Grupo Bimbo SAB de CV Class A

Grupo Bimbo SAB de CV Class A

13.49
USD
+0.98
(+7.83%)
14.07BMarket Cap
Feb 24Next Earn

Q2 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptJuly 23, 2026

Operator

Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Alejandro Rodríguez Bas, CEO of Grupo Bimbo.

Please go ahead.

Alejandro Rodríguez Bas

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. With me on the call are our Chief Financial Officer, Diego Gaxiola, and the President of Bimbo USA, Greg Koehrsen, together with several members of our finance team.

Before turning into the numbers, I would like to express our deepest solidarity with the people of Venezuela and all those affected by the recent earthquakes, including members of our Bimbo family. Our hearts go to everyone affected by this tragedy.

Through our alliance with Save the Children, we're helping channel humanitarian aid to the affected communities, and we have launched a campaign through which people can donate. We encourage anyone who wishes to contribute to do so through this initiative.

Grupo Bimbo will match contributions up to $1 million to help extend the reach of this support. To all our friends and colleagues in Venezuela, we stand with you, and we will continue supporting you through the recovery process.

I also want to extend my heartfelt appreciation to our more than 152,000 associates across the globe. Their dedication, their passion for our brands, and their day-to-day commitment serving consumers are what continue to power the growth of this company.

These results belong to them. Now, turning into the results, we carried our momentum forward this quarter, delivering solid net sales growth on a current-neutral basis and further expansion of our adjusted EBITDA margin, reaching 14.4%.

What is most exciting is the quality of this growth. Even against demanding backdrop in some of our markets, both price/mix and volumes moved in the right direction.

Growth and margin expansion were led by our two largest markets, North America and Mexico, with EAA also delivering strong contribution. North America continued to build on its own recovery, posting a second consecutive quarter of positive sales growth and at a faster pace than the first quarter.

This sustained return to year-over-year growth confirms that the region is improving even as consumers remain under pressure, supported by a strong revenue growth management strategy and sharper execution. Perhaps the most encouraging data point this quarter is that we have gained market share across every category in the US for the first time since 2020.

This is particularly noteworthy given that several industry categories continue to face volume pressure. The fact that we're gaining share across all categories and, in most cases, growing sales highlights the effectiveness of our commercial execution, innovation pipeline, and revenue growth management strategy.

Combined with a double-digit EBITDA margin and another quarter of margin expansion, these results clearly demonstrate that our transformation initiatives are delivering tangible and sustainable benefits and are resonating with consumers. Mexico delivered another standout quarter, showing that we can keep growing profitably even as consumers tighten their spending.

The momentum was broad-based across nearly every category and channel, underpinned by the best-in-class service levels, disciplined execution, and the enduring power of our brands. Results in both North America and Mexico were, in part, supported by incremental consumption associated with the World Cup.

EAA continued to shine. Growth was broad-based across the region, with nearly every organization growing local currency despite a tough comparison base, complemented by the contribution of the Don Don and Bonell acquisitions.

It is worth noting that this will be the last quarter in which Don Don generates an inorganic effect on our numbers, as we acquired it in May of 2025. Latin America delivered mixed results.

Net sales grew in local currencies and profitability held up well across nearly every country. The one exception was Brazil, which, as we anticipated, is still reflecting the effect of the Wickbold integration process.

The related efficiencies will take time to fully materialize. Looking ahead, we remain mindful of the volatility and uncertainty in the global environment, including ongoing geopolitical tensions.

That said, we have strong conviction in the resilience of our business, in the strength of our people, and in the effectiveness of our strategy. We're well positioned to navigate this environment and to continue delivering strong, consistent, and sustainable results for our shareholders.

With that, let me turn the call over to Diego, who will walk you through the financial details. Diego, over to you.

Diego Gaxiola

Thank you, Alejandro, and good afternoon to everyone. We appreciate you taking the time to join us today.

