system. The combined impact of this effort leads to a clear financial objective, accelerating EBITDA growth and reaching approximately MXN 5 billion in EBITDA by 2027.
This trajectory reflect the strength of the platform we have built and our confidence in the long-term value creation potential of the business. Beyond execution, innovation is the key competitive advantage for a Starbucks business within Alsea. Our focus is on evolving the Starbucks experience to stay closely connect with changing customer preference across our markets. At Starbucks, innovation happens across three key areas. First, products. We combine expanding our product platform with unique innovations that keep the Starbucks experience relevant and distinctive. A recent example is the launch of a protein-based beverages, responding to a growth demand for functional drinks and generating excitement around our launches, including food and merchandising, with their market response captured through our wave of innovation. Second, the third place. Our priority today is not only opening new stores, but also renovating existing location to enhance the customer experience.
At the same time, we are implementing a new small engine store format that allows us to enter smaller spaces while maintaining a strong unit economics. Third, technology and data. Our data capabilities help us better understand our customer and deliver more relevant commercial actions and personalized offerings. As a result, more than 40% of our transactions are digital, reflecting a strong adoption of our digital ecosystem. Together, these capabilities ensure that Starbucks remains relevant, differentiated, and well-positioned for long-term growth across our markets. Let me close with three simple ideas. One, disciplined growth. Expanding thoughtfully in markets where we see strong opportunities. Second, accelerating EBITDA. Driven by scale, operational efficiencies and disciplined execution. Third, sustainable value creation. Driven by strong returns, capital discipline, and long-term growth.
This is the path forward for a Starbucks business and how we will continue contributing to Alsea long-term strategy. Thank you. Let me introduce my colleague, Jaime.
Buenos días. Buenos días a todos. My name is Jaime Vázquez, and I lead a full-service restaurant operation in Mexico. I have been with Alsea for 25 years, and it's a pleasure to be here today. I will share the growth opportunity and the strategy for our business in Mexico. Full service operate in a large and fragmented market. This create a strong opportunity for scale operators like Alsea. With our brands and our national footprint, we see a clear path to build a $1 billion company in the next years. Let me start with the market opportunity. The Mexican food service market is worth about $67 million. Full service represent around 40% of the market, but organized restaurant chains represent only 6%. This is a huge opportunity to continue growth.
This means additionally, the market is highly fragmented, and that creates a strong opportunity for operators like Alsea. Our brands operate in a $10-$30 average ticket range. It's very affordable. In this segment, customers look for two things, consistency and great experiences every day. That's exactly what our brands deliver. Today, Alsea is the biggest and largest full-service restaurant operator in Mexico. We operate 424 restaurants nationwide, and we serve more than 50 million guests every year. Our portfolio includes five strong brands in four categories. This business is supported by more than 12,000 employees, and our scale creates important operational advantages. We generate synergies in procurement, supply chains, and operations. No other operator in Mexico combines this footprint with this level of integration.
Our portfolio includes leading brands across key dining segments, Chili's and The Cheesecake Factory, competing in the American casual dining segment. Chili's currently operates 75 restaurants in Mexico. The brands offer a relaxed, experience-driven environment. It also has a strong unit economics. Chili's has the highest alcohol mix in our portfolio. Every year, we serve more than 2.3 million margaritas. Chili's is the only brand that buys more tequila in the world. It's the brand that buys more tequila in the world. Every year, we serve 2.3 million margaritas, as I say, and this supports the strong restaurant-level margins. In family dining, Vips is one of the most recognized brands in Mexico, and it has more than 60 years of history and 234 restaurants nationwide.
Brands like Italianni's and P.F. Chang's add strength in dining portfolio. Across the portfolio, we see a space to open more than 150 restaurants additionally in the next years. This expansion supports our goal to build a $1 billion company in the next years. Our strategy focus on four key drivers. First, portfolio diversification. Our five brand allow us to capture different dining occasions. Second, driving traffic and same-store sales growth. We focus on increased visits and growing the average check table by table, day per day. Over the 3+3 years, we delivering 9% average annual sales growth. 10% growth in store level EBITDA. Third, and for me is one of the most important, is operational agility. We simplify menus and improve pricing to manage inflation. Fourth and finally is the strong value offering.
Our launch value menus already drives about 50% of daily traffic. Another key driver for growth is a capital-efficient expansion. Over the past 3 years, we remodeled more than 45 restaurants per year, and the results have been very strong. Remodeled stores increase sales between 50% and 30%. They also improve EBITDA margins by more than 400 basis points. For new openings, we focus only in the AAA locations, and we also relocates some stores when it improves our market share. In addition, Vips and Italianni's continue expanding through franchisee partners. Today, we operate 48 franchisee restaurants, and this model allow us to grow faster with lower capital investment. The results confirm that our strategy is working. Our business is growing 20%, 20% faster than the industry, and most recently, we delivering 9% year-over-year growth.
The industry average was 7%. This means outperforming the market by 200 basis points. The performance reflects strong brands and disciplined execution. Consistency. Behind these results, there is one key factor, our people. This business is people. In the restaurant industry, execution depends on the talent. Our ambition is simple. We want to be the best restaurant employer in Mexico. We invest in training, development, and compensation, and the results are clear. Over the past three years, we reduced employee turnover by more than eight points. Today, our turnover is over 70 points below the industry average. These drive engagement, service quality, and operational consistency. Let me summarize our strategy in four building blocks. First, customer-centric. We focus on great food, innovation, and a strong value. Second, a consistency value proposition. Customers trust our brands for quality and experience.
Third, operational excellence. We improve productivity and build smarter restaurants to be better. Fourth, our people, because in this industry, the formula is very simple. When we care our people, they take care our customers, and when the customers are happy, the business grow. Let me close with three key points. First, we operate a strong brands in a large, fragmented market. Second, we have a reach and national scale and strong operational capabilities. Third, we are executing a disciplined strategy for profitable growth. With this foundation in place, we are confident that our full-service restaurant platform will become a $1 billion company in the next years. Thank you very much. Now I want to introduce Francisco Páez, Paco Páez from Spain, the Full-Service Restaurant Director. Thank you. Paez.
Gracias, Jaime. Buenos días a todos. Es un placer y un lujo estar hoy aquí presentando la unidad de negocio Full Service Restaurant España. Soy Paco Páez, soy el managing director de esta unidad y llevo 26 años en la compañía. Permítanme comenzar con una primera reflexión para darles contexto de la oportunidad de mercado que ofrece España para la industria de full service restaurant. España es el cuarto mercado a nivel mundial y el primero en Europa en consumo de food service per cápita. Esto fundamentalmente es debido a los casi 100 millones de turistas que nos visitan al año y también a la cultura que existe en el país de consumir fuera de casa. Sin embargo, a pesar de su tamaño, sigue siendo un mercado altamente fragmentado, con espacio para que operadores con escala, con tamaño, ganen participación.
El segmento, de hecho, de la restauración organizada representaba hace apenas 6 años un 23% del total market share. Hoy día, 6 años después, representa casi un 33%, 10 puntos más. Esto ha venido impulsado por cambios en los hábitos de consumo, porque los consumidores buscan o tienen preferencia por marcas más confiables. Si a eso le sumamos que mercados vecinos como Francia o Inglaterra ya representa la restauración organizada entre un 60% y un 70% del total market share, esto nos indica que la tendencia va a seguir creciendo.
De hecho, la restauración organizada ha crecido muy por encima de la restauración independiente en los últimos años, 73% versus 4% de la restauración independiente. Lo que nos permite pensar que la organizada va a seguir canibalizando a la independiente y que la independiente va a ser la fuente principal de crecimiento de la restauración organizada. En otras palabras, operamos en un mercado muy grande, dinámico y con una oportunidad clara de expansión para operadores con marcas fuertes y capacidades operativas probadas, como Alsea. ¿Y cómo está implantada Alsea en el segmento de full service restaurant en España? Pues contamos con un portfolio sólido de marcas propiedad de Alsea. Operamos tres marcas líderes, cada una de ellas posicionada en un segmento distinto, pero complementario al mismo tiempo. Esto nos permite cubrir diferentes momentos de consumo sin generar canibalización entre las propias marcas.
