Treasury Wine Estates

Treasury Wine Estates is an Australian-based global winemaking and distribution business. It is headquartered in Southbank, Melbourne, Victoria, and until a demerger in May 2011,^[1] was the wine division of international brewing company Foster's Group.

History

Treasury Wine Estates traces its roots back to the establishment of Penfolds in Adelaide (South Australia) in the mid-1840s, and the 1876 founding of Beringer Vineyards in the Napa Valley (CA, USA).

Foster's began to build its wine division from 1995 onwards. Through acquisition, it built the division in to one of the worlds largest wine makers. In 2005 it acquired the Australian wine-making group Southcorp, adding famous brands including Penfolds, Lindemans and Rosemount, and around A$1 billion to revenues.

In 2005, Beringer Blass was the seventh largest producer of wine in the United States.^[2]

However, the division was always both a poor performing business, and often a cash drain on the highly profitable brewing business. On 10 June 2008, Foster's CEO Trevor O'Hoy resigned after poor performance by the wine division.^[3] By 2011, the company had written down the value of the wines division by half since it acquired it at the peak of the market, leaving it worth about A$3.1 billion.^[4]

After further difficulties in the division resulting in an additional A$1.3 billion write-down in early 2011, at a meeting in Melbourne on 29 April 2011, 99% of Fosters Group shareholders agreed to split Fosters Group business into separate brewing and wine companies.

Treasury Wine Estates officially became a separately listed company on 9 May 2011, with David Dearie as its CEO. The scheme of arrangement for the demerger of Treasury Wine Estates from Foster's Group was implemented on 20 May 2011.

Further write down of stock worth around $160m (AUD) took place mid 2013, followed by the redundancy of David Dearie and appointment of interim CEO Warwick Every-Burns. This left the business in a more fragile state as shares have dropped almost $2 (AUD) to just above $4. TWE now works with Accolade to promote bottling efficiency across regions, stronger re-enforcing its performance in Asia, Australia, New Zealand and Europe.

Operations

The business is divided into four global regions: Australia and New Zealand; The Americas; Europe; Middle East & Africa and Asia. Globally the company manages over 12,000 hectares of vineyards with 4,000 employees in 12 countries, with sales totalling over 35 million cases of wine annually, generating revenues of A$2 billion.^[5]

Brands

Refer to http://www.tweglobal.com/our-brands for the latest data.

References

External links

• Company website
• Beringer Vineyards
• Beringer, Foster's Pop Champagne On Deal

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