This was, without a doubt, an exceptional second quarter, a strong validation of how well we are executing our strategy across the company: the strength of our business model, the operating efficiencies embedded in many of our operations, and the breadth of our geographic and category diversification. We are especially pleased with these results given the complexity of the operating environment in several regions and the ongoing geopolitical headwinds.

Despite the backdrop, we delivered strong performance across several key financial metrics, propelled by healthy organic growth in local currencies, strong operating execution, and continued margin expansion. Stripping out the FX translation effect, net sales grew 4.5%, marking our strongest second quarter performance since the second quarter of 2023.

The adjusted EBITDA margin reached 14.4%, reflecting solid execution, the productivity benefits of our long-term strategic investments, including the North America transformation project, continued supply chain efficiencies, and a disciplined SG&A expenses management. One of the highlights of the first quarter was our free cash flow generation.

Strong EBITDA performance, together with improvements in working capital, allowed us to generate approximately 12 billion pesos of free cash flow, even after investing approximately 7 billion pesos in CapEx. This strong cash generation also allowed us to deleverage the company, at the same time that we returned more than 5 billion pesos to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks.

Finally, we're raising our full-year guidance. Even though we're expecting a higher inflationary environment impact for the year as a result of the ongoing geopolitical developments, our business has performed better than what we expected.

The strong results delivered during the second quarter, together with the continued benefits from our transformation and productivity initiatives and the strong operating execution across the organization, give us more confidence in our ability to generate additional efficiencies during the remainder of the year. Therefore, we are raising our EBITDA margin expansion guidance to the range of 70 to 120 basis points for 2026.

We continue to expect net sales, excluding the FX, to grow at a mid-single-digit rate, which translates into a flat to a low single-digit decline in Mexican pesos. On CapEx, while we remain fully committed to our long-term strategic priorities, we are refining our full-year outlook based on the phasing of certain investments in line with evolving volume trends and market conditions.

We now expect CapEx to be in the range of $1 to $1.2 billion for the year, compared to our previous guidance of $1.2 to $1.4 billion. While we're not providing guidance for 2027 at this stage, let me share a few thoughts on the environment we are currently seeing.

We do expect the inflationary environment to remain challenging. We have seen upward pressure across several key inputs, including wheat, resins, and energy, and current market conditions suggest that some of these pressures could persist into next year.

That said, we believe we are well positioned to navigate this environment. Our productivity pipeline remains strong, supported by automation initiatives, supply chain efficiencies, and disciplined cost management.

Combined with our revenue growth management capabilities and the continued growth of the business, we expect these actions to help mitigate the inflationary pressures over time. Thank you.

With that, let's move on into the Q&A. Operator, please go ahead.

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session.

To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys.

If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then two. The first question comes from Ben Theurer with Barclays.

Please go ahead.

Ben Theurer

Good afternoon, Alejandro, Diego, Greg. Thanks for taking my question.

Just a quick one following up, and maybe that one's for Greg, looking into the US business, which kind of kept relatively good momentum. Wanted to understand, similar to what you provided a quarter ago, how the performance was across the different categories that you usually report, just in comparison to A, private label, but then also against your peers, and where you see maybe opportunity to gain further momentum, market share, or whatever you want to call it.

Then I have a very quick follow-up for Diego on the guidance.

Greg Koehrsen

Absolutely. Thanks, Ben, for the question.

Appreciate it. We were very happy with our performance during the second quarter.

As Alejandro and Diego mentioned, we were share positive in all the categories in which we played. What I would say is that the foundation for that was our continued improved commercial execution, both in terms of how we go to market with our DSD system and then also how we have remained disciplined around pricing and promotion activities.

We feel like we have really established ourselves well in the second quarter and carry momentum going forward. You also asked about private label.

Private label we see as not just a threat, it's actually an opportunity. We value the offerings within our branded portfolio, but we're also a producer of private label as well.

We use it strategically with some of our key customers. We continue to see positive momentum in both our branded business and also our private label business.

Ben Theurer

Perfect. Then, Diego, just if you could clarify real quick, I remember first quarter when you gave the EBITDA margin guidance, initially it was 60 to 110, but it included that 20 basis points headwind from the Iran conflict.

