Logical partnership to complement appliance offering.
Electrolux announced at its head office in Stockholm yesterday that it has agreed to acquire the market-leading Vintec wine cabinet business, which generates annual turnover of $A22 million.
Within the deal, which is expected to be completed within the next six weeks, Electrolux will acquire both the Australian-based arm of the business which represents 70% of sales and the Singapore-based Asian arm of the business which represents the remainder of sales for the Vintec and Transtherm freestanding and integrated climate-controlled wine cabinets.
Vintec co-founder, Jean-Marie Simart
The Vintec operations in Australia will be integrated into Electrolux Australia and New Zealand under managing director, Mike Putt.
“Our strategy for some time as been to manufacture and supply beautifully-designed, innovative cooking products with features which enable consumers to cook like a professional and deliver great tasting food and a remarkable consumer experience,” Putt said.
“And generally food lovers believe a fine bottle of wine, properly stored and served, goes hand in hand with good food. The elegant design and consumer benefits of the Vintec model range will complement our cooking and kitchen products, particularly the high-end brands such as AEG and Electrolux,” he said.
This business was established by Laurent Ducourneau, who left his native Bordeaux in France for Singapore to import French wine into Asia, and then founded Vintec in 1993. In 1998, he created Vintec Australia in partnership with Sydney-based former banker Jean-Marie Simart.
Ducourneau has managed the company’s Asia business from Singapore while Simart has managed its Australasian operations. Both will stay on to integrate the Vintec business into the Electrolux Asia Pacific operations.
Simart said he was “excited and delighted at the prospect of Vintec being part of Electrolux”.
“The Electrolux Group has always interested me with its capacity to acquire and integrate different brands and to manufacture superbly designed products which are available in most parts of the world.
“I believe Vintec’s knowledge of the wine industry and its creativity, combined with the manufacturing, distribution and marketing of the Electrolux group, will help build wine cabinets from a product category still considered ‘niche’ into a major global market,” Simart said.
Electrolux already supplies wine cabinets under the Electrolux brand in Europe and North America, and under the AEG brand in the UK.
The acquisition also includes the Vintec Club which has grown rapidly to about 10,000 members since it was established three years ago. The club focuses on enhancing the ownership experience through exclusive winemaker events and degustation dinners.
The 30 models in the Vintec and Transtherm product portfolio range from compact 30-bottle, under-bench and integrated wine cabinets to suit most domestic kitchens to large stand-alone 4000-bottle walk-in wine cellars.
The head of Electrolux Major Appliances – Asia Pacific and Executive Vice President, Kenneth Ng, said the acquisition was a “strategic fit” with the company’s major appliances business and comes as wine consumption continues to grow in the region – particularly in Asia – where there is also low penetration of wine cabinets. The Singapore operations of Vintec, which services the rest of the world, will be integrated into the Electrolux East Asia business reporting to Senior Vice President, Craig McEachern.