Santa Rosa wine business becoming public company in $700 million investment deal

Vintage Wine Estates of Santa Rosa said Thursday it has merged with a Toronto-based investment firm in a transaction that will allow the wine company with local brands like B.R. Cohn and Viansa Sonoma to become a public company and have more money to grow.

Pat Roney, chief executive officer of Vintage Wine Estates, said pairing with Bespoke Capital Acquisition Corp. will allow his private-equity backed company to have more than $1 billion to spend on potential acquisitions.

Over the last 10 years, Roney has been on a tear doing more than 20 deals, from buying the Laetitia Vineyard & Winery on the Central Coast to acquiring Alloy Wine Works, which specializes in canned wine.

“I have 14 acquisition opportunities on my desk right now,” Roney said in an interview. “There’s no shortage of opportunities.”

The wine entrepreneur founded Vintage in 2008 as owner of Napa Valley's Girard Winery when he bought Sonoma's Windsor Vineyards. Roney’s empire now includes more than 50 brands that produced almost 2 million cases of wines last year.

His union with Bespoke comes as the wine industry is grappling with flat domestic sales, as well as a loss of revenue from tasting rooms and restaurants amid the pandemic and greater challenges sourcing grapes because of wildfires.

“There's a lot of wineries that are struggling because they're not as well diversified — not that they've done anything wrong,” Roney said.

On the other hand, Vintage has had a compound annual revenue growth rate of 20% since 2010, according to filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The transaction with Bespoke, a firm whose business plan centers on buying and merging with other companies, will value Vintage Wine Estates at $690 million. As part of the overall deal, Wasatch Global Investors of Salt Lake City also acquired a $28 million stake in Vintage.

Roney will continue to be CEO of Vintage Wine Estates and said he will have control of the board of directors. The company has 530 employees and expects no local changes.

“We are just happy to be part of the fabric of Santa Rosa and the Sonoma community, and we’re really excited about continued opportunities here,” he said.

As a public company Vintage will trade its stock under the ticker symbol VWE on Nasdaq with the goal of an initial public offering by early May. Once trading begins, Roney estimated that stockholders will own between 40% to 55% of Vintage stock.

You can reach Staff Writer Bill Swindell at 707-521-5223 or bill.swindell@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @BillSwindell.