Nuestras marcas participan en tres categorías muy atractivas del mercado. La categoría del all-day eatery, como nos gusta, definir o como definimos a nuestra marca Vips, esa casa de comidas moderna con un modelo muy único en el mercado. Es el único modelo tan completo en el mercado español y con 57 años de implantación en el mercado. La segunda categoría es Italian Casual Dining, donde tenemos a nuestro restaurante Ginos, un restaurante italiano de cocina creativa italiana, pero con un toque, local. Más de 40 años también de implantación en el mercado. La tercera, la categoría de all-day American Restaurant, donde se encuentra Foster's, nuestro restaurante americano, la marca más grande y con una propuesta bastante más completa y amplia que el resto de sus competidores directos, con 55 años también en el mercado.
En conjunto, operamos 488 restaurantes, servimos a casi 43 millones de clientes y trabajan con nosotros más de 9,300 colaboradores. El 60% de la gestión de los restaurantes son en gestión propia y el 40% en bajo el modelo de gestión de franquicia. Este equilibrio nos permite mantener el control operativo y al mismo tiempo acelerar la expansión de manera eficiente en capital. Con este portfolio de marcas líderes, vemos una clara oportunidad de crecimiento en los próximos años. Cada una de nuestras marcas ocupa posiciones de número uno o número dos en sus respectivos segmentos de mercado, y esto nos da una base sólida para seguir creciendo.
Por tanto, nuestro plan contempla incrementar las ventas en aproximadamente 45% en los próximos cinco años, consiguiendo en la unidad de negocio la cifra mítica del $1 billón. Este crecimiento va a venir tanto por expansión en la red de restaurantes, estamos planeando abrir 115 restaurantes en los próximos cinco años, lo que significa un 25% de crecimiento, pero también va a venir por mayor tráfico y productividad en los locales existentes. En otras palabras, no solo buscamos crecer en número de restaurantes, sino también fortalecer el desempeño de cada unidad y capturar mayor participación de mercado. ¿Y cómo pretendemos hacer esto? Pues estamos ejecutando una estrategia basada en cuatro pilares claros. El primero, acelerando el crecimiento a través de la adquisición de nuevos consumidores, nuevos clientes.
El segundo, impulsando el crecimiento a través de la transformación digital y el análisis de datos, tan importante hoy día. El tercero, maximizando el valor de nuestro footprint mediante apertura selectiva, remodelaciones estratégicas y el desarrollo del modelo de franquicias. El cuarto, y el más importante, pensamos, blindando y cuidando la operación, asegurando consistencia, eficiencia y calidad. Cada uno de estos pilares se traduce en iniciativas concretas para impulsar este crecimiento en los próximos años. ¿Cuáles son esas iniciativas? Lo hemos dividido o tenemos la estrategia dividida en dos partes. La primera, permítanme compartir con ustedes, está relacionada con expandir nuestra base de clientes y fortalecer nuestra relación con ellos. Vamos a impulsar, en primer lugar, la innovación en producto como palanca clave de atracción de clientes en este segmento.
No en vano, hoy día representa ya entre un 12%-15% del total de la venta anual. Vamos a profundizar en el conocimiento del cliente utilizando datos y analítica para entender mejor sus preferencias y sus comportamientos. Estamos fortaleciendo nuestra comunicación de marca, convirtiéndola en una ventaja competitiva para atraer nuevos consumidores y para aumentar la frecuencia de consumo de los que ya nos visitan. Además, estamos acelerando nuestra transformación digital con una mejor orquestación o integración de todo el viaje digital del cliente.
Vamos a seguir impulsando el delivery y el takeaway, que siguen ganando relevancia en el mercado y que hoy día, dependiendo de la marca, ya representan entre 10% y 15% del total de la venta. Vamos a reforzar o estamos reforzando nuestro programa de fidelidad o de lealtad Club VIPS, que hoy día es el número uno en el país y que cuenta ya con más de 4 millones de socios activos, lo que representa un motor importantísimo de crecimiento. De hecho, ya hoy nos trae más del 35% de la venta. El segundo componente de nuestra estrategia se centra en maximizar el retorno de nuestro footprint y asegurar una operación eficiente a escala. Nuestra estrategia de expansión combina aperturas selectivas en ubicaciones estratégicas con un programa activo de remodelaciones.
Estamos planeando remodelar 130 restaurantes con un incremento de ventas promedio por local del 7%. Vamos a continuar acelerando el crecimiento a través de nuestro modelo de franquicias. De hecho, estamos innovando en formatos más eficientes y menos costosos, con menos inversión, adaptándonos a diferentes ubicaciones, necesidades del consumidor y siendo también más accesibles para nuestros franquiciados, para los nuevos franquiciados. Finalmente, no menos importante, quizás lo más importante, estamos fortaleciendo nuestra plataforma operativa para ofrecer la mejor experiencia y la mejor hospitalidad a nuestros clientes. Esto incluye un modelo operativo unificado en las tres marcas, el desarrollo de operadores de alto impacto, es decir, los mejores profesionales del sector y un modelo de fábricas centralizado que mejora la calidad de producto, asegura el suministro y controla los costes.
Todo esto respaldado por una cadena de suministro muy optimizada en todo el negocio. Para cerrar, si me permiten, me gustaría dejar tres ideas claras. Primero, España representa una oportunidad muy atractiva dentro de un mercado de restauración que continúa creciendo. Segundo, contamos con un portfolio de marcas líderes y bien equilibrado, que nos permite capturar distintos momentos de consumo y diferentes segmentos de mercado. Tercero, estamos ejecutando una estrategia clara y disciplinada, enfocada en crecimiento rentable y creación de valor para los próximos años. Todo esto nos va a llevar a conseguir la cifra mítica del $1 billion en la unidad de negocio Full Service Restaurant Alsea España. Muchas gracias. Permítanme introducir a mi compañero Pablo de Brito, responsable de nuevas marcas. Gracias. Buenos días.
Good morning, everyone. My name is Pablo de Brito. I am managing director of New Brands for Alsea, and I have been working in Alsea the last five years. Today, I have the privilege. I'm actually very happy and excited to share two great opportunities about two amazing brands on how we are going to expand Alsea portfolio. Cristian was sharing with us the four pillar strategy, and one of the pillars, it's about build pillar, which is mostly about right brands in the right geographies. The whole history is how do we leverage Alsea scale to actually launch two globally recognized brands. Chapter one or the first opportunity, it's about Chipotle.
Let me share with you that Chipotle has been within the healthy fast-casual segment, which, by the way, has been the fastest-growing segment in the last 10 years and is expected to be the fastest-growing segment in the 10 years to come. Today, already, the segment in Mexico accounts for $1.3 billion, a meaningful size, and the segment has been growing at an overall pace of 11%-12%. We do see this opportunity in Mexico on around 200 restaurants and around $390 million on overall revenues. The second opportunity, it's about Raising Cane's. The history about Raising Cane's is how do we enter in the fastest-growing QSR segment in Mexico that already accounts for $3.5 billion in revenues, representing a bit more than 30% of the QSR market.
We do see an opportunity on Raising Cane's in Mexico of around 400 restaurants and around $1 billion. In the coming slides, I'm going to double-click and expand on the reasons why we strongly believe that both Chipotle and Raising Cane's have a very high likelihood of success and why, as Alsea, we are uniquely positioned to win with these two brands in the market. About Chipotle, it's all about bringing a globally iconic brand on what we believe in Mexico is in an untapped category. The first reason is clearly a larger scale brand. It's leader in the segment that operates. In Mexico, there are only limited regional players. When we think about Chipotle, we think about $12 billion brand, 4,000 restaurants back-to-back with Mexico, a strong ABC consumer recognition about the brand in Mexico.
The second piece is Chipotle has a distinctive unique value proposition. It's all about real ingredients, real food, fresh, responsibly sourced, and with no artificial flavors or preservatives. All of these under the overall brand position of Chipotle For Real. The third reason, which is very important actually to drive scale, is affordable pricing. What we can share is after a very, very strong effort on our supply chain, we can share that we will have competitive pricing versus the traditional QSR in Mexico. In the same way the brand became large scale in U.S., in Mexico, we are going to protect consumer purchasing power, and we are going to be offering the brand between MXN 150-MXN 200. Key to drive frequency and scale, especially on the ABC segment. The other factor is Mexicans actually love tangible abundance.
To actually drive conversion, it's all about tangible value. When you buy a burrito or a bowl in Chipotle, we should be thinking on around 500-600 grams of great quality food with the best culinary standards. Let's compare that with 200 grams of food on a standard QSR segment. The final but not least is customized fast casual service. Overall, Chipotle is about build your own. Build your own with fresh Mexican ingredients, more than 40 X ingredients with multiple exponential combinations served in a personalized way, bless you, only in two minutes. If you compare that value prop versus a standard QSR served on average between 6-8 minutes, is clearly a leading value proposition. That's the history about Chipotle. Let's pivot a bit on the second opportunity, which is Raising Cane's.
