Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Grupo Bimbo's third quarter 2026 results conference call. Before we begin, we kindly ask all participants to update their Zoom display name to include their name and the organization they represent, as this will help facilitate the Q&A session later. We will be using automated subtitles during today's presentation. You can turn this feature on or off through your Zoom settings. If you would like to ask a question during today's call, please use the raise hand feature. When invited to speak, please unmute your microphone, identify yourself and your organization, and then proceed with your question. If you need a copy of the press release issued earlier today, it is available on the company's website at grupobimbo.com.
Before we begin the presentation, I would like to remind you that this call is being recorded, and that the information discussed today may include forward-looking statements regarding the company's financial and operating performance. All projections are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially. Please refer to the detailed note in the company's press release regarding forward-looking statements. I'll now turn the call over to Mr. Alejandro Rodríguez Bas, Chief Executive Officer of Grupo Bimbo. Please go ahead, sir.
Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. With me today are our Chief Financial Officer, Diego Gaxiola, and the President of Bimbo USA, Greg Koehrsen, along with members of our finance team. Before we begin, I want to recognize our more than 152,000 associates around the world. Their commitment to serving our consumers and customers every day is what drives our performance, and I want to thank them for another strong quarter. The third quarter demonstrated the strength and resilience of our business. Excluding foreign exchange, net sales increased 3.6%, supported by price mix, positive volume and, to a lesser extent, recent acquisitions. Importantly, that growth translated into stronger profitability. Adjusted EBITDA margin reached 15.7%, an expansion of 100 basis points, while net margin increased 80 basis points to 3.9%. We delivered these results despite a consumer environment that remains challenging in several markets.
Inflation continues to pressure household budgets, but our performance reinforces what we have long believed. Bakery and snacking are resilient. Everyday categories and our scale, brands, geographic diversification, and execution capabilities are powerful competitive advantages. Our focus is not simply on growing. It's on growing profitably, consistently, and sustainably. Let me turn to our regions. In North America, the recovery continues to gain momentum. Net sales grew in U.S. dollars for a third consecutive quarter, providing further evidence that our transformation is delivering results. Volumes remain soft as consumers continue to manage their spending carefully. At the same time, our sales trajectory is clearly improving, supported by a stronger revenue growth management and a better marketplace execution. We're also seeing progress where it matters most. We gained share in four of our six categories, and margins improved for a fifth consecutive quarter.
Our productivity agenda continues to deliver across the value chain. We are reducing waste, improving recipes and packaging, operating our plants more efficiently, optimizing our manufacturing footprint and routes, strengthening sourcing, and simplifying the organization. The important point is that these improvements are structural, not temporary. We are building a more competitive, efficient, and agile North America business. We are encouraged by the progress, but we are not declaring victory. The transformation will not be completed until North America returns to sustained profitable volume growth. That remains our objective. Mexico delivered another outstanding quarter. The business continued to grow profitably while strengthening consumer preference with contributions across categories and channels. Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 200 basis points to 22.4%, driven primarily by a strong top-line performance and a lower cost of sales, supported by a stronger exchange rate and lower waste. EAA also delivered an excellent quarter.
Almost every business in the region grew in local currency despite a demanding comparison base. Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 110 basis points to 12.3%. Particularly strong performance across Bimbo QSR, India, the Balkans, and the U.K., complemented by a small contribution from our recent acquisition, Bonel, in Tunisia. Latin America was more mixed. Most of our markets continued to show healthy sales momentum, while profitability was affected primarily by Brazil. Brazil remains our priority. We are taking targeted actions to strengthen commercial execution and advance the integration of Wickbold, and we expect those efforts to increasingly contribute to performance. As a reminder, beginning next quarter, Wickbold will no longer be included in our inorganic growth contribution following its acquisition in October 2025. Let me close with how we see the business going forward. We remain confident, but we are also clear about what comes next.
