Mexico Bakery Bimbo Pays Back $600M Loan Ahead Of Time

Mexican bakery Grupo Bimbo SAB (BIMBO.MX) has paid back a $600 million bridge loan ahead of schedule, using money from a share issue last week, the company said Wednesday in a filing with the Mexican stock exchange.

The bridge loan was set to come due in January 2010. Bimbo took out the loan to finance the acquisition of Weston Foods Inc., a U.S. subsidiary of Canada's George Weston Ltd (WN.T), which it bought for $2.38 billion in January.

Last week, Bimbo placed 10 billion pesos ($732 million) in notes on the local debt market to refinance the loans.

-By Peter Millard