The history on Raising Cane's is how do we enter in the largest QSR protein category with a leading premium differentiated brand. The first piece is let me share that the chicken segment in Mexico is really massive. It is 5th country in the world on the chicken consumption per capita. 36 kilos per capita per year. Almost 50% of the meat being consumed is chicken on a per capita basis versus the second meat being consumed. The second piece, as I shared, is the fastest growing category within the QSR segment, and already accounts for $3.5 billion in Mexico as an overall market opportunity.
The white space on this large segment is huge because in Mexico, let me share with you that the market has been mostly dominated by one single player in the last few decades, with limited presence of other premium competitors reinforcing this opportunity. When we double-click on the chances on Raising Cane's, and we look that Raising Cane's has been identified as the fastest growing chain, growing at a rate of around 30% year-over-year, being recognized as the third largest chicken brand in the U.S., clearly validating the strong momentum and a unique value proposition. When we look into some of the characteristics that Raising Cane's or what makes Raising Cane's unique, it truly has best-in-class economics and a really scalable model.
When we look on approximately $6.5 million AUV, supported by a very simple focus menu under a philosophy of ONE LOVE®, that they are truly committed on doing one thing, which is great quality chicken finger meals, but doing that better than anyone else. With a very strong connection with the community on a culture that is truly people-based, driving excellence in service with the best standards in restaurants on a 2.5 service delivery average time. That's a history on Raising Cane's. To wrap up on the combined opportunities. Just for complementary reference, we are launching both brands in Monterrey at the second half of this year. After that, we are going to enter into Mexico City in 2027. After that, we are going to roll out nationally as from 2028 onwards.
We believe that there are at least three big reasons why we are uniquely positioned to win. The first one, as I shared, is there is a huge white space, large and scalable opportunities, high growth categories, and limited competitors. The second reason, we reviewed in detail that both Chipotle and Raising Cane's are really leading brands with very strong economics and with proven success on driving consumer demands. The third piece is about the size and the scale of Alsea. Let's remember that in Mexico, we do have half of our business that we will have and drive access to premium real estate, leverage on our digital and brand capabilities, and truly generate synergies on the overall supply chain and procurement. Just to close, together, Chipotle and Raising Cane's are going to help expand our portfolio on large and attractive segments.
Combined, they make an opportunity in Mexico of around 600 restaurants on around $1.4 billion, leveraging Alsea's capabilities and scale to actually drive disciplined growth. It's been a privilege. Thank you so much for your time, and let me introduce Cory Guajardo, our HR lead. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Pablo. Well, it's a great opportunity to be here with you. Thank you all for joining us. I've been with the company for 12 years now. I've seen the incredible evolution of Alsea. We've more than doubled the size of the company during this time, thanks to these wonderful brands we are so proud of. Today I will share what sits behind this success because we know that none of this happens without people. The HR strategy is fully aligned to Alsea's strategy. At HR, we contribute to profitable growth by doing basically two things, developing high-impact teams. I'm gonna explain a little bit more about that, and strengthening the organization, so we can operate as an agile, people-centric, effective company. Everything we do has these two dimensions, people and organization.
Our strategic objectives, all of them are aligned to the four pillars presented by Christian earlier. I'm just gonna focus today on three of them, people experience, high-impact operational talent, and productivity and efficiency. The key message I wanna leave you with is, first, we win at the frontline. Our operators running the stores are our core advantage. That's the first one and the most important one. Number two, labor cost pressures. We know everybody's thinking about it. I'm gonna talk about it a little more later, but they're helping us to become a more productive company. The third is that, execution is strongly tied to financial outcomes. Our performance management system is designed not only to track performance but to deliver it.
Whenever I think about the value HR brings to the business, it's always in terms of profitability, performance, productivity, execution, so all these concepts will come up repeatedly during my presentation today. Let me start first by giving you an overview of where we are in terms of people experience. My colleagues already explained their strategies. I think the employee value proposition of each brand is strong, but the real achievement is that we have been able to execute it at scale. Our engagement scores and the growth opportunities we offer confirm that we are in the right direction. For human resources, the most important KPI is always turnover because it helps us provide a better service to our customers and also because behind turnover there's a hidden cost. It rarely shows in the P&L, but we know it's there, and it affects the business.
As you can see, we have been consistently reducing it in the last years. Right now, the whole Alsea, it sits at 54, well below the industry standard, but if we go back to 2019, it was 82. Imagine this reduction from 82 to 54. Of course, there are many actions that explain this improvement. If you ask me, what's really changing the game for us now is predictive people analytics. We've been using recently these innovative technological solutions based on AI machine learning that are allowing us to see the business in a whole different way, understanding what really drives performance, what profiles drive retention, engagement, and scaling those insights across the organization. We've just started with that.
We still see the opportunity ahead very significant, so we are confident that turnover is gonna continue to decline as we strengthen these capabilities. Even though innovation is important, at the end of the day, we are a simple company. We operate restaurants, and you know we make this promise, you saw it on the video, of bringing happiness not only to the customers, but our team members as well. There isn't any sophisticated methodology, but in our engagement scores, in this survey, we ask every year to our people, "Are you happy working for Alsea? Are you proud of being part of the company?" It's a yes/no question, and for us, it's really very important.
88% say yes, and we know that we still can improve that because happy people perform better at the end. All of these results would not be possible without our operators with whom we work hand in hand to take care of our people. I'm gonna talk about them now. Out of the 75,000 employees, this is the most important group. This is the group that most directly moves the P&L, so let's move on and talk about them. We have 4,000 operators, store managers, district managers, and regional directors who run our stores every day. These are the leaders closest to execution, closest to the customer, closest to people, and, for us, this is really the advantage. We've been talking about strategy all morning, and of course, strategy is important, but performance does not depend on strategy alone.
It depends on who run the stores. Our core advantage lies in who operates. That's why high-impact operational talent is a core pillar of the human resources strategy. It's about attracting, retaining, and developing the best operators in the industry. For an operator to become a high-impact operator, they have to deliver results across three dimensions, first, financial performance, second, operational execution, and leadership capabilities. All of those that score 90 or above in the performance review are classified as high-impact operators. You can see the numbers on the slide. It has been growing in the last couple of years, and we're gonna continue supporting and preparing them, so they represent 80% of our operators. At the end of the day, we ask them, "Just run great stores." For a store to be great, the discipline execution is a core element.
With the context that we are living right now, we know that managing labor is a very important part of that discipline execution. Let's now move on to our labor agenda. I'm gonna share what we're doing there. Labor cost is one of the largest costs of our business. We know that with the recent labor reforms, particularly in Mexico, it's representing pressure that we're taking as an opportunity to operate better. We have initiatives both in the support center and in the operation because what we want at the end is to keep profitability, so we have to work in both ways. In operations, the key is productivity. We measure it through transactions per labor hour. That is, getting more value from every hour worked.
All of our brands are consistently improving against this metric by applying flexibility, process redesign, introducing workforce management technology without compromising people and without compromising the service to our customers. That's why it's a challenge. On the other hand, in the support center, we have been working consistently in designing leaner structures all the time. We've been working in that for years because we know there's always a better way to operate. Just to give you an example, last year, we decided to integrate the organizational support center structure for Mexico and South America, and that single decision allowed us to deliver 8% headcount efficiency. Of course, that has been helping us with the G&A ratio. Around 70%, you know, of G&A is people-related.
All of these efforts really matter, and we know that there is still room for improvement, and we're gonna continue working on that. We know that discipline in productivity and efficiency. They're not gonna work unless we measure them and reinforce it across the organization, and that's what exactly our performance management system is designed to do. I'm gonna briefly walk you through it, and this will be the final part of my presentation. In Alsea, every single role contributes to performance. Everybody in the company from store manager and up, we measure their contribution. We align the entire company towards a common set of business metrics that you can see in the slide: transactions, productivity, EBITDA, and at the same time, accountability is clearly defined across functions. Of course, the incentives are strongly tied to performance, not just to recognize it, but to deliver it.
