Chief executive of the International Wine Investment Fund, Chris Day, has had enough of travelling. Nineteen years of travel for various wine companies including a long stint at BRL Hardy has dulled his enthusiasm for the travelling process and has led him to choose time with his family as his major priority. ‘If it wasn’t for the travel demanded by this job, I’d never dream of tossing it in’, he said. Day, who has spent three and a half years in the role, emphatically denies that his departure from the IWIF has anything to do with unitholder dissatisfaction. Day is not seeking another CEO-level job in Australian wine, since his other business interests in wine are certain to keep him involved. He is a major shareholder in a private wine related investment group with substantial vineyard holdings, and owns a variety of other wine-related investments. Rather than find a full-time job, he’s keen to help businesses involved in Australian wine in director-style roles. Day speaks with conviction when he discusses how deeply he feels about the Australian wine industry. ‘Some people might think it has, but Australian wine hasn’t got there yet’, he says. ‘If we deal well with a couple of hiccups along the way, we have the chance to come out the other end even stronger. If people perceive an arrogance within Australian wine, they’ll source it somewhere else. I’m keen to help Australian wine companies take their place in the world as a force in premium wine.’ There has been some media comment that Day’s departure will delay the conversion of IWIF from a trust to a public company. His response is that it’s immaterial when it happens, but from an accounting perspective the best possible date was always June 30. ‘We’ll work towards that, and let the new CEO come in and make that call’, he said. As for the future of the IWIF, which presently has a ceiling of 40% ownership of any wine company, is it likely to become a producer itself? Day considers that unlikely, although in time he suggests it might well own larger portions of wine companies than it currently does, perhaps even 70-80%. ‘We want to maintain ourselves as investors’, he says. ‘If we ever became a producer we might scare off potential investors’.