Is it fair to assume that the now increase of margin by 10 basis points, it's just because of less of an impact from Iran, or is there something else that helps you offsetting what the 20 basis points that you've mentioned about 3 months ago as a headwind? How should we think about it?

What's driving the increase here?

Diego Gaxiola

Yes. A very good question, Ben.

In fact, at the end of the first quarter, we did anticipated a $50 million impact in inflation for the remaining 9 months of 2026. As the conflict has continued and we have seen additional inflation than what at that time we were expecting, we now have a higher impact.

It's more in the range of $70 to $90 million for the year. Of course, this is including what we already faced during the second quarter.

This basically translates to something around 35 to 45 basis. Even though we increase the impact from this inflationary impact, we are increasing the guidance, approximately 10 additional basis.

If we were to exclude this additional inflationary impact, our guidance would have been even more positive. I don't know if I was clear, Ben.

Ben Theurer

Basically, it would have been 30 basis points if it would have been unchanged, but now it's only 10, correct?

Diego Gaxiola

Right.

Ben Theurer

How to think about it, give or take.

Diego Gaxiola

Yes.

Ben Theurer

Super clear. Thank you very much, Diego, and congrats.

Operator

The next question comes from Renata Cabral with Citigroup. Please go ahead.

Renata Cabral

Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for this space for questions here.

My question will be towards the Mexican operations, and we saw volumes growing and there's some mentions about the World Cup. I would like to understand if you can give some color on how much the World Cup helped here.

On the same line is if you can give some color on if you see any signs of consumer improvement on the quarter, and related to EBITDA margin in Mexico, if those levels you think it's sustainable. Thank you so much.

Alejandro Rodríguez Bas

Thank you, Renata, for the question. Let me divide it into pieces.

The World Cup and its benefit: we had a positive contribution from the World Cup. Buns and rolls and salty snacks are part of the festivities.

We had favorable momentum across all channels. The reality is it was an incremental tailwind rather than the primary driver for performance.

It's really been our ability to service and be present this summer. Now, the Mexican consumer: I think we have a resilient consumer environment in Mexico.

Demand for our categories remains healthy, and this summer have proven to be for the third time in consecutive quarters in a mid-single-digit sales growth. We have benefited from a favorable seasonal dynamic.

What we see ahead is the ability to sustain this momentum. Now, the reality is our strategic initiatives are working, and despite that in some spaces there are softness, we continue to enhance our value proposition.

We continue to capture seasonal opportunities by being there at the moment of consumption. We're investing in driving engagement, reminding consumers that we're ready to serve, and finally, strongly executing at the point of sale.

That has helped us to reach a record EBITDA margin.

Diego Gaxiola

Renata, hi, this is Diego. To answer regarding the commodities and also in terms of what we think on the sustainability of our margins in our operations in Mexico: in terms of commodities, as of the end of the second quarter, we haven't really seen still the impact that started to happen because of the conflict, generally speaking.

Why? Because, as we have a hedging strategy that provides the visibility for the different operations of the company.

Because of this strategy, we still haven't seen the impact. What I mentioned is that it's looking tougher for 2027 as we continue to execute this strategy.

We are taking positions today at a higher cost of the one that we're facing in 2026. Definitely, we will have some impact and some headwinds regarding inflation for 2027.

Early to tell on more details, but as I said, we feel confident that we're going to be able to continue to generate efficiencies and productivity initiatives, and continue with the transformation in the US that will help us offset the potential impact that we're foreseeing today. In terms of Mexico being able to sustain the margin, I would say yes, and not only that, in fact, we're targeting with a long-term view to continue to have improvements in the margin of Mexico.

Now, as of the end of June on an accumulated basis, we have 100 basis of incremental margin, which is very positive. We have had a very good operating performance.

We had the positive effect of the World Cup that contributed a little bit to the margin expansion in the second quarter. Also remember that in the first quarter, we had the positive extraordinary income of selling the minority participation that we used to have in La Moderna.

