© 2024 Alpha Spread Limited. All Rights Reserved.
www.alphaspread.com is not operated by a broker, a dealer, or a registered investment adviser. Under no circumstances does any information posted on www.alphaspread.com represent a recommendation to buy or sell a security. The information on this site, and in its related newsletters, is not intended to be, nor does it constitute, investment advice or recommendations. The information on this site is in no way guaranteed for completeness, accuracy or in any other way. In no event shall Alpha Spread Limited be liable to any member, guest or third party for any damages of any kind arising out of the use of any content or other material published or available on www.alphaspread.com, or relating to the use of, or inability to use, www.alphaspread.com or any content, including, without limitation, any investment losses, lost profits, lost opportunity, special, incidental, indirect, consequential or punitive damages. Past performance is a poor indicator of future performance.
You don't have any saved screeners yet
Intrinsic Value is all-important and is the only logical way to evaluate the relative attractiveness of investments and businesses.
Good day, everyone, and welcome to today's Arca Continental conference call. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this call may be recorded. [Operator Instructions] It is now my pleasure to turn the conference over to Melanie Carpenter of i-advize Corporate Communications. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Katie. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining the senior management team of Arca Continental this morning to review the results for the first quarter of 2022. The earnings release went out this morning, and it's available on the company website at arcacontal.com in the Investor Relations section. It's now my pleasure to introduce our speakers. Joining us from Monterrey is the CEO, Mr. Arturo Gutierrez; the CFO, Mr. Emilio Marcos; and the Chief Commercial and Digital Officer, Mr. Jose Pepe Borda; as well as the Investor Relations team. They're going to be making some forward-looking statements and we just ask that you refer to the disclaimer and the conditions surrounding those statements in the earnings release. And with that, I'm going to go ahead and turn the call over to the CEO, Mr. Arturo Gutierrez, who's going to begin the presentation. So Please go ahead, Arturo.
Thank you, Melanie, and many thanks to everyone for being with us this morning. Before we review this quarter's results, I would like to take a moment to express our great sadness at the recent passing of our dear friend, Former Arca Continental CEO and Board Member, Pancho Garza Egloff. For 15 years, Pancho led the operations of Arca Continental through transformational expansion and sustainable growth. He thought and inspired thousands of our leaders and team members. On behalf of all of us, I would like to express our most sincere condolences to Pancho's family, and we offer our prayers and our deepest sympathy. We will all strive to always live his legacy in our organization. Now let's summarize the performance for the first quarter. I am pleased to report positive momentum for the first quarter of 2022. We initiated the year on a solid note, delivering a strong operating performance and sound financial results. Total consolidated revenue in the quarter increased 13.8% to MXN 46.1 billion and total consolidated volume grew 5.4%, reaching 542 million unit cases. We delivered another quarter of sequentially improving results with strong sales and volume acceleration across every one of our 5 operating groups as we continued innovating to meet evolving consumer needs. On the profitability front, consolidated EBITDA for the quarter rose 11%, reaching MXN 8.5 billion, representing a margin of 18.5%. Our revenue management and cost leadership initiatives enabled us to build and sustain strong earnings growth despite significant cost headwinds. Let me now expand on our operational performance across geographies, beginning with Mexico, where our flagship market continued to demonstrate the strength of our beverage business. Total unit case volume grew 2.7%, cycling 1.4% from the same quarter in the prior year. This marks the fifth consecutive quarter of volume growth in Mexico, confirming sequential improvement throughout the last 2 years. Water and still beverages led among categories, up 13.1% and 15.3%, respectively. Furthermore, Coca-Cola without sugar continued delivering outstanding results with double-digit growth. Also, key channels such