Villa Maria Estate has announced it is selling 31 hectares of surplus land surrounding its Mangere, Auckland headquarters and is exploring raising capital to accelerate its global growth strategy and ambitions.
Villa Maria says its vision is to be one of the world’s great wine companies and, as part of its global growth strategy, plans to invest across the value chain from viticulture and wineries to brands and marketing to meet increasing demands in key markets.
To accelerate these plans, Villa Maria is selling surplus land and is looking to raise additional capital.
“We’ve been making changes to our business consistent with our vision to be one of the world’s great wine companies and carry on the legacy of our founder, Sir George Fistonich,” says Justin Liddell, Chief Executive Officer of Villa Maria Estate.
“We’ve restructured and refreshed our business, optimised and refined our brand and marketing portfolios and redefined our hospitality offering to enhance our consumer experience.
“We have laid the foundations for our future success and this is the next phase in our growth strategy,” he says.
Liddell says the Villa Maria site in Mangere has a special place in the history of Villa Maria but the land value has increased to a point where it’s not possible to generate a reasonable return on the vineyards.
“We’re exploring selling 31 hectares of vineyard and bare land surrounding our headquarters at Mangere,” he says.
“We will continue to operate our Auckland winery, bottling, warehousing, head office and hospitality functions on the remaining 10 hectares.
“We’re also exploring raising capital from interested parties who want to support our growth plans.
“It’s early days and we don’t want to speculate on who a new investor might be or the nature or extent of the investment. We will work through the options and go from there.
“We don’t expect any decisions to be made until the first quarter of next year and our day-to-day activities will go on as usual,” says Liddell.
Did you know?
There are 6 ways you can catch up with The Shout NZ?
Our print magazine – November/December issue out very soon! Subscribe here.
Online, updated daily with its own completely unique content and breaking news.
Our weekly newsletter – free to your inbox! Subscribe here.
Our digital magazines – the latest issues are online now, here and here.
We are also on Facebook and Instagram!