We have short-term metrics and incentives and long-term metrics and incentives. Our store managers, our operators are also eligible for the long-term incentives, always if they really meet extraordinary results, and that's the same for the executive team. What we want with all this is to make sure that we deliver the financial targets included in Alsea's strategy, and create value for our shareholders, always store by store. This brings me back to the message I gave you at the beginning, and I would also like to close with that. Not just to reinforce it here with you, but we do that within the company because it's part of our culture. We build results from the bottom up. Again, the key component of all of our people strategy always sits at the front line.
HR's contribution will continue to be making sure that we develop those high-impact teams that make execution happen one store at a time. I'm gonna hand it over to our CFO, Federico Rodríguez. Thank you. This is it.
Thank you very much. Are you bored? You want tequila? We'll have tequila from Chile in the catering. Please awake a little bit. Okay, thank you very much. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us at Alsea Day 2026. Today, I will share with you the financial roadmap, the strategy that will guide Alsea's performance not only for 2026, but for the upcoming years. This will be focused on clarity, discipline, and long-term value creation for all the shareholders. Okay, as Christian and the rest of the team has been telling you, Alsea has evolved from a growth unit company into a growth unit platform. This shift has been provoked by the maturity of the portfolio of Alsea, as well as a more disciplined management. Talking around capital allocation, as you can see, we have four main priorities. The first one, the disciplined organic growth.
This will be centered on four pillars. You have seen all these pillars. The first one is Starbucks. 60% of the CapEx needs will be invested in this brand. Twenty percent for Domino's Pizza in the three main geographies where we are currently running the company, and 15% for the full service restaurant brands. Obviously, these three pillars has been in the portfolio during more than 20 or 35 years in the case of Domino's Pizza. Finally, we have the new brands that Pablo had just presented. These two brands are Raising Cane's and Chipotle, where we will be investing around 5% of the CapEx needs for this 2026.
Remember that we will only have five stores by the end of this 2026, but we have a lot of high expectations in the future. Hopefully in the 2027, we'll be talking about more footprint and more expansion for these two brands. The second priority, the strategic reinvestment. What does this mean? We will remodel a record for Alsea of 2-to-1. This means 2 remodel stores per 1 opening. Why are we doing this? Because this support the same-store sales growth. Remember that we want to reinforce the traffic in each one of the stores. We have been really vocal around this. We want to preserve the current customers and increase the frequency or to capture new customers and to improve the customer experience, obviously, with the new look and feel for each one of the stores.
The payback for the remodels should be in the range of 20-25%. It is critical for us to do these remodels that increase from a range from 5%-15% depending on the region, on the brand, and the format. The third capital allocation priority, the shareholders capital returns through dividends and share buybacks. Remember that we have a share buyback program approved by the assembly of MXN 1.5 billion, and this is supported by the strong and sustainable cash flow profile that you will see later into the guidance.
Last but not least, all of this with a balance sheet flexibility, that is the same as a strong capital structure, ensuring that we can navigate during all the macroeconomic shifts, especially with this current environment, and take advantage of the new opportunities that can arise in the future. With all of this, Alsea is positioned to deliver strong returns in the long term. Okay. Now it's time for the guidance of 2026. Remember, as I have been telling you, that this has been built thinking on strengthening the Free Cash Flow generation for 2026 and the future. Starting from the top line, we'll have a revenue growth in the range from 5%-7% with the next breakdown. Same-store sales from 4%-6%, depending on the region, depending on the format, the brand.
Half of this figure should be captured through new customers, increasing frequency, et cetera. The second part, the new openings, the new units, where we will have a range from 180 new units to 220 units. 70% of them will be corporate ones. This means that Alsea will be operating these units and 30% with our franchisees that are excellent partners. From a geographic point of view, 65% of the new units will be based in Mexico with around 30% in Europe and the remaining 5% in South America. All of this with a total CapEx of MXN 5.5 billion for 2026. 65% will be used for new units and remodels, 20% for maintenance CapEx.
That means that we'll be using that CapEx for maybe changing the AC equipment for the stores, painting a wall, maintaining the look and feel for all customers. The last part for digitalization projects, around 15% of the total CapEx will be used for IT. Going to the bottom part of the P&L, we'll have an EBITDA growth in the range from 6%-8%, which implies an EBITDA margin equal or above 14.1%. One important assumption regarding this guidance. When we build the budget, the guidance, we use an 18.3 pesos per dollar. Remember that we used to hedge all the dollar needs. 30% of the food basket of Alsea is dollar index. Taking a sensitivity analysis, we have been really vocal around this.
One peso means one peso of appreciation or depreciation means around 30 basis points per percent of expansion or contraction into the EBITDA margin. By year's end, we'll have a net leverage ratio pre IFRS 16 of around 2.3 times. Summarizing this slide, with the strong top-line momentum and a really disciplined and efficient CapEx allocation, Alsea is prepared to deliver an increase of more than 100 basis points in the return on invested capital. We are thinking around profitability, generation of cash flow, and you can see all of this into this guidance. Okay, going to the capital structure and balance sheet perspective. At the beginning of 2026, we successfully completed the refinancing under very favorable conditions.
This transaction will be generating $25 million of savings for 2026, reducing the cost of debt by nearly 200 basis points, while at the same time we're extending the debt maturity to almost 5 years. We are quite comfortable with what we have done. Given this disciplined approach of growth and capital allocation, we are not expecting to have any significant changes in the short term. This position us with a stronger and efficient capital structure that provides stability and flexibility for the years upcoming. Cash flow, cash flow. We have been talking around cash flow, CapEx allocation, disciplined growth, and this is the key message I want you to leave with today, and I want to be inspirational. I was really boring in the rehearsals.
I hope you have this inspiration with the strategies built around strengthening and expanding the free cash flow over time, not just preserving stability, as I have said, but driving incremental cash and generation as the business continues to scale. We have significant white space in the four main pillars. We have a lot of hopes into the same-store sales, not only for 2026, but you have to think of Alsea growing in the current same-store sales, talking only around transactions or in a 2% average in the long term. This is reflected into these two main outputs, the cash conversion from EBITDA to treasury above 18% and a free cash flow to market cap ratio of almost 5%. This is completely different than you have seen in the last five years. This is a complete change.
We have been hearing you, all the investor community, and we want to generate cash flow. It has been one of the main push. Alsea is focused over generating a sustainable and long-term value creation for all the shareholders. My final remarks, really repetitive, but I want to be, I want to do it. Stronger cash flows means stronger returns and means a stronger Alsea. A disciplined growth is reflected in a more predictable value for the company. As Christian has mentioned, we have been divesting in the non-core regions and non-core brands, and we'll do the same in the future. The cash-driven momentum fuels Alsea to the next chapter, which is you. Thank you very much, and I want to reintroduce Christian Gurría for his final remarks. Please, Christian. Gracias, Federico.
Hello. You're not boring. You dance a lot in the scenario, but you're not boring. We're getting to the final part of the presentation, but before we move on, I want to take a few seconds to really recognize all this team leading Alsea in the present and for the future. There's been a lot of work behind putting together this presentation. To the organizers and the team, thank you very much. You have done an amazing job, and I believe the message, I hope the message we have delivered is clear. Some final remarks. Why invest in Alsea? I believe that, first, I would say we are a trusted operator, an operator with a proven track record of delivering value across brands, markets, and partners. Second, we manage a resilient portfolio of leading brands that allows us to capture scale and expand into high-potential white spaces.
Third one, we are committed to innovation. I believe you have heard innovation several times during this day. Clearly innovation, it's a proven lever that will drive traffic and continue being a differentiator in our brands. Just to give you some idea, we have a very strong capability in Mexico and Europe and R&D teams to really work on product innovation together with our franchisors from the different brands. Clearly that's a competitive advantage for us. Innovation, digital transformation, and operational excellence to sustain long-term profitable growth. Finally, we operate with a strong financial discipline, as Federico has shared with you, supported by a solid balance sheet, consistent cash flow generation. Some final remarks.
We have shared with you today the strategy. We have shared with you where we are heading. We are confident that by following this strategy, this evolution of Alsea's strategy is going to create long-term value creation. Thank you very much, and thank you for being here today. Now I want to invite Armando Torrado, Co-founder and Chairman, for some closing remarks. Thank you very much. Gracias, Armando.
You're very welcome. Hello, everybody. Good morning, and good to see you again. Some new faces and some old longtime faces, so it's nice to be here. I would wanna say just what Christian said. I know these guys have been rehearsed a lot. We took them from the restaurants and from the field just to come here and present to you, so it's always nice to see you. Congratulations to everybody. You've really been improving a lot since the last time we saw you in the Bolsa Mexicana de Valores and then four years ago. Congratulations and thanks. Bueno here I am in my other role right now.