as on-premise, schools and entertainment showed a remarkable recovery as consumer mobility continued to normalize, thanks to the reopening and lifting of capacity restrictions. Single-serve mix grew 2.4 percentage points in the quarter, capturing the gradual recovery of immediate consumption in both returnable and one-way presentations, driven by the expansion of our 235-milliliter returnable glass bottle and the launch of the 250-milligram PET multi-category platform at entry-level packages. Total net sales in Mexico rose 10.4% in the quarter to reach MXN 18.3 billion, marking the 23rd consecutive quarter of net revenue growth. Average price per case in Mexico, not including jug water, rose 6.7%, reaching MXN 72.87, sustained by our strong execution, revenue management capabilities and the launch of the new affordable packages. EBITDA increased 3.2% to MXN 4 billion, representing a margin of 21.7%. We continue navigating through a challenging commodity environment, and we aim to protect profitability by using our tailored pricing strategies, combined with our disciplined focus on cost optimization. Our universal bottle is a great example of our disciplined focus on efficiencies. We are expanding with new packages such as the 500- milliliter glass bottle in flavored SSDs and still beverages. In South America, total volume was up 13.9% in the quarter, with a solid performance across our 3 markets in the region and confirming the positive recovery momentum. Total revenue rose 18.3%, reaching MXN 10.4 billion, while EBITDA increased 22.1% to MXN 2.2 billion, representing a margin of 21.7%. We saw sequential positive trend across channels, supported primarily by the traditional trade, while on-premise and supermarkets are both showing sustained recovery. In Peru, our beverage operation delivered sequential volume growth of 12.5% versus last year and 0.7% above the same quarter in 2019 as we begin to surpass pre-pandemic levels. Volume growth was led by sparkling beverages, up 14.8% on the back of another strong performance in single-serve packages in our core brands Coca-Cola and Inca Kola. Our commercial initiatives focused on protecting portfolio affordability via an accelerated introduction of multi-serve returnable packages. The on-premise channel continued accelerating the pace of recovery as COVID mobility restrictions were lifted just last month and outlets are now operating at full capacity. This recovery is driving increases in the immediate consumption mix. In fact, single-serve in Peru increased 4.1 percentage points in the first quarter. We doubled down on the deployment of our AC digital platform, providing customers with the ability to place direct orders using a mobile app. At the end of the quarter, we reached over 100,000 active customers, representing 42% of the targeted customer base. Our beverage operation in Argentina delivered another outstanding quarter of double-digit volume growth, up 27.7% and cycling strong volume growth from the same quarter in 2019. Volume growth was broad-based across the portfolio and driven by solid performances, with sparkling at 25.3% and both stills and water up 36.7%. From a channel perspective, modern trade led the recovery driven by our initiatives to promote multi-serve packages and despite price control measures imposed by the government to tackle runaway inflation. We will continue executing our selective pricing strategy in line with inflation and doubling down our cost discipline and optimization efforts. In Ecuador, total volume in the quarter grew 4.4% as the economy continues to bounce back in line with higher average oil prices and despite mobility restrictions reinstated last January due to a new wave of COVID-19 cases in the region. Volume growth was driven by still beverages and water categories, up 24.6% and 9.3%, respectively. Growth in stills was led primarily by Powerade and Fuze Tea brands as we leverage our commercial activities to drive affordability and increase our coverage in the traditional channel. We have maintained our competitive position in the traditional channel by focusing on evolving our service models to increase customer satisfaction, implementing dynamic routing to adapt to a changing market and building digital capabilities to reach more customers in a more cost-efficient way. Tonicorp, our value-added dairy business in Ecuador, posted high single-digit sales growth in the quarter, while capturing additional value share. Growth was driven by yogurt, flavored milk and ice cream categories as we capitalize on the recovery of key channels such as schools and