Brl Hardy - Internationalization

BRL Hardy – Gloabalizing an Australian Wine Company

Including many wine brands, such as D´istinto, Banrock Station, or Nottage Hill, BRL Hardy is the largest wine making company in Australia, exporting it´s product worldwide.

The company operates in an industry, very affected by tradition, reputation, and a strong home demand.

In Australia, for example, more than 1000 wineries were established, each of them comparably small. Nevertheless, there are few large wine making companies, such as BLR Hardy, accounting for most of domestic branded sales.

Traditionally, the wine industry has always been a home-demand market and only little was exported. One reason for this is because most people tend to enjoy their wine, produced from the next doors vineyard, rather than having an imported, foreign wine.

This demand situation makes it so difficult for wine producers to become international.

However, Australian wine producer managed to make their products fashionable in other countries and as a result 27% of all wine produced in Australia was exported by 1996. Mainly to markets, like the U.K, the U.S, Germany, or Japan.

BRL Hardy was formed by a merger of the two largest wine making companies in Australia, Hardy, which was famous for award-winning quality wines and BRL, who was looking for ways to expand and upgrade its business during that time.

Hardy was the perfect match for BLR, as they have had a long history of exporting their products to foreign markets. Hardy mainly did that by buying European wineries, such as the „Domaine de la Baume“ in France or „Brolio de Ricasoli“ in Italy, in order to get access to the european market.

Hardy was somehow forced into the Merger with BLR, as they were facing serious problems with it´s european acquisitions, which cost the parent company millions of dollars and even plunged them into losses.

BLR was therefore the only possibility to get new financial fundings.

The idea of the merger was that BLR has access to...