Grupo Bimbo SAB de CV and George Weston Ltd. have
spent much of the past decade coveting the same assets in the U.S.
baked goods business. Toronto-based George Weston beat out its Mexico
City rival in 2001 for several Bestfoods Baking Co. brands that Unilever NV/plc
sold after its $24 billion acquisition of Bestfoods. But to win
antitrust approval for the deal from the U.S. Department of Justice,
George Weston had to sell the Sunbeam bread brand in three states. The
company threw in the Orowheat bread brand and six bakeries in Texas,
Colorado, California and Oregon, all of which Grupo Bimbo snapped up
for $610 million.
On Dec. 10, Grupo Bimbo paid its erstwhile rival a further $2.5
billion for many of the brands that George Weston bought in 2001,
including the Arnold, Brownberry, Freihofer's and Stroehmann bread
brands; the Entenmann's line of sweet baked goods; and Thomas' English
muffins. The companies hope to close the deal in the first quarter.
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George Weston tapped its longtime outside counsel at Mayer Brown LLP in Chicago, where Christian Fabian and Marc Sperber led the deal team. Pablo Mijares of Mijares, Angoitia, Cortés y Fuentes SC in Mexico City was local counsel for the seller. George Weston used Morgan Stanley on both the purchase of the Bestfoods assets from Unilever and for the 2002 sale to Grupo Bimbo but this time turned to Paul Spafford at CIBC World Markets Corp. for banking advice.
Grupo Bimbo tapped Ana Demel and Chantal Kordula of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP in New York for legal advice after hiring the firm in the summer of 2007. That was a blow for White & Case LLP, which represented the company on its purchase of Orowheat, though the firm's George Paul is doing the antitrust work on the deal announced last month. Luis Nicolau and Guillermo Perez of Ritch Mueller SC in Mexico City are local counsel along with a team of lawyers from Toronto's Stikeman Elliott LLP.
On the banking side, the buyer is using a team from Atlas Advisors LLC in New York that includes Palden Namgyal, Patricia Buckley, Nicholas Enthoven, Tim Kao, Ricardo Martinski and Maelle Nadeau.
