Vintage Wine Estates ‘gets green light to sell brands to Foley Family Wines’
Foley Family Wines is set to acquire five brands for $15m.
US group Vintage Wine Estates has reportedly been given court approval to sell five wine brands to Foley Family Wines.
After filing for bankruptcy last month, Vintage Wine Estates looks set to offload its wine brands Bar Dog, Cherry Pie, Swanson, Conentino and SCV for a total of $15m, according to Bloomberg.
US Bankruptcy Judge Mary Walrath approved the sale after Foley Family Wines’ offer came in the form of a stalking horse bid, which means it is subject to better offers should any come in the coming weeks. If competing bids are received, an auction will be held in September, according to court filings.
California-based Vintage Wine Estates filed for bankruptcy in July and announced it would voluntarily delist its common stock after failing to pay off $60.5m in debt.
The company said it planned to sell “all or substantially all” of its assets and that it had already received “multiple preliminary indications of interest” from buyers.
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The filing for bankruptcy followed a raft of last-ditch attempts to salvage the publicly-listed company’s bank balance – including a round of job cuts in May.
Last month, Vintage Wine Estates completed the sale of California-based Cosentino winery and equipment to Gene Wines for $10.5m.
Bloomberg also reported the US judge yesterday (20 August) approved a $3.6m sale to Playa Capital Partners LLC of some Vintage Wine Estates assets related to its Ace Cider brand.
There will reportedly be “several more to come in the coming weeks”, said Heather Lennox, a partner at Jones Day representing Vintage Wine Estates at the hearing, referring to other stalking horse bids. The company has secured buyers for “almost all of the major assets,” she told Judge Walrath.
Just Drinks has approached Vintage Wine Estates for comment.
In the six months to 31 December, Vintage Wine Estates generated net revenue of $141.3m, down from $156.5m a year earlier.
Net losses were $64.4m, an improvement on the losses of $127.6m recorded in the corresponding period the previous year.
The group has said that as of 31 December it had $21.4m in cash and $305m of current debt outstanding.
In the company’s last full financial year, which ran to the end of June 2023, it recorded losses of just short of $189m on net revenue of $189.4m.