Since I've really handed the keys of the company to Cristian the last seven months, I think, the succession plan and planning ahead, it's gonna be terrific. I'm very excited about it. The board is always asking me how things are doing in the succession plan. I think we are going in the correct way, and I think when the succession plan is one of the key elements of the company, all of these guys that are around here that presented today, it's in their key measures, like Cory said, the succession plan for for everyone. First of all, let me talk a little bit from the board. We are really completely aligned with the management and the support of the strategy.
The board of directors will maintain the strategic directions of the company. We have had deep constructive discussions around what's gonna be the Alsea long-term growth, the priorities, the capital allocations that we mentioned here, and what is the framework around it, no? The board's role really is to challenge them, to guide them, but always to support. The managers ensuring that all the decisions that we take are decisions for the long term of the company, and it creates value creation in the mindset of everybody. We believe that the strategy presented today, it really builds on Alsea's strong fundamentals, and competitive advantage is in every brand, no?
We are very confident that the strategy comes from the company-proven execution that we've been having in the last 30 years that we've been here, and it has a disciplined approach to growth, no? In the other way, I mean, I wanna talk about really the best team that we have in the industry. I think we have just an amazing leadership team. The company has been always built a strong operation culture. That's where we are ahead of. You know, the culture of this company is great in order to just maintain execution based on a great customer experience and of course our brand, the stewardship that we have, no?
Across all markets, like Christian said, all brands, we've been demonstrating this ability of operations and maintaining operation as excellent, and I think it's gonna be the future for the long term, no? We are confident that this team also is positioned right now to be Alsea's next phase for the growth that is coming up, no? Now, as my role has been changing as a chairman, I just wanna say that my responsibility right now is really to ensure that the corporate governance maintains really the strategy of the company and performance from the company in the long term. We've been supporting the management all the time. We had very great focus on long-term creation, risk management, capital discipline, and we are all heading forward that, no?
The other thing I just wanna say that the board's perspective has always been a unique platform in global industry. We are all in this industry. That is, it's a hard one to operate, but very nice when you have results. What Cory mentioned today about how the company's been working in the succession plan, but not only in the turnover, it's just been great. People is very happy working with us, and I feel confident that it's gonna be like that in the next year, no? We are here to ensure and maintain the focused financial discipline, operation, and a strong long term, and of course, create value for the shareholders and the people around this company. Thank you very much for joining us today.
We're gonna pass now Gerardo a little bit to the Q&A. We're gonna be here, so any questions that we can answer to you, we'll be more than welcome to do it. Thank you again, and great. Have a great day. Thank you.
We will start our Q&A in a couple of minutes. Just give us some time to set up the stage for the speakers to be in front of you guys. Give us a couple of minutes. Thank you.
Thank you very much for hosting us today. It was a very insightful day. One for Cristian maybe to get the ball rolling. Almost nine months now in the CEO job, but obviously a long track record as you alluded to in the company. I wanted to pick your brain on maybe what has been the biggest difference or the biggest surprise that you have seen from looking at the business, specifically, as you did in the past to now looking at the broader company from the CEO role. Maybe if we could get a little bit of insight also into that, what has been the most relevant change you have already implemented in these nine months, sitting on the CEO chair. I have a follow-up, but I'll...
Let me answer the first question, Ulises. After being 26 years in Alsea, I had this, I would say, advantage that I used to know the people very well and most of the brands in general and the geographies. I can tell you that I believe the best, the number one focus was in how we, together working with Armando, plan for the next 5-10 years of Alsea. I dedicated an important amount of time to developing and putting together these strategies that we call in Mexico the four Cs for the
Core, but it's core, build, capitalize and growth as to make sure that we were in a clear path of what was the evolution of Alsea's strategy. I would like to say that it's more an evolution than a change in the strategy. I believe the 36 years of Alsea's history where we were growing, bringing new brands, opening in new geographies. I believe now we are more in a phase of evolution. I would like to say it's a consolidation of this and moving into a discipline and clear capital allocation strategy. Focus on and it's gonna sound a little bit repetitive, but focus on organic growth, right brands and the right geographies and the right stores.
Also a very strong focus on same-store sales, specifically on traffic growth. That's. I believe I answered one of your questions. The second is, one of the things that we are dedicated and I have been dedicating time is in this integration of the brands, a different way of how we are organizing. Before, as you knew, Alsea was organized by country managers, where we had one country manager responsible for the brands in that particular geography and the shared services. Now, one of the important evolutions is that we are organized by brands or by business units that you could see today.
We have Francisco leading Starbucks globally, Cosme with Domino's Pizza, and we have also decided that we will only run casual dining in Europe, in Spain and in Mexico with Francisco and with Jaime and with the new brands with Pablo. That way we are leveraging best practices. We have one voice with our franchisor. We are much more efficient in terms of and agile, because the other way around was a little bit more. It was becoming slow. That's one of the big shifts. The other one, as I have shared, I believe in different moments, is the integration of South America as we are going into a smaller portfolio of brands with the recent divestments that you know.
The integration with Mexico and South America in one region, Latin American region, where we are also looking at a lot of, say, organizational efficiencies and a more agile Alsea. I would tell you those are. Sorry for the long answer, but that's kind of like the to give you the context.
No, that's very helpful. Thank you very much. The other one just quickly for Pablo de Brito, you mentioned that kind of 600 store pathway or white space for the new two formats in Mexico. Is there any more or less timeline that you can share with us on how should we think about the evolution and when do we reach those 400 and 200 stores respectively for the two brands?
Timeline wise. Okay. The 600 restaurants is what we believe is the white space as a market holding capacity in Mexico. Obviously we do have a deployment plan for the next 5-10 years to come, which is a fraction of that overall opportunity. That's what I can disclose. Okay. Thank you.
Complementing Ulises, depending on the success of each one of the brands, we'll increase the number of units. I think this is part of the disciplined organic growth. Let's see how these five stores that will be open in the second half of this year are performing and then we can think about accelerating the pace of the new openings. Gracias. Thank you.
Thank you. Now we will have, Ben Theurer, from Barclays.
Perfect. Thank you very much. Also two very quick ones. You've talked about remodeling versus opening, the two stores to remodel for every new opening. If it comes down to like the Return on Invested Capital profile, how different is that, the remodeling versus the new opening and like the timing of that? I suppose that the remodel has a much shorter payback period, but clearly you need the new stores to keep like gaining that market share and take that white space off the table. Help us understand a little bit within the CapEx framework, how we should think about the payback on-
Sure
on those two.
Sure. You can complement the answer. Remodeling takes like 30% investment of what a new store takes. If you consider that the ROI for the new store is 3.5-4 years average, remodeling is 30% of that. In a way. With increase in traffic, we have seen clearly, as we mentioned, 6%-10%, 5%-10% with new Starbucks. In the case of casual, 10%-15% when we have had examples where you grow 30%. Because remodeling is not only about the facelift, it's different factors. First of all, they asked me last time, "What's the strategy behind?
Why, how do you prioritize remodeling stores?" The first one is, in some cases, it's the aging of the store. It's dignity, in a way to say it that way. The second one is when we remodel, we already know how the store behaves. So we know how the customer behaves and what the customer needs and what you'll need different from when you open a new store. So that help us either add seating or add a new terrace or shift some, sometimes we do some structural changes. The third one is the strategy responds to if there's a particular market where we have some competitors going into the market, we push strong on those particular markets and we bring the stores to the right level. I believe Federico can dive in on the ROI, but.
Regarding the ROI, it's pretty similar to one opening, maybe 3-4 years. That is a 33% to 25% of ROI. It is really similar. As Christian have mentioned, with a fraction of the total CapEx for a new opening, and depending on the store, for example, if you want to open a new terrace, obviously it's because you have a lot of possibility regarding the new population occupying that terrace.
Okay. Then on the portfolio review, I mean, you've done a couple of transactions within different geographies on Burger King. Just wanted to understand where do you stand right now as it relates to the brand Burger King in particular? What are your still pending commitments in terms of the agreement, and how do you feel about the brand in the regions where you still operate them?
Well, as you know, two years ago, we did the divestment of Burger King in Spain, and in last quarter we did some divestments in the casual dining business in Chile with Chili's and P.F. Chang's, recently also TGI Fridays. Right now we are about to close a deal in Colombia with our casual dining brand there. Regarding Burger King, yes, it's true that we are exploring different conversations with RBI. The brand in South America is performing good, let's say, fair, particularly in Chile, Argentina. Mexico is a different situation. It's the brand has been caught in the middle of two other brands, and we are trying to work things out with RBI to decide what are we gonna do next with Burger King. Yeah. That's where we stand today.
