Earnings call transcript: Kimberly-Clark de México Q3 2025 sees stable margins, innovation drive

Kimberly-Clark de México reported its Q3 2025 earnings, revealing a 2% increase in net sales to 13.4 billion pesos. Despite a 4% decline in operating profit, the company maintained a steady gross profit margin of 38.7%. Earnings per share stood at $0.56. The stock price remained stable, with a marginal increase of 0.03%. According to InvestingPro analysis, the company appears undervalued based on its Fair Value calculations, with the stock showing impressive year-to-date returns of 27.62%.

Key Takeaways

• Net sales increased by 2% year-over-year to 13.4 billion pesos.
• Operating profit decreased by 4%, with a margin of 21.3%.
• Earnings per share were reported at $0.56.
• Innovation continues to be a focus, with new product improvements and launches.
• The company repurchased approximately 50 million shares, representing 1.5% of outstanding shares.

Company Performance

Kimberly-Clark de México’s performance in Q3 2025 showed resilience amid a challenging economic environment. The company managed to increase its net sales by 2% compared to the same quarter last year, despite a decrease in operating profit. The focus on innovation and strategic pricing helped maintain stable market shares across most product categories. The company also saw growth in its diaper, napkins, and kitchen towel segments.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: 13.4 billion pesos, a 2% increase year-over-year.
• Earnings per share: $0.56.
• Gross profit margin: 38.7%, unchanged from the previous period.
• Operating profit: Decreased by 4% to a 21.3% margin.
• EBITDA: 3.4 billion pesos, a 3% decrease.
• Net income: 1.7 billion pesos.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking ahead, Kimberly-Clark de México anticipates several tailwinds, including lower pulp prices and a stronger peso in the first half of 2026. The company projects economic growth of 1.5-2% and plans to continue its focus on innovation and strategic pricing. Capital expenditures are expected to be around $120 million, with potential capacity expansion if export opportunities arise.

Executive Commentary

Pablo González, CEO of Kimberly-Clark de México, emphasized the company’s commitment to innovation and its strategic approach to navigating a soft consumer backdrop. "We continue to operate against a soft consumer backdrop, but we managed to increase sales and post EBITDA margin within the target range," he stated. González also expressed optimism about future margins, saying, "We probably have hit rock bottom. Going forward, we should expect better margins, no doubt."

Risks and Challenges

• Soft consumer demand and job growth deceleration could impact future sales.
• Increasing penetration of private label products may pressure market share.
• Rising costs of goods sold, which increased by 3%, could affect profitability.
• Economic uncertainties and remittance slowdowns pose potential risks.
• Consumer bifurcation with trade-down trends in the economy segment.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about consumer sentiment and the company’s pricing strategies. The management discussed the export mix, noting that 46% consisted of hard rolls and 54% of finished products. They also addressed potential capacity utilization for exports and confirmed expectations of margin improvement.

Full transcript - Kimberly Clark De Mexico A (KIMBERA) Q3 2025:

Conference Operator: Good day, everyone, and welcome to Kimberly-Clark de México Third Quarter 2025 Results. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, you will have an opportunity to ask questions during the question and answer session. You may register to ask questions by pressing the star and one on your telephone keypad. You may withdraw your question from the queue by pressing star two. Please note this call is being recorded, and I will be standing by should you need any assistance. It is now my pleasure to turn the conference over to CEO Pablo González. Please go ahead.

Pablo González, CEO, Kimberly-Clark de México: Hello, everyone. Hope you’re doing well, and thanks for participating on the call. We’ll go straight to results, and then we’ll make some brief comments about the quarter and our expectations going forward. Javier?

Javier, CFO, Kimberly-Clark de México: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Results for the quarter were better, with net sales growing and gross and operating profits recovering. During the quarter, our sales were $13.4 billion pesos, a 2% increase versus last year. Hard-rolled sales impacted total volume, which was flat, and price mix was up 2%. Consumer products grew 5%, 1% volume and 4% price mix, while away from home remained flat. Export sales were down 15%, impacted by a 32% decrease in hard-rolled sales, while finished product exports grew 7%. Cost of goods sold increased 3%. Against last year, SAM, resins, and virgin fibers were favorable. Recycled fibers were mixed, while fluff compared negatively. The FX was slightly lower, averaging 1% less.

