Treasury Wine Estates boss Michael Clarke won't allow calamitous acquisitions made by former management or circling private equity suitors deter him from beating a path to the US, and has signalled an appetite for acquiring premium Californian wine brands to augment his ambitious growth strategy.
Mr Clarke, who Thursday unveiled his maiden result as chief executive, which showed a loss of $100.9 million for fiscal 2014 against a profit of $47.2 million in the previous year, said better times were ahead for the winemaker.
"I would hope there is upside from here," Mr Clarke said.
But the upside could be captured by private equity rather than existing shareholders with Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, along with an unnamed second bidder presumed to be TPG, both pitching a takeover set at $5.20 a share to value the winemaker at $3.4 billion.
Mr Clarke said acquisitions were still on his agenda, despite the uncertainty around the bids and Foster's disastrous $6 billion splurge on wine assets that brought the brewer to its knees and led it to spinning off Treasury Wine more than two years ago.
"We believe there is an opportunity to accelerate our growth, especially in the areas of 'masstige' [mass production, prestige wines] and luxury wines propositions in North America."
He said fortunes had turned positive for the premium and luxury wine segments in the US but Treasury Wine had been unable to access enough wine to fill demand.
"But if we were to do something in North America ... it could be an acquisition, could be alliance, it could take different forms. We are not ready to discuss that obviously at this time, but you can rest assured we would make sure it would be earnings accretive."
Only four months in the role, Mr Clarke said he would push ahead with his agenda to reinvest in his premium brands, such as Penfolds, slash costs and put an end to the unsustainable practices of the past that helped hit sales targets but were detrimental to long-term profit.
Treasury Wine was already ahead of its target to strip out $35 million in costs, he said.
Its loss for 2014 was driven by $281 million in write downs, with pre-tax earnings of $184.6 million in line with forecasts.
The Australia-New Zealand arm suffered a one-third slide in earnings to $75.1 million. An austerity drive in China saw Asian earnings drop 12.5 per cent to $47.7 million.
Earnings in the Americas rose 12.1 per cent to $74.9 million on flat sales as Treasury Wine slowed shipments to the US to help distributors reduce their stocks.
Mr Clarke said the Penfolds wine fridge promotion had been the most successful program in the company's history with 12,000 fridges sold in July.
The company declared a final dividend of 7 cents a share, unfranked and payable on October 2.