Our priority is to build volume momentum while continuing to protect and expand profitability. As we move forward, 2027, we remain mindful of a more inflationary environment. But we enter it with significant strengths, a diversified geographic and category portfolio, leading brands, a strong innovation agenda, a meaningful productivity pipeline, and above all, exceptional people. Those advantages give me the confidence in our ability to navigate what comes next and continue delivering profitable, sustainable growth over the long term. With that, let me turn the call over to Diego to take you through the financial results in greater detail.
Thank you, Alejandro, and good afternoon to everyone. We appreciate you taking the time to join us today. This quarter represents one of the clearest demonstrations of the strength of our business model in recent years. We delivered broad-based growth across geographies, continued margin expansion, a strong cash generation, and further deleveraging, all while continuing to invest behind our brands, operations, and long-term growth agenda. Throughout the year, we have consistently delivered growth through both volume and price mix, demonstrating not only the resilience of consumer demand for our brands, but also our ability to capture growth while maintaining pricing discipline. We believe this combination is the strongest indicator of the quality and sustainability of our growth profile. We reached a record EBITDA margin at 15.7%, a 100 basis point expansion versus last year, which is the largest third-quarter improvement we have seen in more than a decade.
This also marks our fifth consecutive quarter with EBITDA margins above 14%, providing further evidence that the improvements we have made across our network, manufacturing footprint, revenue management capabilities, and operational execution are becoming embedded in the business. One of the standout highlights of the first nine months of the year was our free cash flow generation. The strong EBITDA performance, together with improvements in working capital, allows to generate approximately MXN 17 billion of free cash flow, even after investing approximately MXN 12 billion in CapEx. This strong cash generation also allows to further deleverage the company, bringing net debt to EBITDA down to 2.4 times, even after returning MXN 6 billion to our shareholders. Moving on to our guidance, it is worth taking a step back for a moment. We started the year expecting a slight EBITDA margin expansion.
As our results came in consistently ahead of our expectations, we have raised our guidance quarter after quarter throughout the year. Today, we are raising our guidance once again, marking the third upward revision this year and reflecting both the strength of our year-to-date performance and our increasing confidence in the trajectory of our business. We are raising the lower end of our full-year Adjusted EBITDA margin guidance from 70 basis points to 85 basis points, resulting in a new range of 85 basis points to 120 basis points of expansion as compared to 2025. On the top line, we continue to expect net sales, excluding FX, to grow at a mid-single-digit rate, which translates into flat to a low single-digit decline in pesos. Looking ahead to 2027, we see a number of encouraging drivers across the portfolio.
We expect continued benefits from the transformation initiatives underway in North America, sustained profitable growth in Mexico, improving performance across Latin America, and a continued momentum in EAA. At the same time, the investments we have made in capacity, distribution, automation, and digital capabilities over the last several years position us well to support future growth while enhancing productivity. As every year, we will provide formal guidance on our fourth quarter conference call. On CapEx for 2026, our guidance remains in the range of $1 billion-$1.2 billion. As we mentioned on prior calls, we made a decision to push certain projects into 2027, and as a result, we now expect CapEx next year to come in somewhat above the level we will see in 2026.
As we look to the future, we remain focused on the same priorities that have served us well: driving profitable growth, expanding margins, generating strong cash flow, and creating long-term value for our shareholders. We appreciate your continued interest in Grupo Bimbo and look forward to updating you on our progress in the coming quarters. Thank you for your time. Operator, please open the line for questions.
Thank you. We have our first raised hand from Fernando Olvera. Fernando, please unmute and go ahead and ask your question. If I could ask you to confirm your organization, please.
Hi, can you hear me?
Yes.
Oh, perfect. Fernando Olvera of Bank of America. Thank you for the space for questions. My first one is related to North America. As you highlighted in your initial remarks, top line has been positive for the third quarter in U.S. dollar terms. Wondering if you can elaborate, where is your outlook for consumption now in the next quarter and in 2027, considering that U.S. inflation is likely to continue rising amid raw material price volatility? That's the first question.
