Vintage Wine Estates has attracted bids for parts of its business as the US group looks to refocus its operations.
In January, the Nasdaq-listed company hired Oppenheimer & Co. to help it offload assets amid moves to invest in what CEO Seth Kaufman calls its “unique, branded wine and cider business”.
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Among the assets Vintage Wine Estates is looking to sell are its direct-to-consumer unit and some production services operations.
In recent months, the company has also cut jobs to cut costs, boost its profitability and “simplify” its business.
Vintage Wine Estates said this week the group had “received numerous attractive bids” for certain assets, “as well as a non-binding letter of intent”.
Kaufman, who was appointed in July, added: “The level of interest in our non-core businesses and other assets has exceeded our expectations in terms of the quantity and quality of discussions. We remain optimistic in our ability to monetise these assets, which will allow us to pay down debt and increase liquidity.”
In a statement, Vintage Wine Estates said it is “well positioned to close certain of these transactions over the next few months”.
The company said: “There is also an ongoing evaluation of interest in other assets, which could be opportunistically sold if offers exceed valuation and return hurdles.”
Vintage Wine Estates also announced its plans to reorganise and sell certain assets have been accepted by its lenders.
The lenders have agreed to forbear exercising their rights and remedies “in respect of, or arising out of, certain defaults” under a loan deal amended in October.
Vintage Wine Estates said: “The forbearance agreement provides flexibility for the company to continue executing the previously announced restructuring and transformation while working with its lenders on an amended credit agreement.”
CFO Kristina Johnston added: “Our lenders remain fully engaged with us and we appreciate the progress we are making with discussions to further amend our credit agreement to reflect our current business operations as we execute our restructuring roadmap and advance asset sales.”
The company expects to report the financial results for its fiscal second quarter – which ran to the end of December – on 12 March.
