Toronto, May 12 - George Weston Ltd reported a higher first-quarter profit on Tuesday, mostly because of a huge gain from the sale of its U.S. fresh bakery business, and said it was still deciding what to do with the proceeds from its divestitures.
Weston, North America's largest baked goods maker and owner of top Canadian supermarket chain Loblaw, said it had earned C$863 million ($745 million), or C$6.61 a share, compared with C$131 million, or 91 Canadian cents a share, a year earlier.
The results included a C$921 million gain from the sale of the U.S. fresh bakery business to Grupo Bimbo, which closed during the quarter.
Revenue rose 2.7 percent to C$7.02 billion.