Jacob's Creek owner, Pernod Ricard, has told Food & Drink Business it won't comment on "market rumours".
In today's Australian Financial Review (AFR) there was speculation the company was preparing the wine label for sale. Pernod Ricard has "tapped" investment banks JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley to help find a buyer for its strategic wine brands portfolio, AFR alleges.
"The portfolio is likely to attract interest from big global private equity firms – the same types of bidders that were circling Australia's Accolade Wines, which was sold for $1 billion to The Carlyle Group this time last year," AFR alleges.
Pernod Ricard told F&DB it had "already mentioned several times that it intends to continue the dynamic management of its portfolio" and that CEO Alexandre Ricard had said during the H1 financial communication it remained "one of the consolidators of the sector".
In the H1 communication, Ricard said the group "delivered a very strong first half, which was somewhat enhanced by phasing, with 7.8% top line growth and 12.8% organic growth for our profit from recurring operations. This is the best first half we've had in almost a decade.
Its strategic wines' performance fell eight per cent due to "implementation of value strategy and high comparison basis on Campo Viejo".
In its statement to F&DB the company said the group "regularly assesses every available opportunity: tactical acquisitions as proved by the recent acquisition of the Italian gin Malfy, or divestment of brands, through one criterion in particular, i.e. their capacity to create or continue to create value for the business.
"In this context, any other comment would be mere speculation."