This created an extraordinary positive effect. Even excluding these effects, we're seeing a good year, a strong performance, and we do not have a reason not to believe that we're going to be able to continue seeing improvements in our profitability in Mexico, and of course, in the other operations as well.

Renata Cabral

That was really helpful. Thank you so much for the color, and congrats on the results.

Operator

The next question comes from Lucas Mussi with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking my question.

Congrats on the results. Two quick questions.

First one in the US: maybe if you could share a bit more color on how much do you see your innovation pipeline, new lines, new SKUs, maybe the participation of the healthiness and wellness portfolio, has played out in your performance in the last two quarters or so, where you were able to go back to the positive sales growth. A bit more color on innovation as it pertains to your top-line growth if you could share a bit.

Then my second question, too, maybe to Diego, is we have seen that your eliminations EBITDA or your other EBITDA is slightly negative this quarter. It has been mostly positive for the last couple of years.

I don't know if it was an accounting issue or an accounting one-off, but if you could share some thoughts there just for us to understand a little bit better how to think about your eliminations or your other line going forward. Thank you very much, gentlemen.

Greg Koehrsen

Absolutely. This is Greg.

Thanks for the question. As it relates to innovation and specifically I think your question was around health and wellness, we've been pretty pleased with the results of our innovation in the health and wellness space.

Two things I think we've talked about in the past, but just to highlight them again, our Thomas' High Protein Bagels and our Sara Lee Half Loaves continue to outperform our expectations that we've had. It's given us an opportunity to really lean into consumer spaces that value, let's say, health and wellness and premium.

I would say, too, in addition to that, and just go back to some of the things that we talked about earlier, is we're present in 83% of US households. We participate in a premium or health and wellness portion of the market.

We participate in mainstream, and we participate in more value segment of the marketplace. Because of that, we have offerings that we can make to every consumer cohort within the United States, which we're very happy about.

Because of that, our offerings of innovation not only along health and wellness, but even around indulgence, have been performing in a way that we've met our expectations and even exceeded our expectations. Just to underline a little bit, the execution gains and improvement that we've made in our operation are really impacting the full breadth of our portfolio in the health and wellness and premium segment, and also in mainstream and value.

I'll turn over to Diego for the second question.

Diego Gaxiola

Lucas, regarding the eliminations, I'm going to be completely honest and open here. I do not have the color, but I will make sure that the IR team gets back to you and gives you a little bit more on the potential accounting effects that we have during the quarter.

Probably sure that it's something unique for the quarter that would not necessarily prevail for the coming periods.

Appreciate it, Diego. Thank you very much, gentlemen.

Operator

The next question comes from Alejandro Fuchs with Itaú. Please go ahead.

Alejandro Fuchs

Thank you, operator. Hola, Alejandro, Diego.

Thank you for the space for questions, and congratulations on the results. I just have one very quick one in terms of capital allocation, maybe for Diego.

Now with the new guidance expected for CapEx and the very strong cash generation this year, what would be sort of the priorities to allocate this better free cash flow generation? If you could maybe elaborate a little bit which of the projects on the CapEx side are you maybe pushing forward or why the lower CapEx?

Thank you.

Diego Gaxiola

Yes. Hi, Alejandro.

Definitely cash generation has been better than what we expected, as I already mentioned, because of the operating performance and also some CapEx projects that are running behind schedule and it has been a little bit harder to execute the program. I would say that the capital allocation of the company is not changing.

We have had and we will continue to have as the number one priority to put money back into the business. It's been the case, even though it's behind of what we thought.

It's almost $400 million in the first half, and as I said, we're expecting something between a billion to $1.2 billion. It's going to be the highest use of our cash generation for the CapEx.

Of course, this includes the three buckets: it's maintenance, growth, and productivity. Dividends, buybacks will continue to be more or less to the same extent.

We already paid the dividend of 2026, we do not see anything additional or extraordinary.

Alejandro Fuchs

Super clear. Gracias, Diego.

Diego Gaxiola

Welcome.

