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“For us to disclose any informatiojn aboutthe buyer, New Vine’s board would have to accepgt or reject an offer,” New Vine spokeswoman Charlotte Milan told the San Franciscok Business Times , addin that no further information about New Vine’w negotiations with two or threre potential buyers is likel to be available June 4. Late Wednesday and very earlyhThursday morning, informed sources told the Businessd Times that 1-800-Flowers.com appeared set to win the sweepstakes to buy the brokehn pieces of New which startled the wine industry late last week by abruptlu suspending operations.
As of early Thursday morning, an announcemenf of a deal with 1-800-Flowers, which owns the Wine Tastin g Network Services shipping appeared tobe imminent. But that deal brokr down sometime in thewee hours, leaving New Vine’s futuree uncertain. Wine Tasting Network, according to its LinkedIn provides winery and wine club direct marketing as well as fulfillmenrand e-commerce services to wineries and wine Officials at WTN did not immediately respone to requests for comment, but many in the industru see WTN as the most logical player to pick up some of New Vine’s pieces.
New Vine, which two years ago seemed poiseds to ship 20 percentof California’s direct-to-consumer wine market, laid off much of its staffc on Friday and brusquely told customersz over the weekend that it was no longert receiving or processing orders. The move left many Wine Countr providers scrambling to gather information and to figure out how to get back inventor y atNew Vine’s Americajn Canyon warehouse so they could ship it to customersz another way. Published accountds said some ofthe company’s venturd capital investors effectively pulled the plug last by declining to invest additional capital in New Vine.
“Somes people changed their minds at the last saidBarbara Insel, a wine industry analyst who has served on New Vine’s advisory Kathleen Hoertkorn, New Vine Logistics’ founder and formere CEO, and Chairman of the Board Homedr Dunn said Tuesday that New Vine is workingy with customers “to transfer all services to anothet means of legal direct and in the is finalizing all work, including compilintg of reports, reconciling inventory and invoices, and performing all of the necessaryg business operations for the montyh (sic) of May and June.
” Hoertkorn added, in response to reportss that the company knew or must have knownb it was in financial trouble, that officialxs “truly believed that they would have been fundede and were not expecting to have to cease operations.” The compang had more than 200 customers and roughlu 110 employees as of last sources say. It now has a skeletob crew of about 30 staffers at its Napa headquarterd and American Canyonshipping facility, includinh a handful of executives who are workinv to wind down operations.
New Vine was started in 2001 on the notioh that it could help expedite shipments to consumers in varioues states with confusing and complicated legal restrictionxs onwine shipments, a lingering legacy of the Prohibitionb years in America. Financial backers include Menlo Park’s , Altows Ventures, and San Francisco’as LLC, which reportedly pulled its people out ofNew Vine’s office s late last Thursday.
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