Treasury Wine Estates is almost its own entity. After 95% of shareholders voted in favour of the plan to separate the Australian beer business, Carlton & United Breweries from the Foster’s international wine business, the Supreme Court of Victoria has since added its tick of approval to the deal. As this magazine goes to print, the only outstanding requirement is the backing of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) at a hearing scheduled for 9 May. Given this approval, Treasury Wine Estates Limited will commence trading on the Australian Securities Exchange on Tuesday 10 May 2011 under the ASX code TWE. While this move is expected by some commentators to lead to offers on both companies, recent murmurings from the US suggest that a first option to break the wine business into a more easily digestible (or manageable) entity might be to break off the Beringer wine business for sale to a US-based entity such as Constellation. Watch this space.
