Arca Continental, S.A.B. de C.V., also known as Arca Contal or Arca Continental, is a Mexican beverage manufacturing and distribution company headquartered in Monterrey, Mexico. It manufactures soft drinks of brands owned or licensed by The Coca-Cola Company in Northern and Western Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, Northern Argentina, and Southwestern United States. It is the second-largest Coca-Cola bottler in Latin America and the third largest in the world. Arca Continental reported revenues of US$4.6 billion for 2014. It operates bottling plants and distribution centers in Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, Argentina, and the United States. It also operates a snack business with plants and distribution centers in Mexico, the United States, and Ecuador. Arca Continental is listed on the Mexican Stock Exchange since 2001 and is a constituent of the IPC, the main benchmark index of Mexican stocks.
History
Origins
The origins of the company date back to the times of the Mexican Revolution, to the founding of three independent companies in different cities. In Monterrey, the sparkling water bottler Topo Chico Company started operations in 1908 and became the first Mexican bottler of The Coca-Cola Company in 1926; Procor became its holding company in 1980. In Saltillo, the ice producing company Arma was founded in 1918 and it also became a Coca-Cola bottler in 1926; Argos initiated the same activity in Ciudad Juarez in 1936.
Embotelladoras Arca
Embotelladoras Arca, S.A. de C.V. was created in 2001 as a merger of the three oldest bottlers in Mexico: Argos, Arma, and Procor. This merger created the second largest Coca-Cola bottler in Mexico. At that time, the company distributed its products in Northern Mexico.
Merger with Continental
In 2011, Embotelladoras Arca and Grupo Continental —a Coca-Cola bottler headquartered in Tampico, Tamaulipas— agreed to merge into Arca Continental. Estimates at the time of the merger suggested that sales would be about 1.2bn. Only Coca-Cola FEMSA was a larger bottler at the time of the merger.
Acquisitions
Embotelladoras Arca fuel its growth during the 2000s by acquiring companies in Mexico, Argentina, and Ecuador. In 2017, Arca announced the closing of a transaction with The Coca-Cola Company to acquire Great PlainsCoca-Cola Bottling Company, which operates in some areas of the Southwestern United States, including the State of Texas, and parts of Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arkansas. In May 2018, Arca announced the construction of the first new bottling plant in the United States in over a decade. The new $250 million plant will be 1 million sq. ft on a 140-acre site in Houston, Texas.