Thanks for the question, Fernando. Appreciate it. I would say the consumer environment in the United States continues to be mixed. Certainly, we see a consumer that is value conscious, especially in lower and middle income households, but categories remain resilient. Bread's a staple. People are still buying brands that deliver clear value. There's a bifurcation, of course, between the value conscious consumer and the premium consumer. Both the value conscious consumer and the premium consumer are continuing to gain traction within the market. Our portfolio bifurcates into value, mainstream, and premium. We make sure that we have the right products at the right price points for each of them. While the total environment may be mixed, we also believe that we're well positioned to activate with the various consumer segments, not only for the balance of this year, but going into next year.
Okay. Thank you. My second question is related to Mexico. If you can comment how much of the gross margin expansion came from efficiencies versus lower cost, and how should we think about gross margin in Q4 on 2027? Any color would be great.
Yes, Fernando. You know that we do not provide the specifics. What I can tell you is that thanks to the hedges that we had on commodities, we still haven't faced a significant inflation on our cost of sales on the most important raw materials. On the other hand, the exchange rate helped. You know that we have a big exposure to the U.S. dollar. The peso has been strong. We also have a hedging strategy in place. But even if you see the exchange rate that was, let's say, six months ago which is more or less, as a rule of thumb, what you can contemplate in our exit current P&L for the quarter, we have a positive effect versus the same quarter of last year. That is helping.
Of course, a lot of efficiencies that have been implemented in the manufacturing process in the different plants that help also to expand together with the increase in volumes. That, because of the operating leverage, also has a positive impact on our gross margins. All this together gave us the expansion that we reported. Now, it's still early to provide a specific guidance for 2027, even more for a segment, either Mexico or any other of the segments. What I can tell you in advance is that 2027, we're going to face headwinds in terms of the cost of sales because of the cost of the raw materials. We have continued with our disciplined hedging strategy, but considering the cost that we have had for 2026, 2027 is going to be a challenge.
Now, just to be clear, we're not providing any guidance that we're expecting a decline in margins. I'm just mentioning that it can be a negative effect, and particularly for Mexico. My guess is that we will have some pressure from the exchange rate, as it was a very strong peso. As everybody knows, it has started to devaluate a little bit. But again, early to tell and early to give specific guidance.
No, this is very helpful. Thank you, Diego.
Thank you. Our next raised hand is Antonio Hernández. Antonio, please unmute and go ahead to ask your question, and please confirm your company or organization.
Sure. This is Antonio Hernández from Actinver. Congrats on your results. My question is regarding margin performance in the U.S. It's been quite strong, expanding and above our estimates. Overall, you also mentioned that the work is not done until volumes improve and get positive, right? Wanted to get a sense on your expectations. I know you don't provide guidance per se, at least right now for next year, but overall expectations on volumes and maybe how far away are we from seeing North American operations in maybe the optimal target margin that you see? Thanks.
Yeah. Thank you, Antonio. Appreciate the question. First of all, let me thank the team. The progress that we've made over the last number of quarters is largely due to the incredible work that they've done. We've talked about, in previous calls, all the work that we've done from a cost perspective along procurement, supply chain, our manufacturing operations, to name a few. We've made changes that, as Alejandro mentioned, we believe are structural in nature, and so we feel good about the progress and the sustainability going forward. We will continue to push all productivity levers to make sure that we're turning over every rock to ensure that we're delivering product at the most efficient way that we can for consumers. As it relates to growth going forward, we have many opportunities that we're working on with customers.
As Alejandro said, we're not going to be satisfied until we create consistent volume growth within the U.S., so that's what we continue to strive for with all of our customers.
Thank you. Our next raised hand is from Felipe Ucros Nunez. Felipe, please unmute and go ahead and ask your question.
Thanks, operator. Good evening, Alejandro, Diego, and team. Thanks for the space. This is Felipe Ucros from Scotiabank. Quick question on US margins. You're almost back to 2019 levels. It seems to me that after the volume contractions that we have over the last two to three years, you probably have some spare capacity there, so there's some operating leverage. Also, it seems that you've had the margin bounce back largely on lower restructuring costs. I imagine there's a payback on margins from these projects that you've embarked on the last couple of years. Just looking at it from here, it seems like there's a lot of upside to the U.S. from this point, which was a high point before COVID. Correct me if I'm wrong here, and give us some idea of where things can go.