During the quarter, our cost of goods sold reflected the higher prices of raw materials from prior months and, very significantly, the much higher FX, including the hedges, as those trickled down the inventory layers. Our cost reduction program, once again, had very good results and yielded approximately $500 million pesos of savings in the quarter. These savings are mainly at the cost of goods sold level and are generated by sourcing, materials improvement, and process efficiencies. Gross profit was flat, and margin was 38.7% for the quarter. SG&A expenses were 4% higher year over year, and as a percentage of sales, were up 30 basis points as we continued to invest behind our brands. Operating profit decreased 4%, and the operating margin was 21.3%. We generated $3.4 billion pesos of EBITDA, a 3% decrease, but within our long-term margin range at 25%.

As mentioned, the benefits of better raw material prices and a stronger peso take time to show up on the actual cost of goods sold, due not only to inventories, but also to contracts, transit time, and, particularly in this case, the currency hedges. Having said that, our gross profit margin did improve 50 basis points sequentially from the second quarter to the third quarter. That improvement does not go down to the operating profit or EBITDA level because the SG&A remained constant and was, therefore, higher as a percentage of sales because the third quarter sales are traditionally lower than the second quarter sales. Cost of financing was $404 million pesos in the third quarter compared to $287 million pesos in the same period last year.

Net interest expense was higher at $401 million pesos versus $290 million last year, despite our lower gross debt because we earned less on our cash investments. During the quarter, we had a $3 million FX loss, which compares to a $4 million gain last year. Net income for the quarter was $1.7 billion, with earnings per share of $0.56. We maintain a very strong and healthy balance sheet. Cash position as of September 30 was $11 billion. We have no debt maturing for the rest of the year, and maturities for the coming years are very comfortable. Net debt to EBITDA ratio is 1 time, and EBITDA to net interest coverage is 10 times. Over the last four months, we have repurchased close to 50 million shares, around 1.5% of shares outstanding, which brings the total payout to shareholders to approximately 7%. I turn it back to Pablo.

Thank you. We continue to operate against a soft consumer backdrop, but we managed to increase sales and post EBITDA margin within the target range. Growth in consumer products was significantly better, supported by innovations and commercial initiatives, together with a strategic decision to reduce spending during the heavy summer promotional season to protect the value of our brands, as well as reduce the negative price effects. Volume was slightly ahead of last year, an important improvement, but consumers remain stretched and cautious given the increased uncertainty: job growth deceleration, remittances slowdown, and overall lack of economic growth. We see no significant catalysts for this to change in the short term and are strengthening strategies accordingly.

Still, more relevant and differentiated innovation, more effective engagement with consumers, efficient execution hand in hand with our clients, and importantly, relentless focus on our most important opportunities by category, channel, and brands will guide all our actions. In a market that’s not growing much, gaining share and playing in areas where we haven’t participated, at least not aggressively, will be key to accelerate our growth. We look forward to sharing more details on the strategies as we get into 2026. The same holds true for away from home business, and we expect exports of finished products to continue to grow and accelerate in the coming years behind a concerted effort with our partner, Kimberly-Clark Corporation. With respect to costs, we have yet to see the full effect of lower input prices on results and lower sequential volumes typical of the third quarter meant we had weaker operating leverage.

Despite these headwinds, margins remain strong. As we get into the final stretch of the year, and particularly into next year, we will see lower costs reflected in our numbers. We expect lower pulp prices, stable recycled fibers, lower resins and superabsorbent materials, plus a stronger peso to be tailwinds going forward. In summary, our results continue to improve, and despite an expected continued weak consumer environment, we are executing strategies that will translate into stronger results in 2026 and the years to come. With that, let’s turn to your questions.

