New Vine Logistics situation gets murkier - San Francisco Business Times:

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“For us to disclose any information aboutthe buyer, New Vine’s board would have to accept or rejectf an offer,” New Vine spokeswomajn Charlotte Milan told the San Francisco Business Times , adding that no further informatiohn about New Vine’s negotiations with two or thres potential buyers is likely to be availablw June 4. Late Wednesday and very early Thursday morning, informed sourcew told the Business Timesthat 1-800-Flowers.
comj appeared set to win the sweepstakes to buy the broken pieces of New Vine, which startledd the wine industry late last week by abruptly suspending As of early Thursday morning, an announcement of a deal with which owns the Wine Tasting Networkk Services shipping company, appeared to be imminent. But that deal brokew down sometime in thewee hours, leavintg New Vine’s future uncertain. Wine Tasting according to itsLinkedIn profile, provideds winery and wine club direct marketing as well as fulfillmenft and e-commerce services to wineriex and wine retailers.
Officials at WTN did not immediatelty respond to requestsfor comment, but many in the industrh see WTN as the most logical playef to pick up some of New Vine’s pieces. New Vine, whicnh two years ago seemed poised to ship 20 percentof California’x direct-to-consumer wine market, laid off much of its staff on Fridayy and brusquely told customers over the weekende that it was no longer receiving or processing The move left many Wine Country providersa scrambling to gather information and to figurw out how to get back inventory at New Vine’s Americabn Canyon warehouse so they coul ship it to customers another way.
Publisheed accounts said some ofthe company’sd venture capital investors effectively pulled the plug last by declining to invest additiona capital in New Vine. “Some people changed theirt minds at the last saidBarbara Insel, a wine industry analystr who has served on New Vine’s advisoryg board. Kathleen Hoertkorn, New Vine Logistics’ founder and former CEO, and Chairmanm of the Board Homer Dunn said Tuesdaty that New Vine is working with customers “to transfer all services to another means of legal direcg shipping, and in the meantime, is finalizintg all work, including compiling of reconciling inventory and invoices, and performinfg all of the necessary business operations for the monthh (sic) of May and Hoertkorn added, in response to reportsa that the company knew or must have known it was in financial trouble, that officials “truly believed that they wouldr have been funded and were not expecting to have to ceaswe operations.
” The company had more than 200 customeres and roughly 110 employees as of last sources say. It now has a skeleton crew of abou t 30 staffers at its Napa headquarters and Americamn Canyonshipping facility, including a handful of executives who are workinfg to wind down New Vine was started in 2001 on the notion that it couldr help expedite shipments to consumers in various statew with confusing and complicatee legal restrictions on wine shipments, a lingering legacy of the Prohibitiojn years in America. Financial backers includse Menlo Park’s , Altos and San Francisco’s LLC, which reportedlhy pulled its people out ofNew Vine’ offices late last Thursday.