I know you can't give us exact numbers, but directionally, do you also feel like there's a lot of upside? The second one on leverage. Pretty powerful effect on the lower interest costs below the line as you continue to leverage. I think pre-tax was up something like 18%, but you're already at 2.4. In previous cycles, the previous few cycles where you've levered above three times and then come back down, something around 2x to 2.5x seems to be the bottom. Are you ready to start relevering again, or do you want to see a little more deleveraging on the balance sheet before you start looking to re-accelerate M&A? Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Felipe, for the question. You are spot on. We believe the opportunity in the U.S. it is ready for us to take on. Most of it has come from productivity and some price mix. The reality is we have installed capacity. We are developing differentiated products according to the new trends. We are creating new offerings. As we have said, we need to go out, service, and conquer that volume. We do have capacity, and we are working on it, and that is our main focus to regain volume, to continue to take advantage of our capabilities. You mentioned leverage, and we are continuously evaluating opportunities, and we will continue to do that.
When the time comes, if we find the right fit, whether it is a tuck-in or whether it is something strategic that we decide to go on, we will take advantage of that leverage.
Yeah, let me probably here complement a little bit Alejandro. We have a strong pipeline of projects, and we have been working very hard on many different targets. But we have a very disciplined strategy on the M&A front. We have to make sure that whatever we close becomes a successful acquisition. I know that in the history of the company, if you look back probably in the last 20 years, you will see this cycle of getting to 2.5 or even slightly below 2.5, and then taking more debt and doing more acquisitions. But that is not really the way we are managing the capital structure of the company. I would say, and we have mentioned this several times in the past.
Where we feel comfortable is having a leverage of 2.0 to 2.5. That does not necessarily mean that because we are below 2.5, or slightly below today, we are going to become more aggressive or start to do bigger acquisitions. I think we have the space. Also, it is important to keep in mind that today, just to put the example, to quantify the impact of the leverage ratio because of the size of the company and the EBITDA generation that we have. To go back to about three times, we will have to do $2 billion of acquisitions, which we have never done. My point is do not necessarily expect that because we have been able to deleverage the company, we are going to go on a shopping spree and see what we can buy.
We are going to continue to be very disciplined and make sure that any acquisition that we make has a strategic component, has the right value, and also we do a very thorough due diligence process, just to make sure that we capture the synergies, the risks, and everything that has to be done on acquisition.
Fantastic. Really clear, thanks a lot, guys.
Very clear beginning of your question, Felipe. You're not live? Yep. Sorry?
No, I was saying fantastic color. Thanks so much.
Okay.
Thank you. Our next raised hand is from Enrique Morello. Enrique, please unmute and go ahead and ask your question and confirm your company or organization, please.
Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for taking my question. This is Enrique Morello from Morgan Stanley. Congratulations on the results. I have just a follow-up on the U.S. margin dynamics. Maybe similar to Mexico, I guess you're not cycling still significant inflation in raw materials given your hedges. We are curious to hear if you this quarter are already cycling maybe some higher energy, fuel, distribution logistics costs or other unhedged parts of your cost structure. How does that inflation so far compare to what you can reap in terms of benefits from the restructuring that you guys have been doing in the U.S.?
Thinking about the restructuring as well, if you could provide some examples or where are most of your efforts right now in terms of low-hanging fruits for offsetting such inflation pressures in the next couple of quarters, that would be very helpful as well. Thank you very much.
Yes. Enrique, thank you for the question. Let me give you some color in the cost of sales of North America. Yes, we also have the same hedging strategy as we do for most of the markets. Still, we're not seeing still the spot that you see on the different commodities that have gone up. In terms of other components of inflation, we have had an impact, which is probably not fully reflected because of other efficiencies that we have been able to achieve on the manufacturing process in our operations in North America. I would say where we're seeing a bigger impact on the increase of fuel has been in distribution. The cost of transportation has gone up. This also has an impact on the cost of sales because one thing is that we hedge the commodity.
