Coca-Cola Embonor S.A

What it is

Embonor produces and distributes Coca-Cola products in Chile and Bolivia under franchise from The Coca-Cola Company. Its brand portfolio includes Coca-Cola, Fanta, Sprite, Nordic Mist, Powerade, Quatro, Aquarius, Fuze Tea, Andina, and Kapo, among others.

Today the company serves 20 million people and operates across two countries, Chile and Bolivia. Beyond soft drinks, it also distributes spirits, wine, and beer through the same logistics network in Chile.

Who owns it

The Vicuña family of Chile is the controlling shareholder, with roughly 51% of the combined share capital. Insider holdings — predominantly the family — stand at 95.5% of the register, leaving only about 4.5% freely traded; institutional investors hold just over 3% (EODHD).

Earlier in its history, The Coca-Cola Company itself was a principal shareholder, alongside the Vicuña family’s investment vehicles. The Coca-Cola Company subsequently sold its equity stake — equivalent to 45.49% of the company — with the Vicuña family acquiring a significant portion of those shares.

The stock trades in two series: Series A shares elect six of the seven board directors, while Series B shares elect one director and carry a 5% dividend premium over Series A.

Who runs it

Andrés Vicuña García-Huidobro serves as Chairman of the Board — a member of the founding family now in his third decade of leadership at the company. Cristián Hohlberg Recabarren is the Corporate General Manager (CEO equivalent), a Commercial Engineer from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile with an MBA from the University of Notre Dame.

Anton Szafronov serves as Corporate Finance Manager (CFO equivalent), an economist with an ACCA qualification and an MBA from the Oxford Institute of International Finance.

The money, in plain words

Embonor turned in annual sales of CLP 1,330bn (~USD 1.47bn) in FY2025 — essentially flat against FY2024 after a strong 10.9% jump the prior year (our calculation). The profit line felt that pause: net profit fell 19% to CLP 60bn (~USD 66m), and it keeps about 5.4 cents of profit from every peso of sales — a net margin of 5.4%, respectable for a contract bottler but thinner than franchise owners in the same system.

For every peso shareholders have put in, the company earns about 12 back a year — a return on equity of 11.9%. At a price-to-earnings ratio of 9.6×, the market prices Embonor at a clear discount to global consumer peers, which typically trade above 20×; the compensation for patient holders is a dividend yield of 6.4%, among the higher payouts on the Santiago exchange.

The balance sheet held CLP 140bn (~USD 155m) in cash at end-FY2025, with no debt figure disclosed in the latest filing.

What it is doing now

For 2026, the company has announced a capital-investment plan of USD 80 million, directed at strengthening productive, logistics, and commercial capacity in Chile and Bolivia. The most visible recent project is Re-Ciclar: a bottle-to-bottle recycling plant, the first fully operational facility of its kind in Chile, built with a USD 35 million investment and capable of processing 350 million bottles a year.

Full-year 2025 volume reached 368.2 million unit cases, up just 0.1% on 2024, with Chile growing 2.5% while Bolivia fell 2.5%. Bolivia is the watchpoint: economic headwinds there pressured margins and drove the net-profit decline, even as Chile posted a volume record.

What to watch

• Bolivia’s recovery. The general manager noted that Bolivia showed an economic recovery in the second half of 2025; whether that momentum holds into 2026 will be decisive for the earnings rebound.
• Free-float constraint. With barely 4.5% of shares freely traded, the stock is illiquid by international standards — a risk for any investor needing to exit quickly, but also a reason the valuation may stay compressed.
• Input costs and FX. The company earns in Chilean pesos and Bolivian bolivianos but sources concentrate and packaging partly in dollars; peso weakness directly erodes reported margins.
• Franchise renewal. Embonor operates under a long-term relationship model with The Coca-Cola Company; the terms of that agreement underpin the entire business, so any renegotiation is a material event.

This is news, not investment advice.