Operator

The next question comes from Antonio Hernandez with Antonio. Please go ahead.

Antonio Hernández Vélez Leija

Hi, this is Antonio Hernandez from Actinver. My congrats on the results.

Very very solid. Just a quick one regarding food service.

It wasn't mentioned this time, and I guess it's headwind right now. Do you expect any recovery in the short to medium term, and maybe that to contribute to results as well?

Thanks. We did mention a little bit about it, Antonio, and in North America, we continue to reflect value-driven consumer behavior, and we're working hard to excel in this geography.

In Europe and Asia, we have a healthy growth. Asia demands are strong, and they remain strong.

We're growing. In the case of Brazil, we continue to perform well.

In overall, the QSR channel remains very, very healthy. Here, let me probably compliment you a little bit, Alex.

Regarding North America, I would say that even though it hasn't been the best couple of quarters, we're seeing this also as an opportunity to attack some other customers as the ones that we were serving have been closing some units. I think we're going to be able to capitalize and materialize this opportunity for 2027.

Perfect. Thanks a lot.

Operator

The next question comes from Álvaro García with BTG Pactual. Please go ahead.

Álvaro García

Hi, Alejandro, Diego, Greg. Hope you're doing well.

Thanks for the space for questions. I have a question on the US, which I think could be extended to most of your geographies, but the question's on pricing.

We've been on this sort of multi-year battle to get sort of volume share back on the right track. It's been a difficult pricing environment, very promotional.

You had very clear commentary on having gained share this quarter across all categories. I was wondering, given your comments on sort of this inflationary environment we're living in and how '27 is looking trickier, how you're thinking about pricing into the second half of this year and into 2027.

Thank you.

Greg Koehrsen

Absolutely. As Álvaro, we don't provide specific guidance as it relates to pricing, but what I can share is that we've been pretty disciplined over the last year-plus on the pricing actions that we've taken and the promotional actions that we've taken.

I think we've reaped benefits from that. We're going to continue to do the same thing going forward.

Again, this really is different by subcategory and subsegment. We're going to think about this differently in, let's say, a premium and health and wellness environment where consumers are asking for certain things and potentially differently in a value proposition environment.

I know that doesn't fully answer your question, but I would say that we're looking at it very carefully across all subsegments to make sure that we have the right pricing and promotional actions across all of those segments.

Alejandro Rodríguez Bas

Álvaro, we need to focus in another P, which is the one we can control internally, and that is productivity. We believe that consumers are facing challenging times around the world, and we need to be able to compensate within.

Álvaro García

Great. Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Operator

The next question comes from Diego Serrano with HSBC. Please go ahead.

Diego Serrano

Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking my question.

Just wanted to ask about Brazil and Wickbold. You mentioned that the benefits will still take some time to materialize.

With that in mind, could you talk about what's left to do there, what these efficiencies are, and when are you expecting them? Then maybe comment about the long term, maybe on how meaningful do you think this Brazil business can become for the group?

Thank you.

Alejandro Rodríguez Bas

Let me start from the end. Brazil, it's becoming very meaningful within the region, the LatAm region.

Now, as much as we have identified several key initiatives, both in operation and commercial improvements, and we continue to keep a diversified, separated portfolio, we've decided to better understand the in and outs of Wickbold. Rather than materializing really fast, we believe that it's going to gradually be done over the coming quarters.

It's a big company. We need to find good synergies, and it's going to take longer.

We rather do it slowly than at an accelerated pace that could put us in trouble.

Diego Serrano

Great. Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Regina Carrillo with GBM. Please go ahead.

Regina Carrillo

Hi, good afternoon, and congratulations on the results. I just wanted to ask you if the lower CapEx, does this raise your expectations for more free cash flow generation for the year?

Maybe where do you see the leverage evolving towards the end of the year?

Diego Gaxiola

Yes. Definitely we now expect to generate more cash than what we commented on the previous call because of two things: one, we're more or less leaving the same expectation on the top line, but we are increasing, as I said, the margin, and this will translate into a higher EBITDA.

