VSPT Wine Group offloads 12.5% stake to China’s Yanghe Distillery Co
Chile’s VSPT Wine Group has sold a minority share to a distilled drinks company in China. The wine company said today that Yanghe Distillery Co has purchased a 12.5% stake in a deal worth US$65m. The shares had belonged to minority shareholders, the company said. Control of VSPT continues to be held by Chilean brewer Compania Cervecerias Unidas, which owns 67.22% of the firm. “Without doubt, this new partner is a very good signal for the company and so we are very optimistic,” said VSPT CEO Pedro Herane. According to VSPT, Yanghe Distillery Co is a “large-scale and experienced partner in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu, recording annual sales of over US$3bn”.Yanghe entered the wine industry in 2012 with the launch of Sidus, a Chilean wine produced by different wineries in the country for the Chinese market. The company’s main product is baijiu. VSPT operates nine wineries – seven in Chile and two in Argentina.
