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Driving down to Inchanga yesterday to fetch two dozen Simon Stone paintings to photograph for a monograph Smac Gallery are planning on this master of colour, we passed the wrecks of two burnt out lorries and their containers. The nameless bureaucrats who destroyed the SA railways to such an extent that national roads are now tarmac railways with motor cars playing dodgem with these high speed goliaths, have a lot to answer for. Arriving in Cato Ridge, we received the sad news that Remgro CEO Thys Visser was killed in a head-on collision on the N1 outside Rawsonville; a Princess Diana moment. How is it possible that the CEO of one of SA’s largest industrial concerns is killed in a car or a Princess dies in a tunnel in Paris?
The news that COWPe shepherd, Hermann Böhmer, has quit comes as no great surprise. That it was broken by UK trade mag Just-Drinks is par for the course as the company is one of the top five exporters of bottled wine. What does shock is the admission by COWPe chairman Dave Price that “the company has effectively traded at a loss on average ever since it was created (in 2006). There have been significant impairments of operations in order to try to improve the trading results, but that’s never been effective. The shareholders have seen a significant deterioration in equity over that period. They were becoming more and more unhappy.” The understatement of the week.
Alan Hayball painted this wine cow
So the pyramid scheme that owns 29% of Distell, the largest liquor corporate in SA by far, is to be semi-dismantled in the semi-Egyptian style. Holders of JSE listed CapeVin International (CVI) are to be offered 21 shares in unlisted CapeVin Holdings (CVH) which already owns 51% of CVI. CVH will then be listed on the JSE. The deal is confusing, not least as the second page of the SENS announcement preceded the first and was obviously compiled by a dyslexic merchant banker with CHV popping up in clause 6.1. Come on Chris (CVI chairman Otto), does anyone read these releases before they hit return on the keyboard?
The recent contention of Richemont chairman Johann Rupert that WOSA, the exporters’ mouthpiece, are hugging the wrong tree in punting diversity as the USP for SA wine exports, has been confirmed by the news that Tesco, largest seller of wine in the UK (largest export market for SA wine) is “making drastic cuts to its wine supply base in a bid to improve profitability and encourage brand owners to increase consumer loyalty.”
Fascinating story on the R160 billion/year luxury Swiss watch export market by Michael Skapinker in the Financial Times last week. How ironic that the main ingredients of those luxury watches – gold and diamonds – do not naturally occur in Switzerland. Yet most of the profits are made by the gnomes of Geneva and their shareholders, while sick African miners are left to sue for healthcare benefits after generations spent mining those very commodities.
Last week I speculated that if I was Johann Rupert, I’d swap my stake in Distell for a piece of Pernod Ricard. Today CapeVin Investments [CVI] which owns 29% of Distell, issues a cautionary announcement on the JSE “Shareholders are advised that the Company may enter into a transaction which, if successfully concluded, may have an effect on the price of the Company’s securities. Accordingly, shareholders are advised to exercise caution when dealing in the Company’s securities until a full announcement is made.”
A simple Stellenbosch management structure
Fascinating profile of Pierre Pringuet in the Independent today. This interview with the boss of the world’s #2 liquor company Pernod Ricard, is sure to be required reading at Aan-de-Wagenweg in Stellenbosch. For if this is not an invitation to Distell to elope, then nothing is.
A new boss for Distell?
WOSA, the embattled exporter’s association, seems to have taken recent criticism of its biodiversity marketing platform for SA wine from Johann Rupert and Michael Fridjhon to heart and come up with a new slogan “it’s not about making better wine, it’s about making wine better.” Below is Christoph Merchiers, marketing manager for the leading retailer of SA wines in Belgium, Rouseu Wijnen & Likeuren, with a WOSA employee, modelling the new slogan at ProWein.
Christoph Merchiers, a leading Belgian importer of SA wine at ProWein
WOSA, the wine industry’s embattled marketing quango, are like a Western Leopard Toad on the R45 from Malmesbury to Wellington in the path of a tractor-trailer full of Pinotage grapes. In January, the largest investor in SA wine, Johann Rupert rubbished WOSA’s much vaunted biodiversity focus. “Mense koop nie wyn as gevolg van biodiversiteit nie. Ons moet ’n eenvoudige, opregte, herhalende boodskap kry, en dit is nie biodiversiteit nie.” People don’t buy wine because of biodiversity. We need a simple, righteous, repeatable message and it isn’t biodiversity.
Endangered wine marketer
The image of the SA wine industry “hanging from the lips” of Dr. Johann Rupert at the Vinpro Info Day last week reminded me of Gulliver when he awoke to find himself tied down by the Lilliputians. “Die gehoor van sowat 500 wynboere het aan sy lippe gehang…”
