Second biggest Australian wine group posts huge losses in half year results
Just when the wine community here in Australia was absorbing the latest news of the Foster’s Group restructuring its wine operations – the second largest wine producer Australian Vintage published a $128m first half loss last night. Australian Vintage, formerly known as McGuigan Simeon Wines, wrote down $175m in this first half year largely due to inventory write-downs.
Australian Vintage comprises amongst others McGuigan Wines with its name stemming from four generations of the McGuigan family and Miranda wines, which have been a family label for three generations, mainly sourcing their wines in the High Country in South East Australia’s high altitude regions.
High end labels were assorted in Nepenthe from the cool climate Adelaide Hills and Tempus Two as the ‘ultra premium brand’, a marketing term used by Australian Vintage still raising questions in me about how ‘ultra’ and ‘wine’ could make it together in marketing.
Finally we find new brands such as Passion Pop, launched in 2007 to deliver an Aussie Sparkling to Australia’s at that time happy, young and growing wine community. To tell you the truth: from a sales perspective, this is a complex and not really appealing mix, more of an assembled bunch of liquids than a real strategic fit for the sophisticated wine enthusiast.
And Australian Vintage struggles in these unfriendly conditions: first the wine glut, then the drought, the high Australian Dollar and now the global financial crisis leading into recession: this is not an economic climate to write home about.
The main difference to Foster’s is, that Australian Vintage doesn’t have the luxury of offsetting profits from beer or spirits divisions against the losses occurred with its wines. As much as the bad news from Australian Vintage might put a smile on the faces of competitor’s Foster’s management, as much they now should be worried too: the Foster’s Group will keep its wine business in its protfolio for much longer as it will be even harder to sell this asset (or is it a liability?) in the near future – there is no doubt about that.
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Die nach Groesse an zweiter Stelle liegende, boersennotierte Australian Vintage vermeldet in ihrem Halbjahresbericht einen Verlust von umgerechnet 85 Millionen EURO. Im wesentlichen stammen diese Verluste aus den Abschreibungen des Inventars, viele der Weine des Hauses sind einfach in der Form und zu diesen Preisen nicht an den Weintrinker zu bringen.
Ihr Michael Brecht
Related posts:
- Fired: volunteer firefighters sacked by Australian Beer and Wine Giant
- Fosters: restructure, breakup and sell-off to help shareholder value – but is this enough?
- No news on which Foster’s wine brands will be chopped – yet
- Retail giant Woolworths Group buys Langton’s Fine Wine Auctions
- ‘Binge Drinking’ and how the Australian government wants to get rid of it!
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