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Henkell Freixenet buys remaining stake in UK online retailer Slurp
German sparkling wine company Henkell Freixenet has bought the remaining 40% stake in UK online retailer Slurp as it looks to build its UK ecommerce arm following strong sales.
Speaking exclusiuvely to the drinks business, Henkell Freixenet CEO Dr Andreas Brokemper said the company, which bought a 61% stake in the business in November 2017 for an undisclosed sum, had finalised the purchase of the remaining 39% of the business this week from the other shareholders.
“With the 100% ownership we want to build the business,” he said. “We want and will grow faster which means we need to fund this growth.”
The acquisition comes off the back of a strong year for the online retailer, which has grown due to soaring demand during the UK lockdown.
“Some months ago we reached the turnover of the previous year, so the outlook for this year is obviously very good. November has been a very strong month and the outlook for Dec is positive as well,” he said.
Brokemper said there the team had been strengthened with the addition of digital marketing director Erin Smith, who joined the team in August from Majestic, to work alongside commercial director and Freixenet Copestick’s head of sales Stuart Bond.
“We had a very positive development during this year,” Brokemper said. “The business is growing by far ahead of our expectations.”
“Beside building the team, we are using more the whole structure of our group, so we are adding a lot of new products,” he added. “When you look at the customer newsletter you see a lot of new innovations, with the addition of Italian still wines and Spanish new brands under the Freixenet brands – all of these are part of the Slurp portfolio and they are performing well.”
“We want Slurp to develop more and more into a premium platform”.
Henkell-owned Copestick Murray bought a controlling stake in Slurp.co.uk from wine retailer SH Jones in November 2017 more than four years after the website went into administration, in order to enter the online market. A year later the parent company Henkell merged with Spanish Cava producer Freixenet in May 2018 to form the world’s largest sparkling wine business, Henkell Freixenet, employing over 4,000 people worldwide.
In May this year, the parent company revealed it had turned over more than €1bn of sales in 2019.