Grupo Aeroportuario (OMAB): the airports the market ignores
2026-07-06 · By Lubin Danilo, founder of Lubin Investment
OMAB: see the full analysis on Lubin Investment
Grupo Aeroportuario del Centro Norte operates thirteen Mexican airports under a fifty year public concession, including Monterrey. Our method gives it the maximum score: 33.5% profitability, steady growth, controlled debt. Yet the stock trades at only 0.7 times its annual cash flow, a level rarely seen on a business of this quality.
- Grupo Aeroportuario del Centro Norte (brand OMA, ticker OMAB) operates 13 airports in northern and central Mexico, including Monterrey, under a public concession granted in 1998 and running until 2048.
- Our method gives it the maximum score, 10 out of 10: 33.5% profitability, 29.9% return on invested capital, 10.2% annual sales growth, controlled debt.
- The stock trades at only 0.7 times its annual free cash flow, an extremely low level for such a profitable regulated business.
- Since December 2022, VINCI Airports, the world's largest private airport operator, has been its anchor shareholder.
- The real risk isn't the airport business itself, it's the country: currency (the Mexican peso), tariff regulation, and part of the traffic exposed to tourism.
What Grupo Aeroportuario del Centro Norte actually does
Grupo Aeroportuario del Centro Norte, known under the OMA brand, operates thirteen airports across northern and central Mexico. The largest is Monterrey, one of the country's biggest industrial metro areas, which alone accounts for more than half of the group's passenger traffic. Next come tourist destinations like Acapulco, Mazatlán, and Zihuatanejo, seven regional airports, and two border cities with the United States, Ciudad Juárez and Reynosa. Those last two directly benefit from nearshoring: companies relocating part of their manufacturing from Asia to northern Mexico to be closer to the US market, which fuels business and cargo air traffic in those regions.
The moat: a monopoly granted by law, not earned in the market
A moat is what protects a business from a competitor eating into its market share. In most industries it comes from a brand, a patent, or a network effect. Here it comes directly from the law: in 1998, the Mexican government granted OMA a fifty year concession to operate these thirteen airports, running until 2048 and renewable afterward. In practice, nobody can build a competing airport next to Monterrey to steal its customers. It's a local monopoly on every market it serves, guaranteed by contract with the state, one of the strongest moats that exist, with one trade off: the fees the airport can charge airlines are themselves capped by the regulator.
Profitability that few listed companies reach
Financially, OMA passes all ten of my method's criteria: 33.5% net profitability, a 45.6% cash profitability margin, a 29.9% return on invested capital (the cash generated by every dollar reinvested into the business), and sales growing 10.2% a year. In the third quarter of 2025, adjusted EBITDA margin (operating profit before depreciation, as a share of revenue) reached 74.8%. In plain terms, out of every 100 pesos of revenue, nearly 75 turn into operating profit before investment, a level very few industrial or transport businesses reach. Earnings convert into cash at a ratio of 1.36, meaning the cash generated even exceeds accounting profit, a sign of high quality, since cash is harder to dress up than net income.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Quality score (Lubin method) | 10 out of 10 |
| Valuation (P/FCF) | 0.7x annual cash flow |
| Net profitability | 33.5% |
| Return on invested capital | 29.9% |
| Sales growth | 10.2% per year |
| Adjusted EBITDA margin (Q3 2025) | 74.8% |
| Dividend yield | about 5.2% |
| Airports operated | 13, under concession until 2048 |
Why the stock trades so cheap
P/FCF (price to free cash flow) compares a stock's price to the cash it generates each year once every bill is paid. A P/FCF of 0.7 means the market values OMA at barely more than seven tenths of a single year of its cash flow, a level normally seen on a struggling business, not on a regulated monopoly that's 33.5% profitable. Several explanations stack up. First currency: OMA's revenue is in Mexican pesos, and anyone buying the stock in dollars through its US ADR also carries the exchange rate risk. Then country risk: Mexico historically carries a political and regulatory risk premium that international investors demand, rightly or not. Finally, limited coverage: OMA remains thinly followed by US analysts compared to a domestic stock of similar size, leaving more room for mispricing. The market was also somewhat cooled by first quarter 2026 earnings that came in slightly below expectations.
