Digital Wine Ventures to acquire beverage logistics firm Parton Wine Group

Digital Wine Ventures has entered into an agreement to acquire 100% of Parton Wine Group, one of Australia’s largest specialist wine and beverage logistics providers.

Through the acquisition, Digital Wine Ventures will gain a 14-year old company with 23,000 sqm of warehousing, its own fleet of 30 medium and light trucks and vans, stacked together with almost 100 experienced and dedicated staff.

With operations in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, PWG has developed a loyal customer base of over 200 unique suppliers within the wine and beverage industry.

As part of the acquisition, PWG Founder, Richard Raddon, will join the WINEDEPOT’s senior executive team as General Manager of the logistics division, assisting in the post-merger integration of his business.

His son David, with 25 years of hands-on logistics and operational experience, will also join the WINEDEPOT team as National Operations Manager.

In a statement, Raddon said he and his son are excited about the opportunity to roll PWG into WINEDEPOT and become part of the vision to create a revolutionary platform that releases value and efficiency within the wine supply and distribution chain.

Digital Wine Ventures Limited CEO, Dean Taylor, also expressed his excitement to work with Raddon and become the custodians of the business that he and his son David have spent many years building.

“Their track records are impressive, and their extensive experience within the wine industry stacked together with almost 100 knowledgeable, experienced and dedicated staff provides a significant boost to our operational capability,” Taylor said.

“He also believes the acquisition of Parton Wine Distribution will greatly enhance WINEDEPOT’s value proposition and help take the service levels offered by the integrated trading, logistics and payment management platform to the next level”, he said.

Similar to the world’s most successful marketplaces, Taylor continued that they believe fast, cost-effective and reliable order fulfilment is the most powerful way to differentiate your customer value proposition and propel sales growth.

According to him, investing in this capability is good for both them and their customers.

“The challenge is, that up until now, we have relied heavily on 3rd party warehousing and freight providers to support our national logistics network,” Taylor said.

“This model worked reasonably well in serving our customers, but as our business continues to scale, we need more control over how our supply chain is operated. Particularly during peak periods when 3rd party network scan become slow and congested,” he said.

He stressed that having their own dedicated fleet of delivery vans and drivers will ensure they provide an exceptional experience for trade buyers using MARKET, their recently launched direct-to-trade online marketplace.

He also said that having direct control over their warehouses, with the ability to offer temperature controlled, cold chain and bonded storage will also help them to acquire major accounts which have eluded them to date.

Importantly, he continued that moving to a closed loop network provides the physical foundations required to underpin the other products they offer through their technology platform.

“Along with an immediate lift in key metrics, the acquisition provides us with another 225 customers that can be leveraged to drive further growth across our platform. The scale of the merged operation, overlaid with our investment in state-of-the-art technology, will undoubtedly help position WINEDEPOT as the market leading supply chain solution, focused on supporting the eCommerce shift in the wine industry,” Taylor said.

“For all of these reasons I am confident that this acquisition will accelerate our market penetration in Australia and generate a lot of additional value for both customers and DW8 shareholders alike,” he concluded.