Weekly Issue #7
Grupo Aeroportuario del Centro Norte (OMAB) — $103.03 at Friday’s close
In October 2023, Mexico’s civil aviation regulator cut the fee airports can charge every passenger, and the government layered on a new 9% charge on airport operators’ gross revenue. One stock fell harder than its two listed peers: it has no international airports to fall back on, so every peso of its revenue comes from inside Mexico.
In a single week, its US shares fell from about $95 to about $65 — roughly 32%.
Two years on, its revenue is higher than the year of the cut, and its return on equity has not dropped below 46% in any year since 2021. The regulator took a bite. The business kept the toll booth open.
A government can cut what you charge. It cannot open a second airport next door.
Who gains when factories move to Mexico?
Grupo Aeroportuario del Centro Norte (OMAB) holds 50-year concessions, from 1998, over 13 airports across northern and central Mexico — including Monterrey, the epicentre of the nearshoring wave pulling manufacturing out of Asia. AB Volvo just committed US$1 billion to a new truck plant nearby, starting production in 2026. Every worker, part and container that moves through that corridor is a reason to fly, and OMAB is the only company allowed to run the airport.
Look at passengers and the story is quiet: traffic grew 0.4% in the second quarter of 2026. Look at cargo, the part nearshoring actually moves first, and it isn’t: cargo revenue was up 29% the same quarter, and overall commercial revenue — the shops, parking and rent inside the terminals — grew 7%. The freight is arriving before the passengers do.
Grupo Aeroportuario del Centro Norte (OMAB) — $103.03 at the Sep 25 close, 24% off its 52-week high
| The check | Reading | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Price to earnings | 16.3× | ⚠ Just over Graham’s 15 |
| Price to book | 9.7× | ⚠ Far over Graham’s 1.5 |
| Return on equity | 47.4% | ✓ Explains the price, if it holds |
| Net debt to EBITDA | 1.05× | ✓ Modest leverage for infrastructure |
| Dividend yield (before 15% Mexican withholding) | 5.3% | ✓ Real income, taxed at the source |
| Interest coverage | 6.1× | ✓ The toll covers the borrowing comfortably |
Ratios from Financial Modeling Prep at the Sep 25, 2026 close — not app figures; the app runs on OMAB’s own filings, converted from pesos, and reads a little differently (see the Graham Number on OMAB’s page →). Analyst targets run from $110 to $270, consensus $159.75, all above today’s price.
What protects you here is the toll itself. Nobody can build a competing airport next to Monterrey’s, so when the government cut what OMAB may charge each passenger, it reduced the toll without ending it. That is why a company whose balance sheet reads as heavily borrowed has kept earning 46%+ on its equity through a government pay cut, a currency that swings, and a still-maturing traffic corridor. Graham’s balance-sheet tests were written for a wholesaler that could be wound up and sold off; they misread a concession, and the research page says so at the top of OMAB’s report.
What could break it
The concession has an expiry date. All 13 airports revert to the Mexican government in 2048. It can be extended up to 50 more years, but only if OMAB accepts whatever new terms the government attaches — not a formality, given what happened in 2023.
It already happened once. The regulator can revisit passenger fees again, and a second cut would not need a new law — just another review.
You own two currencies at once. The business earns pesos; the stock is quoted in US dollars. Management named currency swings as a live 2026 headwind, on top of whatever the peso does to you.
Priced for growth to keep working. Management’s own words on the Q2 2026 call: traffic “flat to low single digits.” At 16.3× earnings and 9.7× book, that leaves little room for the number to come in lighter still.
Half its traffic rides on one airline. Viva Aerobus carries about half of all passengers through OMAB’s airports; Viva’s own growth slowed in the quarter.
Skin in the game
I own OMAB.
Which account?
This one runs backwards from the usual advice. A US dividend payer belongs in an RRSP, which is exempt from US withholding by treaty. Mexico has no such carve-out: its 15% withholding on your dividend applies inside a TFSA and an RRSP exactly as it would in a taxable account — there is nothing to shelter, because the tax is already gone before the account matters. A non-registered account is the only one where you can claim that 15% back as a foreign tax credit against what you owe Canada.
The workfile
Everything above is the short version. The full write-up has every valuation tool my app runs on OMAB, the 2023 regulatory shock in full, the concession’s fine print, and the airports and banks I considered instead. It is in this week’s workfile →
New in the app
Everything is free now. There is no more Pro tier. Every stock and fund the app covers — over 6,500 stocks, over 8,500 funds — is open to any free account: full research, the screener, your watchlist and alerts, portfolio tracking, client tools, all of it, no card. The book is still sold separately; the app never was going to be.
The rules, in writing. Every price dated, whether I own the stock, no buying ahead of the letter, and corrections in the next one, all on the standards page.
Curtis Travis is a retired AACI appraiser (B.Comm) and founder of Travis Valuation. He owns shares of OMAB, Lennar, Amazon, Walmart, Costco, TD, Scotiabank, Dick’s and Berkshire Hathaway, all named above or in past issues. Scorecard, price history and analyst targets are from Financial Modeling Prep, as of the Sep 25, 2026 close — not figures the Travis Valuation app carries; the app runs on OMAB’s own SEC filings alone, converted from pesos at the Bank of Canada’s rate. The October 2023 regulatory action and its market reaction are from Mexico Business News and OMA’s own investor-relations disclosures; the concession term is from OMA’s regulatory framework page; the withholding rate is Article 10 of the Canada-Mexico tax treaty. Prices move. Informational only — not a recommendation, and not tax advice. Do your own diligence.