entertainment. Let me now turn to our beverage operations in the United States. Before I present our quarterly results, I would like to highlight that this month we're celebrating the 5-year anniversary of our U.S. business, Coca-Cola Southwest Beverages. It started on April 1, 2017, when we completed the acquisition of the territory formerly operated by Coca-Cola Refreshments. This event marked the start of a new level of partnership with the Coca-Cola Company, and we are proud of what we have achieved during our first 5 years in these territories. Since then, we have accomplished several important milestones such as expanding into a new territory in Oklahoma; winning the Market Street Challenge and the Candler Cup; delivering all our synergy commitments; opening our Northpoint facility in Houston, the newest production facility in the U.S. in more than a decade; and most importantly, launching our cultural principles, which have continued to drive increasing engagement every year since they were introduced. And now moving to our results in the quarter. Coca-Cola Southwest Beverages delivered steady top and bottom line growth. Net revenues for the quarter grew 14.7%, reaching $793.5 million, Net price per case rose 13.6% with a true rate of 10.4%, driven by last year's off-cycle price increase and a mix rate of 3.2% due to our price package strategy of shifting volume to higher profit per case packages such as immediate consumption and transaction packages. Volume for the first quarter grew 0.9%, reaching 101.3 million unit cases, driven by growth of supermarkets and on-premise channels. Sparkling soft drinks led the growth for the quarter, up 1.3% and supported by the launch of Coca-Cola Starlight, our newest innovation in the sparkling category. It's important to mention that volume shifted substantially from water to the rest of the categories due to last year's pantry loading effects related to the February winter storm. EBITDA increased 15.6% to $115.1 million in the quarter, representing a margin of 14.5% and marking the 15th consecutive quarter of EBITDA growth. Our beverage business in the U.S. has consistently grown EBITDA every single quarter since 2017 with a compound annual growth rate in U.S. dollars of 11.2% and has improved margins by 270 basis points from 2018 through 2021. Furthermore, we are making solid progress in our digital agenda with our trade promotion optimization tool. We started expanding to new use cases outside the commercial area such as human resources. We also consolidated our new e-parcel operation covering the Dallas Fort Worth area. With this capability, we enhance service to our smallest customers by partnering with third-party delivery companies. In closing, our Food and Snacks business posted double-digit sales increase in the quarter, driven by solid pricing and volume growth across all our operations as well as the integration of Carli Snacks in Ecuador. Sequential recovery was driven by the traditional and modern trade channels in Mexico and Ecuador, coupled with robust performance of the Deep River brand in food service and Wise variety packs in the supermarket channel in the U.S. We continued implementing tactical pricing actions to offset the increase in key inputs, such as edible oil and packaging film. In addition, we deployed efficiency plans to optimize freight costs, reduce product waste and streamline administrative processes by leveraging our corporate shared services capabilities. I will now give you an update on the progress we have made in our ESG initiatives. As part of our joint efforts with the Coca-Cola Company to create a world without waste, and thanks to the close partnership with PetStar, our beverage operation in the U.S. has reached a PET collection rate of almost 40% of the volume we place in the market. We reinforced our commitment to reduce the use of resin and plastic packaging, becoming the first bottler in North America to lightweight our 12-ounce PET presentation from 22 to 14 grams by using state-of-the-art technology that incorporates an ultra-thin protective layer of glass in the insides of these bottles. Also, we continue promoting the conservation and replenishment of water sources, the efficient use of water in our facilities and the reuse and adequate treatment of water discharge. Aligned with this effort, we signed a collaboration agreement with the Coca-Cola Foundation and the World Wildlife Fund to develop nature-based water treatment systems in Chihuahua, Mexico to reduce water scarcity. And with that, I will turn it over to Emilio. Emilio, Please go ahead.