Conference Operator: Thank you. At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press the star and one on your telephone keypad. You may withdraw your question by pressing star two. Once again, to ask a question, please press the star and one on your telephone keypad. We’ll take our first question from Ben Theurer with Barclays. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Ben Theurer, Analyst, Barclays: Good morning, Pablo, Javier. Thank you very much for taking my questions. Congrats on the result despite the challenging environment. I wanted to follow up a little bit on just the consumer sentiment and what you’ve been seeing across the different categories. Maybe help us understand and kind of like getting a bit closer into that 4% price mix change. How were you able to kind of like implement that and at the same time actually get about a 1% volume growth, just given the consumer’s weak, but it felt like a very good execution on price mix with volume growth? That would be my first question.

Pablo González, CEO, Kimberly-Clark de México: Sure. Thanks for the question. Look, as I mentioned, we see a stretched consumer. This is not news to you, but there’s a lot of uncertainty. As I mentioned, job growth has decelerated. Remittances have slowed down. Overall, the economy is pretty slow, and consumers’ sentiment is not at its best, if you will. Consumers are being very careful in how they are spending. We do see a fork, if you will, with consumers that continue to spend on premium products, but there are those who are trending down from value to economy products, not at a very marked rate, but there’s certainly something happening there given how the consumer is stretched. The way we were able to put all of this together, and let me say, by the way, the growth in our categories is pretty muted.

Some of them, the categories that don’t have such high penetration like kitchen towels and others, are growing at higher rates, but even those, the rates have slowed down a little bit. The more, if you will, mature categories are flat or slightly growing when it comes to volume. What we did is, one, remember we decided not to play as aggressively on the summer promotional season because what we were seeing over the past couple of years is that when you did that, the price would take a hit not only within the promotional season, but then beyond that because consumers ended up with some inventory on their hands. It was a little harder to move volumes forth. We were very careful on how we managed that, and I think we were successful in doing so.

Plus, the fact that we are, through our revenue growth management capabilities, found certain instances where we could adjust pricing and move forth. That’s how we were able to keep prices going. Volume really helped because of innovation and all of our commercial activities during the third quarter. It was really a combination of executing on price and innovations that allowed us to put together both growth in price and, for the first quarter in the year, growth in volume.

Ben Theurer, Analyst, Barclays: Okay. Just one quick follow-up. You’ve called out the softer hard-roll sales volume. Was there a technical issue? Is it a demand issue on the export side? What’s been driving that?

Pablo González, CEO, Kimberly-Clark de México: Really, I think what’s happening there is that there’s a lot of supply of hard rolls in the U.S., a combination of companies with excess capacity sending it to the U.S., and then maybe a little bit of companies buying before some of the tariffs came into effect. There’s paper out there that I think the system’s going through, and hopefully, that’ll become more normalized, if you will, in the fourth quarter. I think by the first quarter of next year. Overall, just oversupply in the market of hard rolls in the U.S.

Ben Theurer, Analyst, Barclays: Okay. Understood. Thank you very much. I’ll pass it on.

Pablo González, CEO, Kimberly-Clark de México: Thank you.

Conference Operator: Thank you. We will move next with Bob Ford with Bank of America. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Bob Ford, Analyst, Bank of America: Thank you so much. Good morning, everybody. Pablo, I also was impressed by the growth in consumer given your intent to stay away from some of the summer promotions. Can you give some examples maybe of some of the more successful innovation and execution of efforts that are enabling you to improve pricing and take share? With respect to the export mix between hard rolls and finished product, can you give us a sense both in volume and value in terms of the breakdown of those exports? How should we think about current capacity utilization rates for both pulp and finished product? Thank you.

