Mexico's Bimbo repays $600 mln bridge loan early

MEXICO CITY, June 17 (Reuters) - Mexican bread maker Bimbo (BIMBOA.MX) said on Wednesday it repaid early a $600 million bridge loan taken out to help fund its January acquisition of the U.S. baking arm of Canada's George Weston Ltd (WN.TO).

Bimbo closed the $2.38 billion purchase in January.

Analysts said at the time that the deal would benefit Bimbo by broadening its geographic scope, but raised concerns about the debt the company was taking on due to the difficult conditions in global financial markets at the time.

Bimbo said it used the proceeds of a recent offering of peso-denominated rate debt on the Mexican market to repay the bridge loan, which was due in January 2010.

The company placed 10 billion pesos ($748 million) in five and seven year notes on June 10. ($1 = 13.36 pesos) (Reporting by Robert Campbell; editing by Andre Grenon)