Grupo Bimbo: completes acquisition of East Balt Bakeries

Mexico City / MX. (gb) Grupo Bimbo S.A.B. de C.V. announced that it has completed the acquisition of East Balt Bakeries, one of the leading companies of the foodservice industry, which produces and provides bakery products to Quick Service Restaurants (QSR) – see b:eu on 2017-07-24. With this acquisition, Grupo Bimbo expands its operations to 32 countries and continues to consolidate itself, drive efficiencies and enlarge its products portfolio in a fast-growing industry.

«East Balt Bakeries brings us a talented team of professionals with great experience in the foodservice industry. Our entry into eight new countries represents an important step in achieving our Vision of transforming the baking industry and expanding our global leadership to better serve more consumers. We warmly welcome all our new East Balt associates to the Grupo Bimbo family and look forward to working together within our new division: Bimbo QSR», said Daniel Servitje, Chairman and CEO of the Company.

Diego Gaxiola, CFO of Grupo Bimbo, added, «The integration of East Balt helps drive forward our value creation objectives, as the approximate 3 percent and 5 percent annualized increase in Group sales and Ebitda translates directly into accretive margins, earnings per share, and profitability. To fund the transaction, we are drawing down an existing committed long-term revolving credit facility and utilizing part of the resources obtained from the recent local bond issuance: BIMBO17. This strategy preserves the Company’s financial flexibility and healthy credit profile».

The new subsidiary was acquired at a price of 650 million USD, generated annual sales of approximately 420 million USD and an Ebitda of 70 million USD (in the financial year 2016/2017 to June 2017).

Grupo Bimbo is the largest baking Company in the world, in terms of volume and sales. Grupo Bimbo has 195 plants and more than 1’700 sales centers strategically located in 32 countries throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa. Its main product lines include fresh and frozen sliced bread, buns, cookies, snack cakes, English muffins, bagels, pre-packaged foods, tortillas, salted snacks and confectionery products, among others. Grupo Bimbo produces over 13’000 products and has one of the largest direct distribution networks in the world, with more than three million points of sale, around 57’000 routes and more than 137’000 associates.

bakenet:eu