Treasury Wine Estates (TWE) chief executive Mike Clarke and a senior executive are assessing up to five options on an internal restructure.
The restructure is expected to include a separate sales and marketing arm for TWE’s top-end wine brands, The Sydney Morning Herald reports.
The company has also singled out several commercial brands in its United States operations as “non-priority” but will not divulge which they are as it attempts to move higher up the value chain and divert more investment into the luxury end of the market. The non-priority lower-priced brands may be sold or funnelled into a joint venture structure with another company.
Clarke is working closely with the general manager of Treasury's Australian and New Zealand operations, Angus McPherson, to put more grunt behind the higher-priced wine brands and obtain better returns from the commercial portfolio.
The initial separation will be confined to the Australian market and some of the commercial brands in the US, but then broaden out across the entire US operations.
The pair are assessing several models for the structure internally, with a separate sales and marketing unit devoted to brands like Penfolds, Wynns and the higher-priced Wolf Blass labels, and one for the commercial brands.
Clarke has been holding a series of "town hall"-style meetings in Melbourne with Treasury staff over the past 48 hours along with phone briefings for the major Treasury overseas offices after confirming yesterday that it will no longer be engaging in takeover discussions with Kohlberg Kravis Roberts &Co. L.P and Rhone Capital L.L.C.