Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico Earnings Fly On Recovery Fueled Travel Demand

© Reuters. GAP ADR Earnings, Revenue Beat in Q3

by Daniel Shvartsman

Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico SAB De CV ADR (NYSE:PAC) reported on Thursday third quarter earnings that beat analysts' forecasts and revenue that topped expectations.

GAP ADR announced earnings per ADS share of $1.71 on revenue of $262.14M. Analysts polled by Investing.com anticipated EPS of $1.3 on revenue of $252.96M.

The growth was unsurprisingly high from 2020, as aeronautical and non-aeronautical services revenue increased 121% on a peso basis from the year prior, and total revenue increased 72.5%. A bigger sign of the recovery is that total revenue was 22.6% from Q3 2019, with EBITDA up 27% from 2019 and EBITDA margin up to 71.3% from 69.5% in 2019, suggesting pent-up demand after 2020's travel restrictions.

Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacífico pointed out that passenger traffic is still down 16.1% from 2019 as there are continued restrictions to international travel, but cited Canada reopening to non-essential travel in September and the U.S.A. “gradually reopening land-border crossings to fully vaccinated individuals,” which could help the company’s cross-border Tijuana airport.

The company bought back Ps 1,151.3M of shares in Q3, paid down Ps 1.5B in debt from proceeds of a debt offering in Q2, and paid a capital reduction dividend of ps 7.8/share, equivalent to $3.82/share on the US-traded ADS shares.

Other publicly-traded Mexican airport companies reported earnings this week as well, including Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste SAB de CV ADR (NYSE:ASR) and Grupo Aeroportuario del Centro Norte SAB de CV (NASDAQ:OMAB). ASR, which like PAC is more exposed to tourism, saw passenger traffic down only 1.4% from Q3 2019 as air traffic to/from their San Juan, Puerto Rico airport grew 16.3% from those pre-pandemic levels. ASR’s revenue rose 18.5% vs. 2019, or 11.2% if excluding construction revenues, and the company’s EBITDA rose 17.7% from 2019. ASR has traded mostly flat since its earnings.

OMAB, which is more exposed to the industrial sector and inter-Americas trade, saw revenues rise 10.3% from Q3 2019, or .2% when excluding construction revenues. OMAB’s earnings per ADS were $.81/share, down from $.89 in 2019, though EBITDA was up 1.6%. OMAB’s shares traded down .5% yesterday after the report.

Aena SME SA (MC:AENA), a 5% owner of GAP, reports earnings on Friday at 13:00 Central European time. Analysts polled by investing.com expect earnings of .57/share with revenue of 870.58M. Aena has beaten revenue expectations through the pandemic, and beat earnings numbers last quarter.