Thank you, Arturo. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. We have started 2022 with the same momentum we had towards the end of 2021, with solid revenue growth supported by positive volume levels across all our operations, combined with the pricing packaging initiatives, which we started last year. Our flexible commercial strategies have adapted to the current consumer trends. This positive revenue performance, along with the financial discipline deeply rooted in our daily operating culture, allow us to partially offset the impact from raw material headwinds. Moving over to the financial results of the quarter. Consolidated revenues increased 13.8%, driven mainly by positive volume trends in all operations and a strong price/mix in Mexico, the U.S., Argentina and Peru. On a currency neutral basis, net revenue grew 15% in the quarter. Gross profit grew 12%, reaching MXN 20.6 billion as a result of timely pricing initiatives, innovative commercial strategies, our disciplined hedging program, which partially mitigated the continued cost increases of our key inputs. The net effect of cost headwinds and our initiatives represented an 80 basis point reduction in the contribution margin. Looking ahead, as global events continue to create volatility in all commodities, we still expect our margins to be pressured by higher raw material prices, particularly in PET and aluminum. Consolidated EBITDA posted an increase of 11% to MXN 8.5 billion for an EBITDA margin of 18.5%, representing a small dilution of 50 basis points compared to the 190 basis points expansion in the first quarter of 2021. This was largely driven by the pressure in contribution margin previously mentioned. On a currency neutral basis, EBITDA grew 12.4% in the quarter. The SG&A to sales ratio decreased by 120 basis points, mostly from operating efficiencies as we continued to capitalize on the learnings from the pandemic. It is important to remark that the market expenses made in the previous quarter paved the way to support positive volume levels at the beginning of the year. Net income for the quarter increased 19.7%, mainly due to the positive operating income results. This was partially offset by a foreign exchange loss of MXN 90 million this year versus a gain of MXN 200 million in 2021. Now moving on to the balance sheet. Cash and cash equivalents in the first quarter stood at MXN 35 billion with a total debt of MXN 50 billion, resulting in a leverage ratio of 0.4x. On April 1, a cash dividend of MXN 3.18 per share was approved at the Annual Shareholders' Meeting, totaling MXN 5.6 billion and representing a payout ratio of 46%, in line with our historical average. This dividend was paid on April 19. Along with the dividend, the buyback and cancellation of around 20 million shares, representing 1.1% of total shares outstanding also was approved at the shareholders' meeting. This is the first time that Arca Continental executed a cancellation as another capital allocation alternative. CapEx for the first quarter was MXN 1.6 billion, an increase of 20% versus the same period of last year. As we have previously announced, we expect to invest close to MXN 12 billion, half in Mexico and the rest in the U.S. and South America. These investments are in line with our strategy of strengthening production and sustainability projects, distribution capabilities, market execution and promoting digitalization across the operations. As we look ahead, we remain confident that a sustainable top line growth based on the deployment of innovative and efficient commercial strategies coupled with our continued commitment to operational discipline will protect the profitability of our business in 2022 despite the challenging global setting we have experienced so far. And with that, I will turn it back to Arturo.
Thank you, Emilio. To conclude, we believe we are well positioned to manage through and beyond the near-term issues we are facing and deliver long-term growth and value creation. We remain focused on efficiency and committed to driving cost savings and productivity in all aspects of our business to mitigate input cost volatility. Despite the challenging backdrop, we are optimistic and excited about the future of our business. Over the past 96 years, we have developed the right skills, abilities and experience to navigate volatile environment to effective execution. The set of actions we took during the pandemic have enabled our organization to stay lean, nimble and flexible. And of course, the satisfaction of customers and consumers has been the main driver of our ongoing evolution and progress. Looking forward, we will continue to invest in our business for the long term to be focused on our people, our digital journey and our sustainability agenda. We will also step forward toward growth opportunities for regional expansion in the beverage, food and snacks industries. And with that, we will be happy to take your questions. Katie, please open the floor.
[Operator Instructions] Our first question will come from Ben Theurer.
Congrats on the result. I wanted to ask about the strategy and the alignment with the Coca-Cola Company. And we've talked about the opportunities you now have being allowed within the system to explore new ventures, partnerships and so on. And you've just said you're looking obviously into these opportunities. Could you give us an update on where you stand and what you're looking for in terms of possible other distribution agreements or just leveraging your capabilities, be it in Mexico or in South America, but also to a degree in the United States? What could be done on your side to really maximize what's been allowed with the new partnership framework with the Coca-Cola Company?
Sure. As we have said before, we are in conversations with the Coca-Cola Company to take our business partnership to the next level over the long term, and we are very close to concluding negotiations in that regard. And this is not the typical discussions that we've had in the past about how to manage our current business. It's mostly about new product categories, distribution agreements and digital initiatives, basically. So I think precisely here the point is how to align better our mutual interest so that we can capture those opportunities. If you look at what we have been doing in the digital space with Yomp! and some of the things that can complement our business, we know the opportunities are there. Same thing for distribution of products that are different from the KO products. We've been doing that with beer in Argentina, and we started a pilot as in Ecuador. So these agreements will come here to align us to better capture those opportunities. And they are in all of Latin America, I would say. And they are not only to strengthen our current business, which I think would be still the core and the fundamental purpose, but also the idea is to develop distribution of other beverages and to also expand our digital footprint, particularly in the traditional trade in Latin America. So I will turn it over to Pepe for some additional remarks in that regard.
