InVivo, finally, finds someone to manage its wine business, swapping Cordier assets for Advini shares

n a press statement issued on December 15, “the group AdVini and Cordier by InVivo announce they have entered into exclusive negotiations to merge parts of their business”. The statement also specifies that the aim is to sign an agreement “before 31 March 2026”. The “alliance between the two companies would mainly take the form of a transfer of assets from Cordier by InVivo and its subsidiary companies to AdVini”. The two groups add that if the process is completed, “at the end of the transaction, InVivo would become a reference shareholder in AdVini, alongside the Jeanjean family and Antoine Leccia, AdVini’s chairman of the board” who “would retain the absolute majority of AdVini’s capital”. The shareholding is currently divided between 43% and 9.4% with 24.7% of investors and floating shareholders holding 17.6%. As the negotiation process is only in its early stages, the scope of the transaction has yet to be specified.

The co-operative group InVivo entered the wine industry in the summer of 2015. It owns the Bordeaux wine brand Cordier alongside alcohol-free wine brands produced in its specialised facilities in Carcassonne: leading French category brand Bonne Nouvelle, selling 5 million bottles, and Artis. It also owns the Café de Paris sparkling wine brand and its production facilities in Bordeaux. Café de Paris is a Vin De France that comes in re-usable bottles with a range that includes alcohol-free and Crémant de Bordeaux. InVivo’s ownership extends to Languedoc brand Mythique (labelled Pays d’Oc and AOC Languedoc), the bulk wine division SudVin (600,000 hectolitres), distribution subsidiaries in several markets (France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Asia, North America and South Africa), and the negociant company Excell, which has appealed its conviction for buying Medoc wines at predatory prices. Although the press statement mentions complementary avenues, no details of the activities brought into the transaction have been provided.