FEMSA Comercio completes acquisition of Corporación GPF in Ecuador

MONTERREY, Mexico, April 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Fomento Económico Mexicano, S.A.B. de C.V. (“FEMSA”) (NYSE: FMX; BMV: FEMSAUBD) announced today that FEMSA Comercio through its majority-owned subsidiary Socofar, it has successfully completed the acquisition of Corporación GPF (“GPF”).

GPF is a leading drugstore operator based in Quito, Ecuador, with almost 90 years of solid trajectory, operating more than 620 points of sale nationwide mainly under the Fybeca and SanaSana banners.

This transaction represents a new building block of FEMSA Comercio’s drugstore strategy in South America, following its successful acquisition of a controlling stake in the drugstore and distribution platform of Chile-based Socofar in 2015.  Today’s announcement marks another important step for FEMSA Comercio as it brings its considerable retail expertise and Socofar’s deep industry knowledge to the Ecuadorian market and its more than 16 million consumers.

GPF is a strong local operator with attractive growth prospects, and it will help Socofar as it continues to build a robust base from which to expand further in the region.

About FEMSA
FEMSA is a company that creates economic and social value through companies and institutions and strives to be the best employer and neighbor to the communities in which it operates. It participates in the retail industry through FEMSA Comercio, comprising a Proximity Division operating OXXO, a small-format store chain, a Health Division, which includes drugstores and related activities, and a Fuel Division, which operates the OXXO GAS chain of retail service stations. In the beverage industry, it participates through Coca-Cola FEMSA, a public bottler of Coca-Cola products; and in the beer industry, as a shareholder of Heineken, a brewer with operations in over 70 countries. Additionally, through its Strategic Businesses unit, it provides logistics, point-of-sale refrigeration solutions and plastics solutions to FEMSA's business units and third-party clients. Through its business units, FEMSA has approximately 300,000 employees in 12 countries. FEMSA is a member of the Dow Jones Sustainability MILA Pacific Alliance, the FTSE4Good Emerging Index and the Mexican Stock Exchange Sustainability Index, among other indexes that evaluate its sustainability performance.

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