The other is the embedded costs that we faced on having the transportation of the ingredients to our different production points. It is impacting, but the whole strategies and initiatives that we have implemented are offsetting most of this negative impact.
Yeah, as it relates to some examples from the productivity savings that we've been able to earn over time, we've talked about the main categories in which we've achieved them. I'll give you just a flavor of some of them. We've talked about our supply chain in the past. For our supply chain, it really is about taking a close look at our footprint, the way that products are flowing from bakeries through our sales centers to stores. We're looking at all of our transportation lanes from a bakery operations perspective. It's literally a bakery-by-bakery look at all of the opportunities that we have to become more efficient at producing the products that we produce.
From a procurement perspective, you could imagine that we've taken a hard look at all of our purchasing categories and worked collaboratively with our vendor partners to ensure that we're getting not only the highest quality products, but certainly those at the right cost. A couple other key components of this, and we've talked about this before, our sales disciplines, ensuring that we are providing the right product in the right amounts for every single customer and store in which we serve. Finally, part of our transformation has been reinvigorating our leadership team in Dallas. That was a move that we made at the beginning of the year, so we have, as a leadership team, come together to be able to work more collaboratively and cross-functionally than we have previously. So that's been part of it.
Hopefully, Enrique, that provides a little bit of color into the transformation.
Yeah. Enrique , also let me add, probably forgot to mention, in terms of another impact that we're facing in the U.S. operations, as opposed to Mexico, a strong exchange rate has a negative impact in our U.S. operations. Just to give an example, we, of course, comply with the transfer pricing regulation. So we have manufacturing in Mexico. We have a fixed markup. Let's say that the cost is more or less the same, then we have to apply the markup. But the receiving product in the U.S. operations has a substantial increase in the cost seen in U.S. dollar. Now, this doesn't mean that our operations are going to be able to transfer these through price increases in the market.
So at the end, we have to absorb, and we have a negative impact in our North America operations because of these internal trade operations that are becoming more relevant quarter- by- quarter.
That is super helpful. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Our next raised hand is from Reid Monahan. Reid, please unmute and go ahead and ask your question. Hi, Reid. Can you hear us? Please unmute and go ahead and ask your question. It is possible Reid is having an issue. We will move to our next raised hand. Our next raised hand is from Alejandro Fuchs. Alejandro, please unmute and go ahead and ask your question, please.
Thank you, operator. Alejandro Fuchs from Itaú BBA. Hola, Alejandro, Diego, Greg. Thank you for the space for questions, and congratulations on very impressive results. I have two quick ones, if I may. The first one maybe for Greg. I wanted to see if you could elaborate a little bit into how much of this more cautious consumer in the U.S. and these new trends evolving in the market in terms of consumption dynamics, how much of that do you think is structural, and how much do you think maybe this is people having a tough time with purchasing power and inflation? So do we go back to how things were in the past, or has the market changed going forward? That will be the first one. And the second one maybe for Diego. We just wanted to understand a little bit the interest payment line, right?
When we see on a sequential basis, there was a big decrease YoY. Is this the new level that we should expect going forward, or was there any type of hedging that maybe made this quarter a little bit below.
Alejandro, which line did you You cut off
The interest expense line.
Okay.