So as Arturo was saying, we continue to work together with Coca-Cola Company, evaluating potential opportunities not only across LatAm, but across all our territories. And the distribution pilot we started in Ecuador is part of this. It has been 3 months since the launch with very positive results, showing important distribution and volume growth. And we are evaluating expansion to other regions. And in parallel, we are evaluating alternatives for partnerships in Mexico and Peru and also beyond. Other product distribution opportunities are under evaluation. We also plan to expand our footprint in flavored alcoholic beverages beyond Topo Chico [indiscernible]. Also in Mexico, Yomp! continued to expand in Monterrey and Guadalajara. Today, we offer more than 1,500 SKUs from 30 different CPGs. And we are expanding our value proposition for our customers in the traditional trade with an extended portfolio offering not only products, but also services. And we are also working in CPG alliances to consolidate synergies across our business and portfolios. But I think the key here is to balance the benefits between a lean, agile start-up like Yomp! with the synergies with the Coca-Cola system. Yomp! started as a different experiment, and it's slowly starting to converge into an ecosystem. So we're scaling Yomp! as a solution for digitizing the whole traditional customer operation, allowing them to offer services to customers, buying groceries from companies that do or do not offer direct distribution. I think within the Coca-Cola system, the bottlers are testing, implementing and evaluating different alternatives in a continuous learning process. But as always, we share best practices and learn from each other. So this increases the breadth of experimentation in areas where there are no proven winning models yet. And further down the road, we will find synergies with other bottlers and work together with the Coca-Cola Company to help us materialize those synergies.
Our next question will come from Sergio Matsumoto with Citigroup.
I wanted to go deeper in this very topic of the multi-category. When we look back into the history of Arca Continental, the salty snacks was the first one that you kind of ventured out outside of beverage territory. And I'm just wondering if -- now if you still see the synergy with the soft drinks portfolio the way Coca-Cola Company sees potential synergies with other non-Coca-Cola categories today? And are there opportunities to deepen these salty snacks or perhaps expand into other categories that you distribute yourself?
With respect to those categories that are beyond the beverage space, we still believe that these are adjacent categories. I think part of the learnings over the last more than 10 years that we've had this business is that there are some things that can be synergized. But many things should be kept separate. And this is how we operated that business over the years. And we're still -- we have the intent to become a more national business in Mexico as we have in Ecuador, as you know, which has a wider footprint. So look at the Ecuadorian model, and I think that makes a lot of sense to us how we can leverage some of the scale that we have and also help to leverage technology and digital platforms in making it easier to obtain those synergies. So I think the -- how we evolve or go-to-market, especially digital platforms and also the relationship with customers through these platforms present new opportunities. But the businesses are going to be kept relatively separate. I think that's the best way to operate them in terms of the sales force and the connection with the customers. But we do think that there is still an important adjacency as many of the categories -- Pepe mentioned alcoholic beverages and snacks, and then other things that can be connected as we -- at the end, what we're looking at is how to also enhance and strengthen our relationship with the customer and how we become solution providers to the customers, specifically in the traditional trade in Latin America. So I think that connects very well with the development of snacks and some of these adjacent businesses.
Understood. And second question, if I may, is on the aluminum cost pressure, particularly in the United States. Any color as to how you might face that with maybe the mix or pricing architecture?