Thank you, Ben. We'll have now Cristina Morales from Signum Research.
Thank you. Two questions. One is, what is the background of these estimates and these things that you're doing? Are you kind of prioritizing the remodelings due to slower consumption dynamics and probably next year or with more dynamism, would you focus more on new openings and taking advantage of that white space you have left?
I would say it's a combination of both. As we have been sharing through the presentation, there are brands like the full service segment where we're gonna do 3 to 1, three remodels to one opening, in line with the white space and specific to geography. In brands like Starbucks, 1.5, 1.4 remodelings for every opening. It's not one or the other. I would say it's a combination. We will still open about 200 stores between company owned and franchisees this year. At the same time, it's going to be historical years in terms of remodelings. In the last 36 years, we have never done such a high number of remodelings. I would say, Cristina, it's a combination of both to make sure that we have the right CapEx allocation and the right balance in terms of where the brand stands.
The pace of openings is there. As you have seen, there's a huge potential in the case of Starbucks. Last year we were around 200 new stores in 2025. This year we'll be in the same average. We are not delaying the rhythm to the new openings, but we are prioritizing the remodels instead of maybe digitalization. Last year we have the new distribution center in Guadalajara. We are putting the focus in these two main concepts.
Okay. Another question is regarding your operations in Europe, particularly France or probably Benelux. It seems like the problem with the American brands will continue for a while. Does it have to do more with the slowdown there? It's only the problem with American brands, or did you see some things there in the strategy you're implementing or the customers or what they like? Is it not diverting a lot of resources to operate those regions, and probably it would be better to disinvest from those regions?
Let me answer you. Part of the, I was, as you know, I was running France for seven years. I will allow Francisco to give you more deep dive on what we are doing to recover that particular geography. It's true that we lost when the region was flying, no? We were super excited about what's going on in France, and then we took a big hit from the boycott. We lost, like, 30% of sales. So far, we have recovered 15% of that. Every time I refer to this particular market, I'm talking 2023 figures. We have been able to recover 15% of that. Nevertheless, it's been slower than we wanted and we expected. Combination of a couple of factors.
One for sure is the boycott, no? Particularly in France. We don't have the same effect in any other geography. We don't see that. Second, a combination of certain sociopolitical factors involving France and certain uncertainty about the current global situation, which France is very sensitive to that. On the other hand, and that's where I will allow Francisco. I will give the word to Francisco. This year we're gonna invest EUR 6 million. We've never had this type of investment before, to really try to accelerate this recovery. A combination of different initiatives that Francisco will share, but we absolutely believe in France as one of the key priority markets for us.
It's also true that France represents 2% of our total sales in the portfolio. Nevertheless, we are confident that France has a lot of white space. We double the size of the market in the last six years. We went from 180 to 260 stores, a little bit more than that. Clearly the opportunity is there, but we need to be patient, I would say. Francisco, I don't know if you want to share.
Oh, yes.
--more about what are we doing there too.
Yes, of course. France are remaining still a very high potential market long term for us. Today we are developing a different strategy maybe very concentrating three pillars today. We are working the portfolio management, you know, to be more profitable, working in renovation stores and maybe be a little bit care what we are going to open in the future. Because we are open a very successful store, but in other case not really good. We need to decide and be more accurate in the decision for searching the new stores. We are having a nice improvement in operations to improve, you know, the service, based in the new concept calls the Green Apron Service.
We are going to be faster, better, and put focus on the experience. We need to work a lot on the experience. Then, the investment that Cristian said is very important. EUR 6 million is a lot of money there, so we're gonna put a lot of effort to improve our communication to the market. We are seeing kind of improvements in the order, so we are positive.
Thank you.
Just to add up, we are holding hands with Starbucks as a priority and a strategic market, which is France, and really we have been holding hands together to bring, you know, brand reputation as one of the key things to turn around in there.
Thank you, Cristina. Now, Antonio Hernández from Actinver.
Hi. Good morning to all. Thanks for the presentation. Just two quick ones. The first one, and maybe related also to remodelings, and let's just put Burger King aside for a minute, but besides Burger King, where do you see maybe more competition in Mexico specifically, not only with the existing brands, but also in new ones? Where do you see it more challenging?
The very obvious is the coffee segment. I will tell you this is the real. You don't see this, as Jaime was sharing, beyond what the informal restaurant segment in Mexico is huge, and it's been there always. What we are seeing is a proliferation of small coffee chains, moms and pops, kiosks, from kiosks to a little bit more organized. Yeah, this mainly, this is the only segment. Pizza in a way, and Cosme can maybe deep dive it on the pizza segment. Particularly, coffee is one of the ones we're seeing a proliferation. It's also true and that you see a lot of openings, but you also see a lot of closing, and at the end of the day, these concepts have an 18-month, more or less, lifespan. So, nevertheless, well, that's kind of like proliferating market. I mean, the pizza, I believe you have more visibility there.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's a big player in Mexico, no? Which we know, Little Caesars, is driven by value, no? Price, price strategy. On the contrary, we believe we hold a solid value equation between quality and technology. You know, when we look at the profit pool, and we compare ourselves to our competitor, we have a stronger profit pool. No, we own the supply chain. We do the manufacture of the dough. That really is an advantage for us within the Domino's business in Mexico. Besides that, I believe that the rest of the players are long behind.
Thanks. Just a quick one. Regarding, you mentioned for Starbucks the opportunity also for opening smaller formats, maybe for smaller.
Engine
... places. Exactly. I think you mentioned that for Europe as well. Maybe you could elaborate on that, or if that is related, you know, to new consumption trends, maybe shorter menus, something like that.
It's a smaller engine. A small engine is called the format. With this type of format, we can go to the smaller places, a smaller space, and we are going to change the engine. Engine is the coffee machine and the other equipment. We're going to reduce the size, and we can have a very good economic equation with less transaction per store. It's a very good concept for to the future, and I think we are going to have a lot of space to develop it.
Antonio, this will give us additional market penetration. Like smaller cities as Francisco was saying, not only smaller cities and smaller spaces with a lower investment where you don't need so much traffic to have a profitable store in line with our ROI.
In certain case, we can complement our current stores. For example, if you are in a shopping center, in a massive shopping center, you have a successful store, maybe you can complement with another tiny store, a small engine store. Could be good for the business.
Thanks.
Thank you, Antonio. Now, here in the left, Álvaro García from BTG.
Thanks for the presentation. I have a couple of questions. On Starbucks, Francisco, you mentioned the local approach. I was wondering if you could comment on if Starbucks has maybe liberalized their approach to going local, to going more local in certain geographies.
Oh, yes. Our challenge is to be global, in the same moment, local. This is the word local. We need to develop to understand every market. Our approach is different. For example, today we were adding the Egg Bites. Here it's super successful in the U.S., but for example, in Mexico, it doesn't work. But in another country like Colombia, it's very successful. So we need to adapt our food. It is very important to adapt our merchandising as well with the trend that you can see in every market. Then the beverage, sometimes we need to decide what type of beverage is more successful in comparison with other one. So it could be very connected, you know, with design of the stores too, because the
We want to be relevant in terms of culture, in terms of market. We are going to try, you know, put a lot of focus in the experience. This local concept is very important for us.
You say Starbucks has been more accepting to pushing more local items into the store?
Yep. Yes. In fact, you have a global alternative for implementing beverage, but the food and merchandising is a local decision.
Great. Then just one more on Raising Cane's. I think the guidance you gave implies $2.5 million per unit in sales relative to $6.5-$7. 2.5 is still an awesome number by LatAm standards. I was wondering if you could maybe comment on your break-even point or where you'd like these stores to be sort of in your mind five years from now. I think it's an awesome concept, but yeah, where you think maybe it could be in the medium term.
Thanks for the question. Usually in all of our portfolio, when we compare apples with apples on the same brand, specifically talking about Mexico versus U.S. on a per restaurant basis, our brands in revenues are between 50%-60% in USD nominal numbers versus the same brand in U.S. when you compare Mexico. That's mostly driven on what we truly look for caring about the purchasing power parity within the competitive landscape in Mexico to actually drive similar number of transactions or orders. That's the first chapter that I would say. The second chapter is, you are right. We believe it is a very important opportunity and we are actually very excited on that.