Pablo González, CEO, Kimberly-Clark de México: Thanks, Bob. Thanks for your question. Yeah. Look, I mean, when it comes to innovation, as I mentioned earlier in the year, we have strong innovations for all of our categories throughout the year. By the way, we have a very, very strong pipeline for the coming year. We’re very excited about that. A couple of particular examples are on the diaper front where we pretty much improved on every single tier of our offerings. When you take a look at our shares, even though the category’s, as I said, pretty flat, we’re gaining share in pretty much all of the channels and all of the tiers given the innovations that we were able to put into the market. Those have to do with better absorbency core, better fit, better stretch, better softness. Depending on the tier, again, we improved every single one of them.

That’s a category where we see our shares improving nicely. Also, for example, in bathroom tissue in the premium tier where we’ve introduced a couple of new features and new sub-brands under Kleenex Cottonelle. We’re absolutely convinced we have the best product in market and products that can compete with products anywhere in the world. They’ve been very, very well received by consumers. We also made some innovations to our economic product, particularly Vogue in the wholesale channel. We’ve been able to gain ground with that product consistently and significantly. Innovation is at the core of everything we do and we’re very, very excited with what we see for the coming years when it comes to innovation. With respect to the breakdown of our exports, hard-roll sales represent 46% of the sales and finished product 54%. Hard rolls, as I mentioned, hopefully, volumes will stabilize here in the coming quarters.

We expect that to continue to be, hopefully, a tailwind and, if not, certainly not a headwind going forward. On the finished product, we’re excited. We’ve had a couple of meetings with our partner, and we’re looking at opportunities in the coming years to further integrate our supply chain. We’ve done a good job here in the past couple of years, but there are many more things that we can do. We’re working very closely together to make that happen. We’re excited with the opportunities we see forth. As we move and are able to turn more of our capacity into finished product, then certainly our hard-roll sales will decline accordingly because, as you know, what we do is our excess capacity is what we turn into hard-roll sales and sell outside.

As these plans with our partner materialize, little by little, we’ll start to see lower hard-roll sales, but finished product sales increase, hopefully, significantly.

Bob Ford, Analyst, Bank of America: Yeah, that was actually the idea behind the question on capacity utilization. We agree. We see this massive opportunity in exports of finished product. As a result, we’re a little curious in terms of where you are right now in terms of capacity utilization both for pulp and then how should we think about where you are today on finished product. We can make some estimates in terms of what you need to add.

Pablo González, CEO, Kimberly-Clark de México: Yeah. It’s a great question, Bob. Let me put it this way. We have enough capacity to grow on finished products aggressively together with our partner in the coming years. Not only what we’re producing right now, but we’re putting plans together so that we can get more throughput through our equipment or through our machines. We will be able to support growth with them. I think we will still continue to be able to put a decent amount of hard-roll sales out there in the U.S. I think the combination over the coming years will certainly support our growth and support our margins going forward.

Bob Ford, Analyst, Bank of America: That’s great to hear. Thank you so much.

Pablo González, CEO, Kimberly-Clark de México: Thank you, Bob.

Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Alejandro Fuchs with Itaú. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Alejandro Fuchs, Analyst, Itaú: Yes. Thank you, operator. Good morning, Pablo, Javier. Thank you for the first two questions. I have two very quick ones. Pablo, maybe I want to see if you can discuss a little bit about competition, right? How do you see competition today in Mexico, given the increasing price and sales mix? Are maybe the competitors following? Are they being more aggressive promotionally? If you can also discuss maybe your expectations into next year, hopefully, with a better consumer environment in the country, maybe you can talk to us about what you expect going forward. Thank you.

Pablo González, CEO, Kimberly-Clark de México: Sure, Alejandro. Look, when it comes to competition, I mean, you know our categories have always been very, very competitive. We maybe are seeing a little bit more from some participants, not all, when it comes to their promotional aggressiveness. I wouldn’t say it’s something that is radically different, but a little bit more as, again, the pie is not growing. Some are losing share. They’re trying to recoup some of that and are being a little bit more aggressive on it. Not, again, not something that is too surprising or too different from other instances. The fact also that our retailers are, one, continuing to keep inventories and overall working capital under control. They’re putting a lot of pressure on that, and, two, trying to keep prices, it seems to me, a little bit more consistent.

