UPDATE 1-Mexico's Grupo Bimbo posts lower profit after Ricolino sale

(Adds details from result)

April 27 (Reuters) - Mexican breadmaker Grupo Bimbo posted on Thursday a first quarter net profit down 9.4% from a year earlier, citing the sale of its confectionary business and higher benefits from its pension plan in the same quarter of 2022.

The company, which sells buns, cakes, cookies, bagels and tortillas across 34 countries, recorded a 4.05 billion pesos ($224 million) net profit for the first three months of 2023, as its profit margin shrunk by 80 basis points.

Excluding these effects, however, Bimbo said its profit would have risen 42% and its margin by 90 basis points.

Grupo Bimbo sold its

confectionery business Ricolino

to Mondelez International Inc for around $1.3 billion last year.

Discontinuing this unit, as well as last year's pension benefit and inflation all contributed to a lower profit, it said.

The company's revenues, however, climbed 10% to reach 99.56 billion pesos for the quarter.

Finance chief Diego Gaxiola called the results positive, despite a "high inflationary environment and even higher commodity prices than last year."

Chief Executive Daniel Servitje added that the company would continue to invest in its brands and assets and that it expected to become more efficient across its supply chain this year.

($1 = 18.0201 pesos by end-March) (Reporting by Carolina Pulice; Editing by Sarah Morland)