A second offer within the week, believed to have been made by U.S.-based private equity group TPG, was made for the Australia-based Treasury Wine Estates. The first offer was made by private equity group, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) and Rhine Capital. Both offers are for $5.20 per share or $3.4 billion. Treasury Wine Estates which owns Lindemans, Wynns, Rosemount, Wolf Blass, and Rothbury Estates among others has granted consortia access to its books to both KKR and the second private equity group believed to be TPG. Treasury Wine Estates (TWE) was purchased a decade ago by Fosters as part of an overvalued takeover of Southcorp. Fosters went on to spend almost $9 billion to expand its global wine portfolio reaching into the U.S. market. After attempting unsuccessfully to sell its wine business three years ago, Fosters split its company with a demerger leaving Treasury Wine Estates as a stand-alone entity. Last year Treasury suffered a $160 million write-down after having to dump thousands of bottles of ‘undrinkable wine’ in order to try to raise the quality of its inventory.
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