All that helps in terms of the aggressiveness of promotions not being even more so than it could have been in other instances when the economy is not growing. A little bit more, but really nothing marked, if you will. Coming into next year, we hope that a lot of the, or at least some of the uncertainty that is hanging over the economy can be resolved, or at least we get a clear direction as to where it’s going. Certainly, the uncertainty that’s coming from the USMCA revision or renegotiation and what will happen with that. I mean, you’ve heard, we’ve heard that in a couple of weeks, we’ll be hearing from our government as to some of the agreements they’ve come to with the U.S. administration. Hopefully, that’ll start to settle down, and we’ll know a little bit better where it heads.

Hopefully, as we get into the first or the workings of the judicial reform, we start to see how it works, and we start to see some decisions that support, again, giving more certainty to investment. Hopefully, some of this uncertainty starts to play out, and we start to get a better sense of what’s going on. We know then what to expect. If that happens, I think the economy will be able to start growing again at a faster clip, maybe come back to what we were doing before all of this uncertainty, about a 1.5%, 2% rate, which as it stands would be pretty good. Not what we need, certainly, as a country. We really should be working hard to take all of the obstacles away from investments so that we can start growing at 3% or higher rates.

That’s going to take some time, and certainty is key for that. That’ll hopefully play out by 2027, but at least by 2026, if we can get some uncertainty out, we’ll see greater economic growth, and then we might see a consumer that feels a little bit better about things, and then domestic consumption can start to pick up again. That’s our expectation, but let’s see how quickly it unravels and happens.

Alejandro Fuchs, Analyst, Itaú: Yes, thank you very much, Pablo.

Pablo González, CEO, Kimberly-Clark de México: Thank you.

Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Renata Cabral with Citibank. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Renata Cabral, Analyst, Citibank: Hi. Good morning, everyone. Thank you so much for taking my questions and congrats on the results. My first question is still about the consumer environment, specifically to understand if consumers are making the trade-offs and if you see a bigger penetration of private label in the categories that the company has. The second question is related to cost. In the initial remarks, I understood that the company expects that the raw material prices should maintain a big negative for the upcoming months. I would like just to confirm if that’s the view. For the fourth quarter, if the company has any hedges for the effects. Thank you so much.

Pablo González, CEO, Kimberly-Clark de México: Sure. Thanks, Renata. I hope I can answer your questions. You were not coming through too clearly, but if I don’t, please let me know. When it comes to consumers, we’re seeing a divergence. Those that buy premium products continue to do so. Those consumers that are used to buy either value or economy products, we see a little bit of trade down to the economy segment. Not a big trade down, but a little bit of trade down given how stretched they are. Tied to that, we are also seeing growth in penetration of private label in the country. It’s a combination of the economic situation and retailers being a little bit more aggressive when it comes to pushing their private label. When it comes to costs, we already have seen in our purchases lower costs of most of our raw materials, excluding fluff.

That’s just taking a little bit of time to reflect on our cost of goods sold, but we expect that to continue to start to happen certainly in the fourth quarter and no doubt early in 2026. Our expectations for costs in 2026 is that we will come in with, again, most of them on a downward trend. That will certainly be tailwinds for our costs together with the exchange rate, which will compare very favorably in the first half of the year. That should be very, very helpful going forward. When it comes to hedges, no, we have no more hedges during this quarter, and we don’t expect to hedge going forward.

Renata Cabral, Analyst, Citibank: Thank you so much. That was very clear.

Pablo González, CEO, Kimberly-Clark de México: Thank you.

Conference Operator: Thank you. We will move next with Antonio Hernandez with Akinver. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Alejandro Fuchs, Analyst, Itaú: Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking our question. Just following up on Renata’s question, should we expect, given that because of the tailwinds from FX and maybe raw materials and so on, that maybe even the margin, at least in the short term, has already hit rock bottom? Is that like you see basically upside going forward? Thanks.