Yes. Well, as you know, the aluminum has -- probably the biggest impact that we've had in raw materials in this first quarter of '22 as compared to last year, where we had very important hedges. And that -- just in the case of the U.S., its impact has been above $17 million directly to our results. So it's significant. If you look at our pricing, we, in a way, anticipated that in our off-cycle price increase of last year, which was very important to mitigate. And also the recovery of volumes in the U.S. and the discipline in the OpEx management -- if you look at SG&A as a ratio, that's also improving. So at the end, the margins have been sustained, which is, I think, truly remarkable considering this very, very challenging environment. We've had aluminum prices way above historical prices, including the Midwest premium, which has been up more than double. So this environment is going to continue. So we have to anticipate with a combination of prices, better mix, as you mentioned -- that's been very important. Part of the -- the price increase in the U.S. is around 13%, and the improvement in mix is more than 3%. So it's significant. And also how volume recovers, particularly in the on-premise channel, and again, a disciplined management of [indiscernible].
Just to add, Arturo, that on U.S., as I mentioned last quarter, we have 50% hedge -- have hedged our needs of aluminum in U.S. and Mexico. And as Arturo mentioned, last year we had great hedges. So that's why the comps are really tough. But we've been able to compensate that with the pricing and mix that Arturo already mentioned.
Our next question will come from Isabella Simonato with Bank of America.
You mentioned in the fourth quarter results, right, your expectation of top line growth for the year of about 6% to 8%, if I'm not mistaken. Is there any change on that expectation? I mean anything that you've seen in the first quarter, especially in the U.S. or in other regions that might be -- bring this potential expectation up eventually? And my second question is on concentrate cost in Mexico. If you could give us an update on -- regarding concentrate prices, if you think that there will be an increase or not?
The first part is -- the short answer is there's not a significant change to the guidance that we have provided. We're seeing -- this first quarter of this year is a recovery, which we expect that -- not only versus last year, but if we look at our baseline, our pre-pandemic baseline of 2019, we are recovering our volumes at around 6% this quarter, which is as we expected. But I think very important to see is that, that recovery is still with an on-premise channel that is not fully recovered as we compare to that base -- maybe except for Argentina, where volumes have been outstanding. And maybe in Argentina, our baseline would be previous years, where we had our record volumes. But in the rest of our markets -- if you look at Mexico, on-premise channel is still 7% below its pre-pandemic level. This is first quarter '22. The U.S., it's more than 20% below. So what we're seeing is an opportunity to -- we see that as an upside going forward. But if you look at our last 4 quarters, we've seen growth everywhere. In every market, we've been growing in the last 4 -- so we expect that channel to continue. And the other headline there is that the traditional channel in Latin America continues to be very resilient. We continue to grow the traditional channel regardless of the comparisons that we've had throughout the pandemic. We've grown 0.5% volume in the traditional channel this quarter. So for the rest of the year, we expect that trend of recovery to continue, which is actually shown in March. If you look at it month by month throughout this year, we look at that trend of recovery, specifically about, again, the on-premise channel, which although it is below 2019, for example, in Mexico, in March, just the month of March, the on-premise channel is above 2019 levels, 2.3%, which I think is a very good sign of recovery. And that will be moving forward. Let me address the second part of your question, which is about concentrate costs in Mexico. And I mentioned before that we are in conversations with the Coca-Cola Company regarding our alignment for the future. And previously, those negotiations focused mainly in concentrate basically and some issues related to bottling agreements and market investments. Now negotiations are much wider, I would say. So regarding concentrate, we're working with KO to align our business plan and all the variables that could affect the market in Mexico or any other market this year and years to come. So this is how the business model will work for us now. We would discuss the circumstances that would affect the consumer environment, and then look at what is best for the market and balance investments that are needed to be made and challenges that we're facing: like, we are particularly this year with higher input costs. So this is, again, a much more balanced situation between us. I think that is sustainable. And we maintain that continuous dialogue to define the new opportunities as in the case of these market investments, new beverage categories, digital space, et cetera. So I think we are in a much better position than we were in the past when, I guess, the relationship was not as close, was a bit more distant, and concentrate prices were basically just announced by the Coca-Cola Company. Now it's a continuous conversation.
Our next question will come from Alan Alanis with Santander.
