Cape Town - KWV, South Africa's flagship wine and brandy producer, will unveil details of its long-awaited black empowerment deal today at its picturesque head office in Paarl.
Although the company previously said it would sell 25.1 percent to Rowmoor Investments, trading as Diphetogo, neither the price nor the deal structure was revealed.
Rowmoor includes the KWV Employment Equity Trust, the Black Association of the Wine and Spirits Industry, the Epa Development Group, Kumnandi Liquor and Leisure Investments, the National African Farmers' Union of SA (Western Cape), and the SA Liquor Traders' Association.
This means farm workers, liquor traders, women's business groups and community development organisations are set to become owners of a piece of KWV.
KWV said on Friday it had reached the final stages of negotiations with the black economic empowerment consortium.
KWV Limited is the unlisted holding company that holds 55 percent of JSE-listed KWV Investments.
Yesterday Gavin Pieterse, the chairman of the SA Wine Industry Trust (Sawit), which put together the consortium, said it had been approved by agriculture minister Thoko Diza and KWV and would be introduced to the public today.
Pieterse said the original trust had been amended to align it with the strategic plan in agriculture and agricultural empowerment.
The original trust deed had been operated from a "soup kitchen mentality" and had been amended to give it more sustainability and longevity and to encourage entrepreneurial spirit and empowerment initiatives.
He dismissed criticism that Sawit funds would be used to help the consortium pay for its shares in KWV. The only money spent had been to establish the consortium as a credible, formidable and broad-based black economic empowerment entity.
Sawit would, however, consider an application for funding from any empowerment consortium should it be approached, Pieterse said.
After the deal was announced in February the consortium made an offer to KWV but the price did not meet the company's requirement that it be 80 percent of the net asset value (NAV).
There was a danger that had the company supported a price that was lower than 80 percent of NAV it would be deemed to be a hostile offer and trigger a poison pill mechanism, which would allow co-operative members to demand cash for their brandy stock held by KWV.
KWV chairman Danie de Wet previously said that if the KWV board had the goodwill for doing a black economic empowerment deal for a 25.1 percent stake in the company, he would not "for one minute" allow the poison pill clause to stand in his way.