Australia’s second-largest wine company Accolade Wines will front listed equities investors in a roadshow starting December 6.
Accolade's brokers Citigroup and Morgan Stanley have started booking investor education meetings ahead of a slated $1 billion-plus initial public offering in the first half of 2017.
Accolade Wines, which owns brands including Hardys, Leasingham, Grant Burge and Banrock Station, will likely talk up last month's acquisition of beverage giant Lion's Australian wine portfolio.
That portfolio includes what it calls "niche premium" brands such as Croser, Petaluma, Knappstein, St Hallett, Stonier, Wither HiIls, Te Hana and Tatachilla.
The acquisition is expected to help Accolade "scale up" for its Australian Securities Exchange listing and make the company more attractive to potential investors.
Accolade is majority owned by CHAMP Private Equity which is seeking to exit after six years of ownership.
It’s roadshow will start in New Zealand then move to Sydney, Melbourne and is expected to include Hong Kong.
Accolade produces 38 million cases of wine annually under an array of brands.
Its largest market is Europe accounting for about 60 per cent of group sales, however, the company has invested heavily in its China strategy in the past 18 months.
Locally, the company recently made a return to bottling wine in South Australia with a $40m investment in a winery at Berri in the Riverland.
While it still operates a substantial cask wine business and many of its brands are in the mainstream wine segment, it moved further upmarket with acquisitions such as Grant Burge Wines in late 2014.
Accolade has also piqued the interest of prospective trade buyers, such as Rothschild-advised PAI Partners.
The company met with Asian institutional investors and Chinese strategic players in a roadshow in September.
Corporate advisory boutique Reunion Capital Partners is an adviser for the initial public offering.
- This article first appeared in The Australian Financial Review