MONTERREY, Mexico -- With Japanese retailer FamilyMart in the process of shutting down its Famima!! convenience stores and Tesco’s foray fading from memory after the British retailer sold its small-format Fresh & Easy grocery stores, the current trend of foreign companies planting new U.S. convenience-store flags is downward. One exception appears to be Fomento Económico Mexicano SAB de CV (FEMSA), owner of the OXXO chain of convenience stores in Mexico.
A new technology deal may be an indication that the foreign retailer is getting ready to execute a major plan to enter the United States that it has only hinted at so far.
Monterrey, Mexico-based FEMSA operates in the beverage industry through Coca-Cola FEMSA, the largest franchise bottler of Coca-Cola products in the world; and in the beer industry, through its ownership of the second largest equity stake in Heineken. In the retail industry, it participates with FEMSA Comercio SA de CV, operating various small-format store chains including OXXO, which has approximately 12,400 c-stores in Mexico and Central America.
FEMSA Comercio operates several small-format retail chains in Mexico, Chile and Colombia, including OXXO; Yza, Moderna, Farmacon and Cruz Verde drugstores and Maicao beauty stores. In addition, it operates OXXO gas stations and Doña Tota quick-service restaurants (QSRs).
FEMSA now operates two “proof-of-concept” convenience stores in Texas, one in Eagle Pass, which it opened in 2014, and one in Laredo, which it opened in 2015.
Company executives earlier this year said they want to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to open hundreds of convenience stores in Texas, contingent upon changes to alcoholic beverage laws in the state that prohibit retailers of alcohol from being owned by firms with ties to the liquor industry.
“At FEMSA and FEMSA Comercio, we are constantly analyzing the different opportunities that may be available for our businesses, including within the Texas market,” the company said in a filing with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC).
“We have requested the appropriate governmental authorities for an authorization to sell alcoholic beverage products in small-format retail stores in Texas, [and that] request is currently being reviewed by the courts of Texas,” it said. “We have also presented our arguments to legislative and executive bodies for them to consider an amendment to the law that would more clearly allow FEMSA Comercio to sell alcoholic beverages in Texas than present law. If these efforts are successful, and provided that the economic and regulatory environment permits it, FEMSA Comercio estimates that in the first 10 years, approximately USD$850 million could be invested by the company for the opening of 900 retail stores in Texas.”
And now in what could be an indication that the company is, in fact, moving forward with the U.S. plan, LivePOS, an San Diego-based enterprise cloud point-of-sale (POS) provider, said it has forged a deal for its technology platform to power the registers in OXXO’s new stores in America.
“We welcome OXXO into the LivePOS family,” Liad Biton, CEO of LivePOS, said.
FEMSA has not announced the deal with LivePOS, and attempts to reach FEMSA were unsuccessful by posting time.
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