Pablo González, CEO, Kimberly-Clark de México: Absolutely. It’s interesting how you put it, rock bottom, when it’s 25%, and it’s still one of the best EBITDA margins out there for any consumer products company in the world. We probably have hit rock bottom. Going forward, we should expect better margins, no doubt.

Alejandro Fuchs, Analyst, Itaú: Exactly. Yeah, I mean, rock bottom considering the 25% to 27%.

Pablo González, CEO, Kimberly-Clark de México: Yeah, I understand. I just used it to make a point. Sorry.

Alejandro Fuchs, Analyst, Itaú: Exactly. It’s all relative in the end, but yes, pretty good margin. Just a quick follow-up. In terms of innovation and how you’re also treating these consumers that are willing to buy these premium products, maybe you could, if you could provide any color on how much do they represent or innovation in terms of sales, anything like that would be helpful. Thanks.

Pablo González, CEO, Kimberly-Clark de México: I think most of our growth really is coming from products where we’ve innovated. We’re very, very excited with what we’ve done, but even more so with what we have coming. Early in 2026, we hope to share a little bit more of our strategies when it comes to main areas of focus and opportunities by category, channel, and brands, and also what we see would be some of the very exciting innovations that we’re going to be putting into the market. Let’s hold on that till the first quarter of 2026, and we’ll be able to provide you more insight and details into what it’s done and how we expect it to contribute to our growth going forward.

Alejandro Fuchs, Analyst, Itaú: Okay. Excellent. Thanks. Have a nice day.

Pablo González, CEO, Kimberly-Clark de México: Thank you. Appreciate it.

Conference Operator: Thank you. As a reminder, that is star and one if you would like to join the queue. We will move next with Jeronimo de Guzman with INCA Investments. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Bob Ford, Analyst, Bank of America: Hi. Good morning. I’ll start with a follow-up on the cost side. You mentioned that there’s no hedges impacting the fourth quarter, but I just wanted to understand how much did the FX hedges impact the third quarter?

Pablo González, CEO, Kimberly-Clark de México: I would probably say they did impact about 50% of our purchases for the second quarter and for the first part of the third quarter. Assuming that what we sold in the third quarter was mostly based on those purchases, you could say that approximately 50% of our dollar-denominated purchases were impacted by those hedges in the quarter. I don’t know if that made sense.

Bob Ford, Analyst, Bank of America: Only for half of the third quarter? So 25% of the?

Pablo González, CEO, Kimberly-Clark de México: Yes, because for the full quarter, about 50% of our U.S. dollar purchases, which are about 50% of our costs, were hedged.

Bob Ford, Analyst, Bank of America: Got it. Okay. What was the average FX for those hedges?

Pablo González, CEO, Kimberly-Clark de México: 2070.

Bob Ford, Analyst, Bank of America: Okay.

Pablo González, CEO, Kimberly-Clark de México: 2070 something.

Bob Ford, Analyst, Bank of America: That’ll be a big improvement. I just wanted to understand, given the much better cost outlook and the fact that these hedges are less of a headwind going forward or are not a headwind going forward, how are you thinking about pricing going forward?

Pablo González, CEO, Kimberly-Clark de México: Look, we continue to take a very close look at each category and each tier and each channel to see where there are opportunities for pricing. Because, yeah, we see tailwinds when it comes to costs of raw materials, we see headwinds in other costs, for example, in labor costs, which have been increasing in Mexico for quite some years. When you compound their impact over the years, it’s becoming a little bit more impactful, if you will, and some other issues. Plus, we want to continue to generate important margins and profits so that we can further invest behind our brands.

Pricing will not be as maybe in the past where you would just go, "We’re going to increase 4% in the diaper category in March and period." It’s going to be more of a strategic analysis, again, by tier, by channel, etc., to determine where the opportunities are, together with a very important push behind mix for our brands given the innovation we have. We will continue to look for opportunities to price and opportunities to improve our mix going forward.

Bob Ford, Analyst, Bank of America: Okay. Yeah, that’s helpful. The 4% that you had this quarter year on year, how much of that was mix versus actual price changes? Was it just less promotions versus the year ago, which is kind of a factor?

