Grupo Bimbo has extended its acquisition spree with the purchase of Slovenia bakery business Don Don.
The Mexico-headquartered bakery giant has struck a number of deals this year and in the tail-end of 2023 even as the company consolidates its global operations, with plants recently earmarked for closure in the US, Canada and Spain.
In a brief mention in its third-quarter results announcement, Grupo Bimbo said it had signed an agreement to acquire Don Don for an undisclosed sum subject to regulatory approval.
The transaction “expands its geographic presence to 39 countries”, Grupo Bimbo said, describing Don Don as a “leading player in the baking industry within south-east Europe”.
Grosuplje-based Don Don began operations in 1994 with the Slovenian brand Tvojih 5 minut. It entered the Croatia market in 2003 and Serbia in 2008, according to its website.
The business struck an acquisition of its own in 2015, snapping up the Pekarna Grosuplje brand from the Mercator retail chain.
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Don Don, which employs more than 2,400 staff, operates in Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Spain, Italy, Austria and Germany.
A new bakery factory was opened in 2017 in Kragujevac, Serbia, followed by the opening of the Črna Gora site in Danilovgrad, Montenegro, in 2018 and a facility in Kranj, Slovenia, in 2019.
The company’s portfolio consists of doughnuts, pastries, bread, rolls and baguettes.
Grupo Bimbo, meanwhile, struck an acquisition in Brazil in September for the bakery group Wickbold, adding four local factories to its global network.
As the year got underway, it also bought Spain-based gluten-free bakery company Amarittamn, building on the October 2023 purchase of Mile Hi Bakery in Colorado in the US. In the summer of that year it also took an undisclosed stake in Netherlands-based bread start-up Zero Carb Company.
While North America is Grupo Bimbo’s largest market, the business has been closing factories in the US and Canada.
Closures announced this year included a site in Lévis in Québec, and another in Québec City.
Three others in the US were also earmarked for closure, two in New York state and one in Texas. The Bellevue plant in Nebraska, operated by the subsidiary Bimbo Bakeries USA, is also due to shutdown.
And over in Europe early this year, reports suggested Grupo Bimbo’s factory in El Verger, a town close to Alicante, would cease operations.
Issuing third-quarter results in October, the group reported an 11.6% drop in net income to 3.7 billion pesos ($184m). Operating profit also fell, dropping 3.7% to 9.4bn pesos.
Revenue, however, was up 7.4% at 106.1bn pesos while adjusted EBITDA rose 8.4% to 15.6bn pesos.