At the same time, we're lowering a little bit, probably $100 to $150 million, the guidance on the CapEx, and that, of course, will also translate into additional cash flow. Part of this is already reflected on what we have seen during the first half, and that is why we are now at 2.5 times net debt to EBITDA.

Remember that we were at 2.7 at the end of 2025. We were at 2.9 a year ago.

The deleverage of Grupo Bimbo has been fast, and it has been driven mainly by our operational results, as we have continued to have as a priority the CapEx. As you also know, we have continued to do some acquisitions.

Now, during the first half of the year, acquisitions have been very slow. It has been only Bonell, which was a very small acquisition in Tunisia, in fact, not material.

This is not changing the guidance. We do expect and we hope to be able to close some bolt-on acquisitions during the second half.

It's hard to tell how many of the projects we're going to be able to conclude during this specific time period. Again, we have a strong pipeline of bolt-on acquisitions that make a lot of sense and have a very relevant strategic edge for the different operations of the company.

Now, if we were to assume that we do not close any acquisitions, we will continue to see a deleverage. I think you can do the math, and the conclusion is quite obvious, no?

Both because of the cash generation, but also because of the growth of the EBITDA.

Regina Carrillo

Perfect. Thank you so much.

Operator

The next question comes from Fernando Olvera with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Fernando Mendez

Thank you very much for taking my question. I have two, one on the US.

Firstly, you're now back to positive sales growth, and you mentioned gain shares. Could you help us to understand what actually changed on the ground to drive this turnaround?

Has to do with your pricing strategy, maybe the new distribution channels, or simply a category that is gaining share against others? A similar question, but in Mexico: we are seeing let's say a very weak consumer backdrop.

You see the results from the retailers, a big deceleration, but Bimbo seems to be a quite strong exception in that trend. What do you think explains that decoupling from the rest of the industry performance?

In that sense, who do you think is funding more of the promotional activity today between suppliers or CPGs versus the retailers? Three questions, in fact.

Thank you so much.

Greg Koehrsen

Absolutely. Thanks.

I'll take the first question as it relates to the US. Fundamentally, and I think I mentioned this a couple of times, but the main driver, I would say, of our improved share performance has been our commercial execution.

That impacts all of the categories in which we play. It's really a credit to the team in terms of how we've done that.

I would add to that, we continue to be very disciplined around our pricing and promotion activities, and we believe that these are things that we can continue going forward, we're excited about the momentum that we've built. Now,

Alejandro Rodríguez Bas

in the case of Mexico, we remain focused on delivering the right value proposition through a balanced price pack architecture and well-targeted product mix. We continue to leverage our innovation, but especially our best-class execution at the point of sale.

The reality is we continue to expand our distribution network of all our SKUs, and we're working really hard internally to develop a better, more precise sales and operation planning and sales and operation execution. I think the result has been driven in this difficult consumer environment for being there at the moment of truth, servicing our clients, and expecting the response that has been positive from our customers and consumers.

Now, you ask me who's spending more money, if it's the retailers or the manufacturers. Honestly, I don't have the answer.

I haven't seen it. I know there's been softness, but at the same time, there's a lot of opportunities, and that's where we're focused.

We're focused in servicing better, in having things on time, and have the right assortment at the right place.

Fernando Mendez

What about the channel performance between the formal, informal, maybe the convenience? Can you give some color on how has that channel performed differently in Mexico so far?

Alejandro Rodríguez Bas

Yep, in our case, all channels deliver growth. Now, coupled with the effect of the summer and with the enhancement of the World Cup, convenience became stronger in this period.

Everywhere, we've seen this same growth. We're trying to find our space everywhere.

I think, for us, that's the name of the game: to be focused on what we do best, which is service.

Fernando Mendez

Thank you so much.

Operator

This concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to management for any closing remarks.

Please go ahead.

Alejandro Rodríguez Bas

Thank you all for joining us today. Please feel free to reach out to our investor relations team with any additional questions or comments you may have, and we wish you a happy rest of your summer.

Operator

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation.

You may now disconnect.