Pablo González, CEO, Kimberly-Clark de México: It was about half and half. It was about two price, two mix.

Bob Ford, Analyst, Bank of America: Okay. Got it. Great. Just one other question on the competitive environment. Wanted to get your sense on market share trends in general, kind of where in what areas are you seeing maybe more pressure on the market share side and where you’re seeing more of the market share gains that you’re having?

Pablo González, CEO, Kimberly-Clark de México: Overall, I think we have very stable market shares, maybe except in diapers, as I mentioned, we see that share growing. When you take a look at bathroom tissue, we’re fairly stable. Napkins, we’re growing share. Kitchen towels, we’re growing share. Wipes, we’re growing a little bit on value, not on volume. That is a category where we have lost a little bit of ground to not only private label, but a whole bunch of offerings coming from Asia and other parts of the world at very cheap prices. We have plans to attack there and recoup some of the share. I would say about that, I mean, facial tissue is flat at about 92%. Our shares are pretty stable overall.

Bob Ford, Analyst, Bank of America: Okay. Sorry. One more question on the new JV, the pet nutrition. Any updates on that?

Pablo González, CEO, Kimberly-Clark de México: On what? Sorry.

Bob Ford, Analyst, Bank of America: The new business, the pet food, the animals.

Pablo González, CEO, Kimberly-Clark de México: Oh, yeah.

Bob Ford, Analyst, Bank of America: Yeah.

Pablo González, CEO, Kimberly-Clark de México: Pet business. No, no, thanks for the question. We continue to make inroads. We’re getting cataloged in more retail chains and improving our reach within them, getting more SKUs in there and getting into more stores. The consumer reaction so far has been very, very good. The retail reaction has also been good. Right on track where we wanted to be, and hopefully, that will accelerate in 2026. This is a long-term play, but we absolutely should see this business accelerate in 2026.

Bob Ford, Analyst, Bank of America: Great. Sounds good. Thank you.

Pablo González, CEO, Kimberly-Clark de México: Thank you.

Conference Operator: Thank you. We will move next with Miguel Ulloa with BBVA. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Miguel Ulloa, Analyst, BBVA: Hi. Thanks for taking my question. It would be regarding the capital expenditures for next year and any changes in the repurchase program. Thank you very much.

Pablo González, CEO, Kimberly-Clark de México: Hello, Miguel. CapEx will remain very likely in the $120 million range. Could be a little bit more if some of the opportunities for exports capitalize, but nothing that would change significantly the capital allocation. For buybacks, this year, we will complete our $1.5 billion program. Still too early to talk about next year. We will definitely have retained earnings from the net income this year to grow the dividend. As usual, whatever we have left, we will devote to buybacks. We will have to see after we end the year.

Miguel Ulloa, Analyst, BBVA: Thanks. That’s helpful. Just one, if I may, is regarding further investments or big investments in line for capacity in coming years.

Pablo González, CEO, Kimberly-Clark de México: Right now, it doesn’t look like we need to do anything beyond that $120 million average capital expenditures. If we see more opportunities, we could see a couple of years of ramp-up. Even if at some point we need a tissue capacity, which at this point it doesn’t look like, but hopefully that changes, we would see a couple of years of $150 million, maybe somewhere around that. Nothing that should change significantly the capital allocation.

Miguel Ulloa, Analyst, BBVA: Thank you very much.

Pablo González, CEO, Kimberly-Clark de México: You’re welcome.

Conference Operator: Thank you. This concludes our Q&A session. I will now turn the call over to Pablo González for closing remarks.

Pablo González, CEO, Kimberly-Clark de México: Thank you. Nothing else to say. Just thanks for participating in the call. I hope you all have a terrific weekend. Since this is our last call before the year-end, I know it’s early, but I hope you all have happy holidays and a terrific New Year’s. I look forward to talking to you early in 2026. Thank you.

Conference Operator: Thank you. This does conclude today’s program. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at any time.

This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.