Verlinvest Asia on Monday exited its 14-year-old investment in Nashik-based wine producer Sula Vineyards by offloading an 8.34% stake in the company for about Rs 406 crore via open market transactions.
As per the bulk deals data available with The National Stock Exchange (NSE), Verlinvest Asia Pte offloaded 70,42,275 shares at Rs 576.78 apiece on Monday, marking its first full exit from an India investment.
Shares of Sula Vineyards dropped 8.02% to touch Rs 568 on NSE on Monday.
Concurrently, New York-based private investment fund Mousserena LP also sold 29,00,000 shares representing 3.44% stake of the Nashik-based wine producer for about Rs 167 crore.
In a LinkedIn post on Tuesday, Arjun Anand, Managing Director & Head of Asia at Verlinvest, said, “I am happy to share that Verlinvest has completed its divestment of our stake in Sula Vineyards, after 14 years since making our first investment into the company.”
Consumer sector-focused Belgian investment firm Verlinvest, which had first invested in Sula Vineyards in 2010, had a 22.45% stake in the company as on March 2022. In August last year, Verlinvest offloaded 12.6% of its stake in the wine maker for Rs 513.17 crore.
Verlinvest invests in the digital and e-commerce, food and beverage, and healthcare sectors. Its other investments in India include edtech company BYJU’S, online beauty products retailer Purplle, petcare company Heads Up For Tails, homegrown skin and hair care direct-to-consumer (D2C) brand Juicy Chemistry, and furniture and mattress brand Wakefit, among others.
Established in 1999, Sula Vineyards distributes wines under a bouquet of popular brands including RASA, Dindori, The Source, Satori, Madera, and Dia. The wine manufacturer posted more than a 9% increase in third-quarter profit to Rs 42.98 crore from Rs 39.28 crore a year ago.