First of all, my condolences. I'm really sad about Pancho Garza Egloff. I think he was -- it's very important to say here or repeat here that he was an exemplary man in both the personal and professional aspects of life. So clearly, clearly missed and our payers go to him. Yes. Now the question that I have -- I'll be a bit more direct in terms of the alliances in Mexico. Coca-Cola FEMSA has just announced that they have pilot programs already going with Diageo, with Kellogg and with Procter & Gamble in Mexico and they're expanding into other places. Do you have any alliances with any of these companies in Mexico right now? And with the fact that Coca-Cola FEMSA is already having this, make it easier for you or more harder for you to have this kind of alliances in your territories? I would assume that it's easier, but I would rather hear it -- hear if that's an accurate statement.
Thank you about your message regarding Pancho. He certainly will be missed. And addressing your question. Yes, we -- the system works, I guess, in a much more integrated and coordinated way now. So I think anything that happens around the system in Latin America especially, but even around the world, mostly in Latin America, I think, will benefit us all. And Coca-Cola Company is certainly coordinating the effort in many ways. So I think all that precedent is going to work in our favor. And we have our own pilots and our own experience also taking place. And we have sometimes made more progress in the digital space. That's something that they can take advantage of, the rest of the bottlers would take advantage of. And we've been very transparent and very open about what we're doing. And maybe this is different as compared to the past many, many years ago -- and I know you lived that -- where many people were -- many of the bottlers were doing their own efforts on their own. I think we're much more coordinated. I think that will serve as great learnings to what we need to do. And -- but also take into account that maybe the markets sometimes are different. Maybe the partners that we would have would not necessarily be the same depending on the markets where we operate. So that's something that we're taking a deeper look into just to make sure that we formalize and work on the right partnerships.
That's very clear. Last question regarding capital deployment. You're going to be net cash by the end of this year. Any update in terms of getting closer to M&A or the possibility of increasing or accelerating your share buybacks or your cash back to shareholders given the net cash position that you'll likely be by the next 4 quarters?
Well, our strategy will remain the same. As we've said, we don't have anything specific to announce at this point. And we're going to continue balancing basically our usage of resources aside from CapEx and our dividend. And as you know, the shareholders meeting approved the option of extraordinary dividends to be approved by the Board, which is something that gives us flexibility. We're continuing to look for opportunities in buybacks as we move forward and also considering how the stock price could be a good option for allocating our capital. And M&A, we're still searching for those -- what we all know is that in this industry and probably different to other industries, there's a lot of value to be captured because most of those integrations, if not all, create value just because of the geographic structure of the bottling system around the world, if you talk about Coca-Cola systems. So there's certainly value there. You know that for that to happen, many other things need to be aligned, not necessarily on the hard business issues, but many things need to be aligned. So we think that we should remain prepared financially and also have the flexibility as a company to adapt to any potential deals that might present in different formats. So that's where we are at this point.
I'll just add that our CapEx will increase. In the past 2 years, we've been investing 4% over sales. And having a better top line, we will increase our percentage on CapEx. We just announced around MXN 12 billion. It's going to be around 5% to 6% over sales. So that's going to be part of the increase of allocation on CapEx.
[Operator Instructions] Our next question will come from Luis Willard with GBM.
Can you hear me?
Yes.
Yes.
Congrats on the results. So -- I mean, you've talked about this in your remarks and also in the questions, but -- I mean this current circumstances have forced most companies to search for efficiencies inside the organization. And as you've mentioned, Arca is not the exception. So my question is, can you walk us through some of the most relevant sources of savings that you might have already detected and that you think are achievable in the short term and that will be available for the long term for Arca?