When we look into specifically the Raising Cane's numbers and the volume that they have the ability to drive, there is a huge opportunity on a runway for us to further grow and improve within those ranges whilst being competitive in Mexico versus the existing leading competitor to actually drive market share growth towards a leading position that will end up on that market holding potential that I shared in Mexican Raising Cane's on the long term on around 400 restaurants. Okay.
Great.
You're welcome. Thank you.
Thank you, Alvaro.
Thanks to you. Well, we will go with Melissa from Bank of America.
Hi. Thanks. Following up on that question on Raising Cane's, can you discuss the other elements of the unit economics? For all margins, investment per unit, I guess, for Raising Cane's and Chipotle, and then the flexibility you have in terms of sourcing and localizing the menu, if needed over time.
I will share what we can disclose on your question, thank you for making that. It was quite a broad question, but if you allow me, I will try to go like chapter by chapter. The first piece is common factors. In both brands, we are fully following and respecting all the brand standards and the highest standards they've got. Okay. Now double-clicking a bit on Chipotle, obviously that implies a very, very high standards that Chipotle truly stands for as part of their value prop on the highest quality standards and on the highest culinary standards.
I can assure you that we are leveraging on Alsea's scale and network and also on Chipotle's scale and network, and we have landed on a very unique, high standard, competitive supply network to the product standards that is opening our opportunities in Mexico and the markets to come potentially in the future. In terms of Raising Cane's, as you might know, Raising Cane's has been very successful in U.S., but around 8-10 years ago, they expanded into other countries internationally, especially in the Middle East. We are leveraging on their experience on some sourcing towards the main protein, which is the chicken, and their successful suppliers following as well their recommendations. So that's what I would say. On the overall returns of both brands are just above the average on the returns on CapEx that Federico mentioned.
Obviously, when we look at both brands, what we are trying to generate on the impact is not only about the number of restaurants, it's about the impact that we generate with each restaurant on each trade area, on each city, because we truly want to build a consistent, impactful impression while we develop those brands to have a sustainable growth. It's more about how do we penetrate the communities those locations are going to be operating in, to have the best returns and the best impact towards the future growth.
If I may compliment Melissa to Pablo. Thank you, Pablo. It's
You're welcome.
When we open or launch a new concept in Mexico, we have learned this with Starbucks, we learned this with P.F. Chang's, The Cheesecake Factory. People in Mexico expect the concepts just as they are. No localization, no regionalization. Pretty much there is a way many people have access to the U.S., to the brands here, so for sure they expect the concepts as they are. No modifications, no changes. That's, for us, something positive. No?
Thank you.
Thank you, Melissa. Now we have a question through the webcast. Leslie, operator, if you can open the mic for Thiago from Goldman Sachs, please.
Our next question is from Mr. Thiago Bortoluci from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much, operator. Good morning, everyone. Can you hear me well?
Yes, we can.
Yes.
Good to see you guys. Congrats on the presentation. It's a shame I'm not here with you today, but I'm sharing the presentation with the analysts at Starbucks. Very nice to hear the update. I have a few follow-ups here, right? I guess the first one. We appreciate you pursuing a better balance between same-store sales and organic growth in terms of selling area, and we're recognizing that the bulk of your value is in same-store sales. I understand that to drive part of this, the remodelings are an important component, right? Is there a similar exercise where you can help us quantifying what is the market holding capacity for remodelings in Mexico with the concept that you have already tested, so you know, we can have more visibility on the path ahead on you know, the current strategy could be deployed over the next few years? Then I have a follow-up.
Thiago, nice to talk to you again. Let me see if I understood your question, just to make clear. Your question is that what is the effect of remodelings and what are the decisions behind this or sorry.
Actually, Cristian, it's how many stores are up to be remodeled in Mexico?
Okay. Well, this year we're gonna remodel, if I remember well, more than 100 and X stores from Starbucks, almost 30 stores on the casual.
Around 360 stores from all the different concepts.
Yeah. Thank you. Total. Yeah, 360 total. Mainly Starbucks is the higher volume of stores to be remodeled, followed directly by the full service in between Spain and Mexico. In Domino's, we still do remodelings. Nevertheless, they impact because of the nature of the concept, there is really no big uplift when we remodel a store unless the dining is relevant. I don't know if I answered your question, but this is more or less the approach we're looking at.
Let me complement. You have different situations, say, as Christian mentioned, Tiago, when you remodel a store. For example, each time we have a new business case for one opening of Domino's, Starbucks, you name the brand, as an average, in the seventh year you have to do a full remodeling of the store. That is included into the ROI, into the IRR of the original business case. But in a lot of cases, maybe, you find some opportunities in terms of the shopping mall, for example, where we have the offices headquarters. Jaime took the opportunity to have a new local, next along to with the Chili's, and he broke. He broke down the wall and it's a new area, trade area for Chili's. Because we had the food set population going into the plaza and we did not have more space. That is one of the situations, but.
Yeah. The conditions of the store.
If the conditions of the stores are not good because we had more traffic than we were expecting at the beginning, obviously we have to accelerate maybe at the fourth or fifth year. We have an IRR implying that there's a lot of different situations, a potential terrace, a potential new area, a satellite stores like Starbucks has just mentioned. I would say there's not a market holding capacity, but we have to clean up the look and feel for the different stores that support the same-store sales growth and additional finding new opportunities.
By listening to Federico, I'm reflecting, we have 4,800 stores in the portfolio, and if you look at it this way, I would say 40% of our portfolio has the opportunity to be renovated in the following years. Once you've gone through that, you go again into the cycle. You could consider that 40% has the opportunity to continue being renovated, this never ends. It's an ongoing journey.
Never ending.
Yeah.
Never ending story.
Yeah. Yeah.
This is helpful, guys. Thank you very much. If I may, a follow-up quick one, obviously on the Free Cash Flow, right? Just doing a quick simple math here. When I try to see what you're guiding for Free Cash Flow and compare with your guidance for delta in EBITDA, delta in the debt service burden, and delta in CapEx, I see it's implying some improvement in working capital, right? Just wanna make sure the rationale is right. If yes, what are the drivers for this improvement?
Yeah, the rationale is right. The worst case scenario should be zero, but we were generating a minor portion of working capital, and this is the nature of this business. This is a cash flow machine. Obviously, as you know, in the last couple years, we had the acquisitions of the minority shareholders, and it was included into the creditors balance sheet line. There was a lot of white noise in the last couple years. This year and going forward, we'll have a generation of cash flow, obviously, if the business keeps well, if we are leveraging from same-store sales growth, if we have new net openings.
We have all the money in cash, or at least, in the worst-case scenario in two days from all our customers, and we have to pay to our suppliers and to the creators maybe in 45, 90 days. That's a rationale of the business and the nature of the business. It's correct, Thiago.
How should we think further about the underlying cash conversion cycle for Alsea going forward?
Cash conversion, EBITDA to treasury, 18%.
Okay. Thank you very much, guys. Appreciate it. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Thiago.
Thank you, Thiago.
Thank you very much for your question. We will now continue with questions from New York.
Thank you, Leslie. We don't have any more questions through the webcast, but we do have here one more.
Hi.
Alberto.
Excellent presentation. I just have a question regarding the. You're gonna be capitalizing all the business throughout probably the following 3-5 years. That means that your leverage probably will go down. Do you have, like, an objective on that front--
Yeah
--that would make that in turn take it to investment grade level?
Yeah. Our objective, it's 2x net debt to EBITDA pre IFRS, and then, maybe, we should be de-leveraging by 0.2x year-over-year with this kind of fundamentals that we have just presented. When we reach that figure, we'll start with a more aggressive buyback program or to pay more dividends. That's the objective.
Thank you.
Thank you. I'm not sure if there's any additional question fr om the floor.
In the context of the question on, I mean, there was a lot of emphasis on yield today, clearly a new sort of focus point. In the context of your guidance for this year, which really doesn't call for that much FX change, is it fair to assume that this 5%-7% sort of sales growth is a new normal going forward? Or how are you thinking about sort of that medium term sales guidance going forward?
Yeah. Maybe 8% in the long term, CAGR in the top line. You should think around that figure. We will be thinking double-digit in the bottom line.
Thank you.
Yeah, no, if I may compliment Fede, we have been discussing this around kind of the long-term objective for same-store sales. You know that guidance should be kind of mid-single digit, which is 4-6%, plus I would say organic growth that should be on the range of 2-3%. That gives you the, let's say, 8% CAGR over the next 5-10 years. That I would say continues to be the assumption. Alvaro?
