Mexican company Bimbo may be the savior of the iconic “Twinkie”

Friday’s announcement by Hostess Brands Inc. that it will liquidate its business after striking workers with the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union did not come to an agreement with company management, led to a run on Twinkies quickly emptying store shelves.

Entrepreneurs quickly seized the moment with boxes of Twinkies appearing on Ebay for prices ranging from $60 dollars a box to a ridiculous opening bid of $200,000.00. Free overnight shipping included for the winner.

But it may not be the end of this artery clogging delicacy, that’s been around for more than 80 years.

Mexican owned Grupo Bimbo is the world’s largest bread-baking firm, which already owns parts of Sara Lee, Entenmann’s and Thomas English Muffins and has previously made what was considered a low-ball offer of $580 million a few years ago.  Now Hostess may only be worth $135 million, and Grupo Bimbo is said to be poised to purchase the Hostess brands and their manufacturing processes.

Grupo Bimbo, according to Forbes, is owned by Daniel Servitje Montull and his family. Don Lorenzo Servitje founded the company in 1954 along with three others.   Daniel Servitje took over the company in 1997 and immediately began it’s rapid expansion throughout Mexico and South America positioning white bread in Latin American markets and careful management of Bimbo’s fleet of white delivery vans.

Daniel Servitje and his family are estimated to be worth more than 4 billion dollars.

Under the leadership of Daniel Servitje came a period of substantial expansion—profits doubled and revenue more than tripled. Acquisitions were the key to the success of Bimbo. After moving the brand throughout Mexico and South America, he turned his vision north of the border, acquiring  Mrs. Baird’s Bakeries of Fort Worth, Texas for $200 million in 1999 and just last year, Bimbo bought the U.S. bakery business of Sara Lee Co. for $709 million.

Today, Bimbo is a $10 billion sales business with $200 million in cash on its balance sheet.  By contrast, Bimbo posted $3 billion in sales a decade ago; annual profits have more than doubled to roughly $400 million.

With a balance sheet looking like that, perhaps  Daniel Servitje and Grupo Bimbo are just the thing to put the Hostess and Wonder Bread brand back on solid financial footing and back on store shelves.

In the meantime, the in-fighting goes on as Hostess is in it’s death throes. The unions are blaming bad management for the demise of the brand and of course management is blaming the unions, and they’re both right.

Whomever you want to side with though, it puts more than 18,500 workers jobs at risk, something sure to be blamed on Obama. And after discovering the Interstate Brands Employee Message Board, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for some of these clowns who will be among the unemployed, especially those who are bashing and resistant to the idea of a well managed Mexican company, flush with cash, coming in to rescue their jobs.