Pernod Ricard has been shunting Lindauer towards the exit door for some time, so a move to Lion Nathan and Indevin should not be surprising.
Sometimes silence speaks louder than a thousand words, and so it is the case with Pernod Ricard’s attitude towards the New Zealand sparkling wine brand, Lindauer. The wine, plus several other unnamed brands, are to be sold to a consortium of Kirin Holdings-controlled Lion Nathan and Indevin for NZD88m (US$66m), Pernod said today (18 October).
The clues to this move have been laced across Pernod Ricard’s wine strategy over the last couple of years. Most obviously, Lindauer was excluded from Pernod’s formation of a global, Premium Wines business division earlier this year, which includes Brancott Estate (previously Montana) and Jacob’s Creek from New Zealand and Australia.
On a New Zealand-specific level, Lindauer has also fallen out favour. In the depths of Pernod’s annual report for 2008-09, the most recent one published, the firm said that its New Zealand arm would focus on “a limited number of brands”. It went on to name Montana, Stoneleigh, Church Road and Jacob’s Creek. There was no mention of Lindauer in the entire report.
Pernod has had a short and relatively turbulent history with Lindauer. It acquired the brand following its acquisition of Allied Domecq in 2005. Competition authorities in New Zealand initially said that Lindauer and several other brands would have to be sold on, but this decision was later reversed.
While Lindauer has struggled to integrate into Pernod, New Zealand’s wine industry has been weakened by a cocktail of oversupply and currency swings. At the same time, Pernod has been seeking to offload non-core brands since acquiring Absolut vodka owner, Vin & Sprit, in 2008. In this context, the timing of Pernod’s portfolio pruning in New Zealand makes sense.
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By GlobalDataAs for the buyers, Indevin is a contract winemaker providing tailor-made wines to clients. Lion Nathan, which is owned by Japan’s Kirin, has a presence in all alcoholic drinks sectors in New Zealand. It tried to buy Montana in 2001, but lost out to Allied Domecq after a seven-month bidding battle. The firm subsequently bought Wither Hills winery in 2002 and, despite rumours last year that the winery would be sold, it remains on the group’s list of assets.
For Lindauer, it should get more attention from the Indevin-Lion Nathan consortium. It might also benefit from Lion Nathan’s distribution system in Australia, where consumers’ taste for New Zealand wines has been growing healthily. The consortium’s ownership structure for Lindauer remains unclear, however.
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