VINCI Airports: a shareholder that changes the picture
Since December 2022, VINCI Airports, a subsidiary of French infrastructure giant VINCI and the world's largest private airport operator, with dozens of platforms across several continents, has been OMA's anchor shareholder. That's not a cosmetic detail: it brings proven operational expertise, easier access to capital markets, and governance institutional investors consider more rigorous. It's the kind of management I pay close attention to: a long term industrial shareholder with real know-how in the business is often worth more than a purely financial ownership structure.
The real risk isn't the airport, it's the country
Investing in OMA means accepting three risks distinct from the airport business itself. Currency risk, since revenue is in pesos and the stock's dollar value fluctuates with the currency. Regulatory risk, since Mexico's regulator caps the fees the company can charge, limiting its pricing power. And tourism risk, since part of the traffic (Acapulco, Mazatlán, Zihuatanejo) depends directly on travelers' leisure budgets, more sensitive to economic cycles than Monterrey's business traffic. None of these risks undermines the company's legal monopoly over its airports, but they largely explain why the market applies such a steep discount.
How I separate quality from price here
My method always judges two questions separately. First: is this a good business? On that front, OMA scores the maximum, a legal monopoly, exceptional profitability, steady growth, and a serious industrial shareholder. Second, entirely independent: what price is the market asking me to pay? Here, at 0.7 times annual cash, the price is so low it looks more like a country risk discount than a judgment on the actual quality of the business. Whether that discount is justified or excessive depends on how much trust you place in Mexico's regulatory framework and the peso's long term trajectory, not on the strength of the business itself. This is exactly the kind of separation between quality and price I wanted to be able to make in a few seconds for any of the more than 5,000 listed stocks, so I built a tool for it. You can check <a href='/analyse/OMAB'>the full OMAB analysis, criterion by criterion</a>, understand <a href='/methodologie'>how I calculate the quality score and reasonable buy price</a>, or compare OMAB to other stocks with <a href='/screener'>my screener covering more than 5,000 stocks</a>.
FAQ
What is an airport concession?
It's a contract where the state hands over the operation of a public airport to a private company for a fixed term, here fifty years from 1998 to 2048, renewable afterward. The company invests in and manages the airport, but the fees it can charge remain capped by the regulator.
Why is OMAB stock so cheap?
It trades at only 0.7 times its annual cash flow, a discount that mostly reflects country risk (currency, regulation, limited analyst coverage) rather than a business quality problem, which remains excellent by our method.
What is the main risk with OMAB?
Currency risk tied to the Mexican peso, regulatory caps on airport fees, and part of the traffic exposed to tourism, which is more sensitive to economic cycles than business travel.
What is nearshoring and why does it help OMAB?
Nearshoring refers to companies relocating manufacturing from Asia to Mexico to be closer to the US market. It directly benefits OMAB's border airports, Ciudad Juárez and Reynosa, through more business and cargo traffic.
Does OMAB pay a dividend?
Yes, with a yield of about 5.2% at the time of writing, a generous level consistent with the company's cash generative, regulated infrastructure profile.
OMAB: see the full analysis on Lubin Investment
About the author
Written by Lubin Danilo, founder of Lubin Investment. A self-taught individual investor, I find fundamental analysis fascinating, and it has delivered excellent results. For three years now, my performance has beaten the S&P 500. But analyzing every stock took too much time: sites with incomplete data, calculation methods and criteria never aligned with mine. And spotting the best stocks was just as time-consuming, even with my own well-defined checklist. So I put my software development background to work to build this software, base my investment strategy on its results, and share it with people who share the same passion as me. It judges a company's quality and its price separately, using criteria drawn from the financial literature (Warren Buffett, Michael Mauboussin, Aswath Damodaran).