The discipline organic growth is there. Obviously we can open maybe 50 new stores, additional stores to this guidance. There's a lot of risk doing that because the white space is gonna be there. If we have to accelerate, we can do it. I think if we really have the operating leverage in the bottom part, maybe we can have a safer cash conversion and then obviously not only reach the guidance for this year, but transforming from growth to yield, because that's not gonna happen in a couple of years, maybe three, four years.
Okay. Awesome. Thank you.
You're welcome.
We can come back to Ben Theurer from Barclays.
Thanks. Actually following up a little bit on that growth algorithm, as we look into the guidance for this year, like if you could maybe stretch the lower end versus the higher end within the same-store sales, what's that kind of the assumption in terms of traffic versus ticket? And where are we so far into the year? I mean, we're basically almost in one quarter. Just to understand a little bit what's behind the lower end and the higher end.
What's your question, Ben?
Same-store sales.
Same-store sales breakdown.
Yes. Just where are you seeing traffic versus ticket for the year?
Well, at the end of the day, your objective in terms of the ticket is 0%. But obviously, when you are facing a 13% minimum wage increase, it's not gonna be possible. But where do we have all the levers, the different levers? For example, the other really important P&L line is the food cost, sorry, where we will have 0% increase because of the power of purchase that Alsea has. The main objective is to have maybe 1-2 percentage points of ticket and the remaining part with traffic, and it depends on the penetration of the brand, obviously. Even while we are presenting you 2% of our same-store sales transactions, our objective or internal objective for all the different brands is higher than that. That's irrational. Do you want to answer the second part?
Yeah, regarding the second part of the question, what are we seeing right now? Since last quarter, since Q4 2025, we saw an important recovery in traffic, particularly in the months of November and December, which I believe they respond to the adjustments in the strategy we did when we saw what was happening during 2025, which was a very volatile year. I believe this is one of the capabilities we have developed in Alsea to really understand and know what the consumer wants. Really, we adjusted the strategy that took us like three, four months to put to speed to market. We saw clearly how the customer respond positively in the last quarter. That same trend continued in January. Pretty much January was a very solid month.
February was behaving the same exact way. We had this bump in the road with the cartel issues in Guadalajara, which was very specific to our region. Then we're clearly seeing in March kind of like that particular region going back to business as usual and the rest of the market behaving in general similar, the rest of the markets in general, not only Mexico, behaving in a similar way. So far, I would say so good. As you know, we have the World Cup coming, and for sure three brands are going to be clearly benefit by the World Cup. Number one, Chili's. We have a very strong campaign called Fourth Stadium that Jaime has really done an extraordinary job with his team to have this Fourth Stadium where people can...
Historically, Chili's has been the brand of excellence to watch sports and we have a very good surprise for all of our customers there. Obviously, Domino's Pizza because of the nature of the business itself, and Starbucks with the penetration we have in those particular cities and the adjacent airports and cities, for sure they are going to be the three brands clearly benefit. We are confident that the World Cup will bring additional traffic to our business.
Thank you, Ben. We have a question. Mario, if you can help me with the mic. In the right.
Thank you. Good morning. Excellent presentation. I was wondering about the tax situation on the Vips acquisition. If you could give us an update of how that's going. I mean, SAT has been lately very, very aggressive in general with corporations in Mexico. Wondering if you could give us an update.
Well, to this day, no news. We are positive regarding this matter, but that's all I can say. Obviously, we are advised by relevant law firms in Mexico. That's the current update.
In terms of timeframe, do you have an expectation?
We don't know. We have been waiting a lot for this, but we are not pretty clear when is this gonna happen, when is this gonna be discussed? Sorry for the ambiguous answer.
That's okay. Thank you.
We are positive. Yeah.
Thank you. We have another question from Melissa from Bank of America.
Hi. I just wanted to follow up on the guidance. Can you give a little bit more color behind the geographic margin performance? Maybe the main drivers of expansion or lack of expansion depending upon the market? Your assumptions.
Okay, regarding the first question, all the different territories, Mexico should be expanding more than 100 basis points. In the case of South America, more than 200 basis points. I'm talking around forward EBITDA. Regarding Europe, should be in the range of 50 basis points expansion. The second question, Melissa, was?
No, it's next, the drivers of why you.
The drivers of?
The drivers.
The drivers expansion. The drivers of operating leverage. We're being super efficient. As Christian and Cory have mentioned in their presentations, we are consolidating not only in the operational part, but in the SG&A, in the headquarters, different regions. For example, in the case of Mexico and South America, we are working with only one headquarters. Obviously, that implies a reduction in the cost of the SG&A structure, and that's part of the drivers. The rest of it's totally operating leverage from the same-store sales perspective. Obviously, as I said before, to Ben, we're having a food basket with a 0% increase in terms of the inflation. Those are the main drivers for the expansion of margin. In Mexico, Europe, plus the additional efficiency into the headquarters SG&A for South America. You're welcome.
Thank you, Melissa. I think we have a question through the webcast again. Leslie, if you can open the mic from Renata.
Our next question is from Ms. Renata Cabral from Citi. Please go ahead.
Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for the presentation. Excellent. Thanks for taking my question as well. During the presentation, you already presented some opportunities that the company see in the digital or artificial intelligence. It's a follow-up question, actually. I would like just to hear a bit more, which functions do you see more opportunity in terms of productivity updates? For instance, store operations, supply chain, or in the corporate. How the company is approaching that and making sure that several layers of the employees are using the tools in order to enhance the productivity. If you could list the top priorities for 2026, related to the artificial intelligence, to enhance productivity. Thank you so much.
Let me take the first part of the question as an overall strategy for Alsea, and then I will pass the word to Cory. She can deep dive on how this impacts the side of productivity. We have been pretty cautious and specific on where do we want to focus AI, because now AI, you, it's everywhere. We have defined three main, I would say four main. The first one, and Cory will deep dive, is everything regarding recruiting and finding the right profile that we need for our stores, for all of our brands, and she will deep dive on that one. The second one is in terms of supply chain. We know there's opportunity to have a.
This is very specific to Mexico, where we have a model where we have the full model integrated within Alsea, which is the routes optimization, how we can become much more efficient, and obviously, with that help us reduce logistic costs. At an operational level, everything regarding suggested ordering, so how can we improve and help our managers to manage the food orders and to become much more efficient on that one. And finally, the other one is related to fraud and theft prevention at a store level. So we are also looking at these new tools or new technology to help us reduce or, let's say, reduce any theft, prevent theft or fraud happening at the POS level on our stores. Those are the main focuses that we have prioritized, and now we will deep dive on the people side.
Thank you. Yes, to comment on what Cristian has said, regarding the big projects where we're using technology, we are trying to be very focused on what the business really needs. The two examples that you mentioned, the opportunity we have in logistics and the opportunity we have in cost control regarding loss prevention, that's where we're gonna focus on. Regarding the processes for the rest of the company, HR has a very important tool with all of the recruitment processes automated, and we've been already doing that for several years now and always learning because the potential is very good. We are always monitoring the time-to-fill KPI, because that's what we want at the end of the day.
We want our stores filled with the people they need, and when there's an open position that we can substitute it immediately. The technology has really been very good. Regarding the rest of the company, everybody's using AI as a toolkit. We're just giving freedom for that to happen because at the end of the day, people uses it, and they are trying to improve the way they work. We still don't know exactly the impact that it's gonna have regarding the roles of the support center. Many of them will certainly be optimized because we are reducing complexity and making analysis in a very much quicker way, and we're gonna be open to that as part of this strategy that we have to optimize structures in the support center. It's a complement of the efforts that we're making.
Very clear. Thank you so much for the color.
Thank you, Renata.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for your question. We will now continue with questions from New York.
Thank you, Leslie. If there's no more questions, I'll pass the mic to Christian Gurría to wrap up and close the event.
Well, first of all, thank you guys. Yeah, it's a pleasure working with you. It's an honor. Thank you very much. Second, thank you very much for all your interest, for following up. I'm getting familiar with the faces, so happy to see familiar faces, but at the same time, happy to see new faces joining us and your interest for Alsea. Thank you very much. For sure, as I always share with the team now, the most important thing is we have to deliver. We are working hard to make sure we deliver and to have a very strong Q1 and see you in the next conference in April. Thank you very much, and thank you again for all. Thank you.
Alsea would like to thank you for participating in Alsea Day 2026.