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says this is Fortress “just being
sensible with their money.
They don’t want to spend £5m
on something they don’t have
100% certainty [will] be able to
trade over the years to come”.
But he stresses: “[Fortress]
were always our preferred bid-
der because they were the most
engaged in the brand. They’re
talking a lot about how we can
invest and how we can grow –
there is a complete alignment
beh i nd t hat.”
Freed from the shackles of
public ownership, Lincoln and
Majestic’s management will be
able to make longer-term deci-
sions without needing to show
immediate returns, he adds,
allowing it to be more agile and
adaptable. “When you’re public
you are always thinking about
what the market is going to say
rather than being able to spend
money which won’t pay back for
a year or two. We will be free of
those questions.”
Positive response
Response to the sale from sup-
pliers, at least initially, has been
overwhelmingly positive. The
fall of Oddbins and Conviviality
over the past two years left
many in wine craving for sta-
bility. Freixenet Copestick MD
Robin Copestick says: “The UK
wine industry needs a success-
ful Majestic Wine. Majestic is a
great brand with very loyal cus-
tomers and I am professionally
and personally very happy that
the future now looks secure.”
One industry source adds:
“They seem really committed
to both the branded retail unit
offer and working with branded
supply but then also the e-com-
merce activation of Majestic.”
Lincoln concurs that Majestic
“serves a place for suppliers
that no one else does”.
“We can bring in brands at
a good quantity but are at the
right size to get really good par-
cels that would be too much for
an indie but not enough for a
grocer to be interested.”
That Majestic has taken such
a positive tone about brands
will be music to the ears of
many suppliers – it has spent
much of the past three years
cracking down on them.
The Grocer reported in May
2018, for instance, that Majestic
had warned brands to expect
mass delists as it transitioned to
a buying model focused on bulk
wines and their own tertiary
brands. “They’re sick of build-
ing other people’s brands then
seeing them go into the super-
markets,” one supplier told The
Grocer at the time.
Could this all suggest that
Rowan Gormley’s driving belief- that he could create a more
effective, long-term profitable
business by combining Majestic
and Naked – wasn’t as great
an idea as it seemed (although
now he has the cash to focus on
growing Naked in the profita-
ble US market and is reportedly
planning a NASDAQ listing)?
There was never that much
crossover in customers between
Naked and Majestic in the first
place, says Lincoln. In fact, “we
found customers were really
keen to lock it in and have a
subscription with us, but they
didn’t want to do it with Naked.
I got thousands of emails from
people when we said we might
migrate,” he says.
That’s not to say there isn’t
serious work to be done now.
Having bought and ranged
wines based on Naked dogma
for so long, the range is due a
major review, which recently-
hired buying and merchandis-
ing director Rob Cooke (formerly
Tesco’s BWS director) is cur-
rently overseeing.
The finances need fixing too:
sales may have risen by a small
degree (1.5%) over the past year
for Majestic Retail, but margins
and profitability suffered.
Regardless, says Lincoln:
“This is a good news story for
UK retail to see foreign invest-
ment when people think the
high street is dying.”
The deal is yet to close. But for
now, many of Majestic’s custom-
ers and employees are breath-
ing a sigh of relief.
“ The UK wine
industry needs
a successful
Majestic Wine”