It decreased a lot sequentially. So wanted to see if maybe there was any hedge in place there, or is this the new level that we should expect? Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you very much, Alejandro. Appreciate the question. As it relates to the consumer in the U.S., I would say it would probably be overrepresenting my understanding to predict how sustainable these changes are. What I would say, however, is that clearly the consumer has been moving over the last number of months and years. There's no doubt about that. Some of the things that consumers are asking for is they're asking for value, they're asking for quality. They're asking for, let's say, renovation and innovation of portfolio. We've really grabbed onto that. As we've talked about before in terms of having the right propositions for all of the consumer cohorts in the market, whether that be value-based or more mainstream or more premium, it's important for us that we have a portfolio of solutions across various consumer cohorts. That's certainly one element
The other element, as we've asked and we've stated publicly before, is we've been doing a pretty significant renovation within our portfolio. It's been work that we've done previously in terms of things like taking Red No. 3 out of products before it actually is required. By the end of this year, all artificial colors are going to be removed from every single product. In the vast majority, that's already true. We are continuing to evolve our portfolio across our key brands, continuing to change the recipes that we have to continue to move towards where the consumer is going. So we feel very excited about the moves, even though the consumer is changing and their expectations have evolved over the last couple of years. We also believe that we're well-positioned to be able to stay in front of those consumers and where they're going.
Yes. Hi, Alejandro. You know that the net financing cost is made up of several components. In terms of the interest expense that we have, it has probably three components. The amount of debt, which is lower, that is helping. The exchange rate exposure that we have on the interest that we pay, that it also helped during the third quarter, which is not necessarily going to be the case. In fact, my belief is that we will see some pressure in this effect in 2027, as we are a little bit more cautious on the exchange rate expectation for 2027. There are some other items, and you probably remember that I explained the VPPA, which is the Virtual Power Purchase Agreement that we have for energy in some of our operations.
That is quite volatile because we have to recognize the difference in the mark to market in the cost of financing, and that also creates some volatility. So probably, and to be clear, we don't necessarily expect this level of interest expenses either to continue to decline or even to maintain the reported level.
Super clear, Diego and Greg. Thank you very much, and congratulations again.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next raised hand is from Álvaro García. Álvaro, please unmute and go ahead and ask your question.
Hi, gentlemen. How are you? Álvaro García from BTG Pactual. I have a couple questions. The first one's on taxes in Mexico. There were some changes on deductibility in drafts for next year's budget, and I was wondering, Diego, if you could have any sort of preliminary color on whether there'd be an impact to Grupo Bimbo, as a result. That's my first question.
Yes. Hi, Álvaro. You know that the proposed tax reform is still going through the approval process. We continue to assess its potential implications, and based on the proposal as it is currently drafted, we do not currently anticipate a significant impact on our operations. There might be some things that we will have to better understand and see if we have to do some things about it, or if we will face a slight negative impact.
Okay, great. That's helpful. On hedging, you've been very clear over the years on the clear parameters your team has on procurement, on hedging of soft commodities for your business, and there's a specific timeframe in place for that. There's obviously been a lot of volatility for some of your key input prices over the last six months. My question is, my understanding is that when volatility spikes to this degree, you're more likely to be on the shorter end of that range. My question is that true and is that fair heading into 2027 that maybe you're less covered than you would typically be heading into 2027?
No, not really. We probably might start to be a little bit more cautious on the tenor on the hedges that we take, but I wouldn't say that we are less hedged as any other year during this month. I think we have a good visibility, which is the main objective of this strategy. To date, we're able to provide this visibility to the different business units. Of course, not fully hedged to 2027 because that will represent 15 months, and that is something that we never do. Just to give you an idea, on the main raw materials, we already hedged almost 100% of the first half, and of course, fourth quarter is fully hedged.
Understood. Awesome. Thank you very much for the color.
Thank you.
Thank you so much. Our next raised hand is from Renata Cabral. Renata, please unmute and go ahead and ask your question.
Hi, Alejandro, Diego, Greg. Thank you so much for the space for question. My first one is a follow-up on Mexican operations. The company highlighted that convenience and wholesale as outperforming channels in Mexico. My question is about the continued opportunities on those channels of growth, and as their contribution increases, should we expect a change in terms of profitability mix, even before considering further productivity improvements? My first question.
Thank you, Renata. All channels grew, despite that we recognize two of them growing a little bit more. The reality is we do not see a major change going forward, and yes, our margin expansion has come a little bit of price mix, but mostly out of productivity. We will continue to replicate what we are doing in other geographies, which is to continue to try to compensate with productivity what we are facing going forward that we have talked, which potentially be the rise in prices.
