Lion appointment strengthens wine focus

By Phil Boeyen, ShareChat Business News Editor

Friday 5th October 2001

Lion Nathan (NZSE: LNN) has appointed an executive from luxury goods group Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton to oversee its wine aspirations.

Lion, which currently has bids in the market for two Australian wine businesses, says Dominique Bach will head its wine group as managing director,

Mr Bach was previously working as head of Chandon Estates in California's Napa Valley managing the majority of LVMH's sparkling and still wine operations outside France.

Lion CEO, Gordon Cairns says the company is pleased to have attracted an executive of Mr Bach's calibre to build its wine business.

"In making this appointment, we were looking for an experienced wine industry executive who had the capability to develop an international premium wine business for us.

"Having identified global branding and distribution as key success factors, we saw Dominique as being ideally suited to this role".

Mr Cairns says the new wine group MD has experience in merging several wine businesses into a global brand and created an international still wine business to complement the existing sparkling wine offering.

"Dominique also has extensive global brand marketing and management experience having worked for Mars Inc and French consumer goods company, Danone," says Mr Cairns.

In the past week Lion Nathan has placed takeover bids for two listed Adelaide-based wine companies, Banksia and Petaluma

Although the market has generally approved of the brewer's decision to invest in the wine business there are fears it is coming to the party too late in comparison to rival Foster's and may be forced to pay too much to build a profitable portfolio.

The offer of A$7.00 per share for Petaluma in particular has been seen as a high premium, forcing Lion's share price down since the bid was announced earlier this week.

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