Coca-Cola Femsa SAB, the largest soft-drink company in Latin America, may try to buy Coca-Cola Co.’s bottler in the Philippines, according to an analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Coca-Cola Femsa, controlled by Monterrey-based Fomento Economico Mexicano SAB, is seeking acquisitions outside Latin America, JPMorgan’s Alan Alanis wrote in a report Thursday.

“In our view, Coke’s assets in the Philippines are among the candidates,” Alanis wrote. He rates Femsa shares “overweight” and Coca-Cola Femsa “neutral.”

Carolina Alvear, a spokeswoman for Fomento Economico, had no comment on Alanis’s report. Dana Bolden, a spokesman for Coca-Cola, declined to comment.

Fomento Economico, known as Femsa, announced a deal on Jan. 11 to sell its beer business to Heineken NV in exchange for a 20 percent stake in the Dutch brewer. Heineken also agreed to absorb $2.1 billion of Femsa debt.

“In the short term, Femsa management has the very nice problem of deciding what to do with its practically debt-free balance sheet and the robust free cash flow generation at its largest subsidiary,” Alanis wrote.

He said in the note that he met with Fomento Economico Chief Executive Officer Jose Antonio Fernandez and Chief Financial Officer Javier Astaburuaga in New York. The Philippines didn’t come up in his conversation with the executives, Alanis said today in an e-mail. Fernandez and Astaburuaga were traveling today and couldn’t be reached for comment.

Femsa rose 22 centavos to 55.99 pesos at 2:08 p.m. New York time in Mexico City trading. Coca-Cola Femsa dropped 2.13 pesos to 74.43 pesos.

Femsa is weighing options for expanding its Coca-Cola business, which is its biggest unit by sales, and its convenience-store chain Oxxo, said Alanis, who worked in Femsa’s investor-relations department before becoming an analyst.

In 2007, Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Co. acquired the 65 percent of Coca-Cola Bottlers Philippines Inc. it didn’t own for $590 million from San Miguel Corp., according to a statement at the time.