The hit to profit margins from China’s heavy tariffs on Australian wines is likely to cut the eventual returns to creditors of 143-year-old McWilliam’s Wines, as administrators KPMG scour through “multiple” new buyout offers for one of the country’s oldest wine groups, the Australian Financial Review reports.
AFR reports KPMG held a virtual creditors meeting on Tuesday as the lengthy process to find a new owner for McWilliam’s Wines headed into a second year. This followed the collapse of a previous $40 million-plus buyout proposal from a private equity group late in 2020.
According to AFR, KPMG said in the lead-up to the meeting the market dynamics and prices for bottled wine and bulk wine in Australia would come under more pressure because of the China wine tariffs.
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