Grupo Bimbo Completes Acquisition of Sara Lee’s North American Business
Grupo Bimbo has just completed the acquisition of Sara Lee’s fresh bakery business in North America. The deal, which has an enterprise value of $959 million, was originally announced in November 2010.
Grupo Bimbo is also in the process of moving into the European market for the first time by acquiring Sara Lee’s fresh bakery business in Spain and Portugal for €115 million.
The acquisition of Sara Lee North American Fresh Bakery (Sara Lee NAFB) provides Grupo Bimbo’s US subsidiary, Bimbo Bakeries USA, with the opportunity to build a more efficient, low-cost platform to serve customers across the US. The acquisition is highly complementary across product lines, bakeries and geographies. The combined businesses employs more than 28,000 people, operates 75 plants and has estimated pro forma sales of $5.8 billion. The integration process is expected to generate annual synergies of approximately $150 to $200 million by 2013.
Grupo Bimbo is one of the largest baking companies in the world in terms of production and sales volume. As the market leader in the Americas, Grupo Bimbo operates 148 plants and 1,000 distribution centres strategically located in 17 countries throughout North and South America and Asia. Its main product lines include sliced bread, buns, cookies, snack cakes, English muffins, bagels, pre-packaged foods, tortillas, salted snacks and confectionery products, among others. Grupo Bimbo produces over 7,000 products and has one of the most extensive direct distribution networks in the world. The Iberian acquisition will add a further seven factories to its manufacturing portfolio.
