Coca-Cola Femsa Outlook On Global Scale Rating Revised To Negative From Stable On Vonpar Acquisition; Ratings Affirmed

OVERVIEW Mexico-based beverage company, KOF, recently announced that through its subsidiary, Spal Industria Brasileira de Bebidas, S.A., it reached an agreement to acquire 100% of the Brazil-based Coca-Cola bottler, Vonpar, for an equity value of R$3.5 billion. The company plans to finance the transaction with cash in hand, equity, and additional debt, which will deteriorate its credit metrics. We're revising the outlook on our global scale corporate credit rating to negative from stable and maintaining the stable outlook on the national scale corporate credit rating on KOF. We're also affirming our 'A-' global scale and 'mxAAA' national scale corporate credit and debt ratings on the company. The negative outlook reflects that following the completion of Vonpar's acquisition, KOF's metrics won't

...OVERVIEW + Mexico-based beverage company, KOF, recently announced that through its subsidiary, Spal Industria Brasileira de Bebidas, S.A., it reached an agreement to acquire 100% of the Brazil-based Coca-Cola bottler, Vonpar, for an equity value of R$3.5 billion. The company plans to finance the transaction with cash in hand, equity, and additional debt, which will deteriorate its credit metrics. + We're revising the outlook on our global scale corporate credit rating to negative from stable and maintaining the stable outlook on the national scale corporate credit rating on KOF. We're also affirming our 'A-' global scale and 'mxAAA' national scale corporate credit and debt ratings on the company. + The negative outlook reflects that following the completion of Vonpar's acquisition, KOF's metrics won't reach the established targets for our current financial risk profile assessment and incorporates the possibility that the planned deleveraging trend and credit metric improvement could take...

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