Yes. Sure. I think that's a very important part of our operation. And from our experience through the integration of companies, I think we have developed this culture that is not searching for actual synergies now on a specific deal, which is the methodology that we've built over the years, but making it a constant effort of our operations to identify opportunities. And there's always a reason to do that. I mean there's always a challenge to face. And certainly, this year, the biggest challenge is certainly the inflation on some of our main raw materials, I would say, basically aluminum and PET. Those are the biggest impacts. So what we're doing in 2022, with the lessons that we learned in the past years, is to continue to drive efficiencies in cost, OpEx and CapEx deployment. So let me mention a few of those. And many of those actually leverage technology, including advanced analytics. So initiatives like the trade promotion optimization, it's very important for how to improve our net pricing. We mentioned the rate, then the mix. This is becoming much more important now. Packing efficiencies are very important. Even an universal bottle provides efficiencies there. And aside from that, just -- packaging materials, in general, there are many things that we've optimized. Strategic procurement and direct procurement of many things. Also, there's leverage in new technologies. And we keep track of that. This is not just something we aspired. We have project managers for specific initiatives. Also in our go-to-market models, our service models, there's been savings. Not only about how we serve better our customers, but also how we do it in a better cost to serve way. There's a big project of network optimization, and also that leverages new technology and bring new consultants to provide with efficiency, mostly in Mexico, but also in the U.S. The plant efficiencies as well: better productivity at our plants, yields, waste, et cetera. So there's a list of things there. And we have a dedicated team, a project coordinator and then specific individuals responsible for -- across the entire organization in every country. And they report directly through routines to me and senior management. So we make sure that this is part of our culture. And from there, there are a number of smaller projects that cascade down and add to a number that becomes significant at the end of the day.
[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Ulises Argote with JPMorgan.
So you already commented a little bit there on the aluminum hedge, but maybe can you provide an update on the rest of the raw materials and where you're progressing and the levels that you're hedging. And kind of on the back of that question, but any expectation for you guys to increase prices further in the short term across regions?
Well yes, raw materials, as I said, have impacted us, mostly aluminum and PET. The main impact --if you look at our margins and erosion and consolidated margin, we could say that all of that would be explained by those 2 basic raw materials. So as I said, we had anticipated some of that, and that has risen from some of those price increases that are off-cycle, like in the case of U.S. So you look at our margins -- maybe Mexico is the only one that's impacted, but consider for Mexico that we had record margins as comps. So you also take that into account. So the trend is that we will -- the reality is that we will continue to face high input cost. So it's important to continue to be price leaders. We're looking for windows to more hedging. We've done some of that. And I'll let Emilio explain a bit of those details. But from the perspective of pricing, we will continue to work on different perspective for pricing: rate, of course, and opportunities there based on new tools and analytics, how we improve our mix. And there are many instances where we have improved our pricing through mix, more returnable packs, also more profitable packs in the case of U.S. As the on-premise market recovers, we also try to improve the mix of that market, particularly in the U.S. operation. And as I mentioned, the trade promotion optimization. All those are elements that help us mitigate the impact of raw materials on our margins. And so I'll turn it over to Emilio for some color on hedging.
Yes. As Arturo mentioned, the situation has not improved, unfortunately. With the current global conflict, we expect volatility in raw materials pricing to continue. So we have not been able to increase our hedges as we still have the same as we mentioned last quarter. We have 50% of our aluminum needs for Mexico and U.S. We have 35% of fructose for U.S. and Mexico. Also, 95% hedges on sugar for Peru and 27% on diesel for U.S. All of the hedgings, of course, are below the current market prices for 2022. And I should add that at the beginning of February, we hedged 30% of our core needs for fructose for 2023. So we hit that on a very low level because corn prices had been going up really, really high. But even though the hedges are helping us to remain under spot prices, the comps, as Arturo mentioned, are really high, because last year we did a very good hedges level. So comps are double digits on cost. But thanks to the pricing strategy and the change of mix, we've been able to offset most of the impact at the contribution margin level. And regarding FX hedges, we already hedged 100% of our needs for Mexico at very good levels, below MXN 20. And in Peru, also we raised 80% of our needs below PEN 4. So we're comfortable with those so far. We, as Arturo also mentioned, keep looking for any opportunities to improve that position.
And congrats on the results.
Thank you. At this time, I would now like to turn the call back over to our management for closing remarks.
Thank you, Katie, and to all the participants in this call. We sincerely thank you for your partnership and your thoughtful questions. Please reach out to our Investor Relations team for a meaningful dialogue and follow-up questions that you might have. Have a great day, and enjoy your weekend.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's teleconference. You may now disconnect.