Sonoma County’s Vintage Wine Estates buying maker of Ace Cider
Vintage Wine Estates Inc. (Nasdaq: VWE) on Monday said it is acquiring The California Cider Company, the Sebastopol-based maker of the Ace brand.
The deal, set to close Tuesday Nov. 16, would add about 1 million 9-liter cases (90,000 barrels) to annual production for the Santa Rosa-based wine company. Vintage already was the 15th largest U.S. wine producer, at over 2 million cases a year previously.
California Cider, founded in 1993, has been a pioneer among family-owned hard cider producers in the U.S. Annual sales are about $20 million, and compound annual growth rate has been in the mid-teens for the past five years, according to Vintage.
Cidery founder and President Jeffrey House and sons Jason House, vice president of production and operations, and Simon House, vice president of sales and marketing, are said to be remaining involved with the company. Other terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
“This strategic acquisition adds an innovative product line to our RTD (ready-to-drink) category and brings us access to a significant new sales channel for distribution, through which we expect we can push many of our brands,” Vintage Wine CEO Pat Roney said in the announcement. “ACE is an excellent complement to our wine portfolio and its products are distributed through the beer channel which provides a new growth opportunity for all of our RTD products. Importantly, this provides another platform from which we can expand by executing our strategy of consolidating highly fragmented offerings where we can leverage our production and marketing expertise to gain market share, capture more customers and increase volume.”
This acquisition follows several Vintage Wine has made in recent months following its becoming a public company early this year. Before California Cider, the company made a larger move into the membership club market with the acquisition of Vinesse in October, The Sommelier Company in June and Kunde Family Winery in April.
Cowen was California Cider’s financial adviser in the deal. Farella Braun + Martel was legal adviser.
Vintage Wine also reported fiscal first quarter results Monday. Earnings were $2.8 million on $55.7 million in net revenue, down from $3.2 million in net income a year before and $53.8 million in quarterly revenue.
Jeff Quackenbush covers wine, construction and real estate. Before the Business Journal, he wrote for Bay City News Service in San Francisco. He has a degree from Walla Walla University. Reach him at jquackenbush@busjrnl.com or 707-521-4256.