Thank you so much. Very clear. Thanks for the color. My second question is about the Brazilian operations. On the initial remarks, the company highlighted the strategic importance of Brazil. Beyond the integration costs, my question is, has Wickbold given your access to customers, channels, or regions where Bimbo previously had limited penetration? Are there opportunities to consolidate distribution networks or the differences in products portfolio and geographical coverage make those synergies more easy or difficult to capture? If you can give some color on the Brazilian operations, specifically on Wickbold.
You are spot on. Wickbold will allow us to reach places where we traditionally did not reach through the Bimbo servicing network. At the same time, we have products that we can bring from Wickbold to the Bimbo system. We have faced operating challenges, and it has taken us more time than we anticipated because, as you know, geographies, clients, portfolio are being leveraged, but it is taking more time. We do expect some more pressure as we continue to integrate these mature companies, and this will take time. But we see a meaningful opportunity that we will unlock over the many months to come to see all our products in all our geographies all the time.
Very clear. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Our next raised hand is from Ulises Argote. Ulises, please unmute and go ahead and ask your question.
Hi. Thanks for the space for questions. This is Ulises Argote from Santander. Diego, I just had a follow-up there on the capital allocation comments that you were making. With the improvement of free cash flow that you were citing and your comments on M&A, how are you thinking in terms of the potential for buybacks or incremental dividends going forward? The other question that I had was, obviously after the good results that we are seeing in North America with all of the transformation initiatives and investments that you made there, is there any other region where you see space to run a similar revamp and target this improving profitability on the longer run as well? Thank you.
Yes. Hi, Ulises. I would say strategically speaking, the capital allocation of the company hasn't changed. Our first priority will continue to be to give money back into the business. As I mentioned, we have a lower expectation on the CapEx because we have deferred some projects, and this will have an increase on CapEx for 2027. We still believe we're going to close between $1 billion to $1.1 billion in 2026, and a little bit higher, most likely for 2027. So that is the main priority. In terms of dividends, we will continue to the same strategy that we have been implementing the last many years, which is to be able to grow our dividend slightly above inflation.
I think that we're very well positioned to do that, and we are not going to face any challenges in terms of our capital structure to be able to increase our dividends. In terms of the buyback program, definitely we see an opportunity. We have been active in the market. We bought back 20 million shares, approximately MXN 1.2 billion in the quarter. We still have around MXN 14 billion in our legal reserve. Definitely with current valuation, that it's a very good place to put our capital, so you can expect the buyback program to continue to operate.
Okay. Thank you. We will go to our next raised hand, Lucas Ferreira. Lucas, please unmute and go ahead and ask your question.
Hi, guys. Hope you hear me well. I have a couple follow-ups on the U.S. operations. The first one is you mentioned that now you have a sort of leaner organization, more agile organization. Now you are going to be fighting to deliver volume expansion. My question is simply, where do you see these opportunities? Is this about more the convenience channel you guys were focusing on? Or any other specific channel or category you see more room to grow? If you can give us a bit more details where you are going to be focusing your go-to-market in 2027. On the profitability side of the U.S., you already discussed cost trends, et cetera, but also mentioned leaner organization. So where is the margin opportunity? Is it coming from, in your view, pricing or better monetizing the channels? You are already gaining penetration, maybe removing discounting.
Just to understand the profitability drivers beyond, obviously, the natural raw material price volatility we normally see. Beyond that, how to better monetize these channels. Thank you.
Yeah, thanks, Lucas. Appreciate the question. You might not be satisfied with my simple version of the answer to your first question, which is basically everywhere. Saying a little bit more, historically, our business has really been focused on what I would call large format retail. We still believe that there are opportunities for us to grow and compete effectively in this space. Places where we have been maybe less penetrated on average would be small format retail and our away from home business. If you take them all together, that is effectively the entire market. We have teams that are actively working against all of those opportunities across our entire customer base.
