Accolade wines to acquire lion’s fine wine partners

Lion today announced that Accolade Wines has agreed to acquire its entire Australian premium wine business, Fine Wine Partners (FWP). FWP is a quality fine wine business offering exposure to the attractive and growing premium wine segment in desirable viticultural regions. However, following a comprehensive strategic review it became clear that considerable investment would be required to grow FWP to scale. Lion CEO Stuart Irvine said: “Lion has a range of competing opportunities for investment in its core categories of beer and cider and has been unable to prioritise the investment required to grow Fine Wine Partners to a size justifying its fixed cost base.