Sip happens! Accolade Wines debt changes hands

afr.com:

While Treasury Wine Estates has successfully ruled off a chunky cash call to buy the $1.6 billion Daou Vineyards, the country’s second-largest producer has had less reason to be cheerful.

Accolade Wines – which is sitting on a hefty amount of debt, including a £301 million ($572 million) Term Loan B due in June 2025 and a $150 million revolving credit facility that matures in early June 2024 – has about four to five months to convince creditors to kick the can down the road.

Samuel Terry Asset Management, founded and run by Fred Woollard, has been buying debt in Accolade Wines.  AFR

As this column reported, existing lenders to The Carlyle Group-owned wine producer were last month presented with a complex turnaround plan under the United Kingdom’s restructuring rules, which would involve a large debt-for-equity swap and no new debt.

Now, Street Talk can reveal Fred Woollard’s Samuel Terry Asset Management and Bain Capital’s special situations unit have each raided the debt stack in the past fortnight, altogether buying as much as $50 million of debt at between 38¢ and 41¢ in the dollar.

While Bain is an existing lender, the emergence of Woollard’s activist investment firm should pique the market’s interest. Woollard can write big cheques – he bought debt in Thiess last year and is also in Infrabuild’s debt stack. He may fly under the radar but isn’t likely to sit quietly on the sidelines.

At last year’s Sohn Hearts & Minds conference, Woollard made one of the more interesting stockpicks – AMP, which he said should be broken up.

Accolade has already been slimming down. Earlier this year, it sold its House of Arras sparkling wines brand and vineyards, and the Bay of Fires winery and cellar door in Tasmania, to Handpicked