As it relates to, let's say, margins going forward, I would just simply say that we're going to continue to be diligent about looking at our overall operating business and continuing to look for opportunities to remove cost out of the business and drive productivity. Yes, we will be disciplined on pricing and promotion, but the vast majority of what we see going forward is to continue to be very diligent about being as low cost an operation as we possibly can be. I hope that helps.
Yes. Thank you very much.
Our next raised hand is Regina Carrillo. Regina, please unmute and go ahead and ask your question.
Hi. Congratulations on the results, and thank you for taking my question. I wanted to relate it to a previous question on market or consumer changes in the market. We are seeing a lot of private label competition across the industry. I just wanted to ask specifically for Mexico and the U.S., are you seeing this competition? In the U.S., you are gaining market share and your competitors are losing market share, also to private labels. So I just wanted to see in which categories you are seeing this competition and how you are fighting it.
Regina, thank you. Thank you for the question. We are following the consumer wherever they choose to shop. The reality is both in Mexico and in the U.S., these channels, these offerings are growing, and we will continue to try to gain a space there. The reality is we're positioned because we have the capability, we have the recipes, we understand the consumer, and we can provide tailored offerings for those channels. We will continue to pursue those opportunities. As Greg mentioned, we're trying to be not only physically everywhere, but we're trying to pursue the scale consumer. We're on the one hand seeking value, but on the opposite side, they're looking for functionality and value equations. We do see that happening, and our focus will be to capture demand more effectively in all these new upcoming segments while trying not to cannibalize serving all the market.
That is very clear. Thank you.
Thank you. We'll just try the raised hand from Reid Monahan again, please. Reid, unmute and let's see if we can hear your question. Are you there please, Reid?
Probably his connection is not working.
Yeah, I am so sorry. Obviously, having a tech issue. In that case, can I please hand back to Mr. Alejandro Rodríguez Bas to close the call?
Can we try just once more for Reid?
Reid, you are still muted. You will not be able to speak to us. There we go.
Can you hear me?
Yes.
Oh, awesome. Sorry about that. New headset. I do not know what is going on. Thank you for the question. I really appreciate it. I wanted to start with LATAM. We saw 15%+ growth ex FX, but we saw EBITDA decline slightly and EBITDA nearly flat. How much of that profitability pressure reflects the temporary Wickbold integration, costs associated with that, versus underlying weakness in Brazil? How are you guys addressing the remaining underperformance in that market?
The reality is all of it is in Brazil. We see very strong results across Latin America. We are growing, as you can see, volume in Brazil. We are trying to find the way to capture the synergies. As Renata asked us before, what is the possibility we see? We see all our products in all the corners, but it is taking time, and it is costing. The cost of the integration perhaps is higher than what we thought it was going to be. We are working hard on an operational turnaround and trying to sustain the strong momentum in the top line that we are getting there. We believe that over time, profitability will improve. Right now, we are focusing on gaining preference and continue to drive volume there to become the choice.
Great. That is very helpful. Thank you. I just have a quick follow-up on EAA. We saw good margin expansion, EBITDA margin expansion there, despite the continued weakness in China and Romania. I am wondering how much of the improvement reflects sustainable operating gains versus lower restructuring expenses in Spain, and what is needed to improve the performance there.
Yes. The margin improvement that we have seen in the region definitely is sustainable. Remember that a few years ago, a few quarters, we were able to reach a double-digit EBITDA margin. We are now at 12.3%. It was definitely a very strong performance in most of the markets. We continue to see potential in the region. We have grown sales in the last five years at a low double-digit compounded annual growth rate while being able to expand our EBITDA margin 320 basis points. We are not over. We still have potential. Say that you can expect gradual improvements in the coming quarters and the coming years.
That is very helpful. Thank you. Congrats on the results. Appreciate the question.
Thank you.
Thank you. There are no further raised hands, so if I can please hand back to Mr. Alejandro Rodríguez Bas to close the call. Thank you.
Thank you all for joining us today. Please feel free to reach out to our Investor Relations team with additional questions or comments you may have. I hope you all have a great rest of your day.