Wine & business: agreement between Zonin1821 and Alessandro Benetton’s
21 Invest

It is not yet official, but the entry of Alessandro Benetton’s 21 Invest in the Zonin1821 capital, one of the leading Italian wine groups, can now be considered a done deal, as Winenews has repeatedly stated. And, today the newspaper “Il Sole 24 Ore”, as it has predicted over the last few months, reported the two teams reached an agreement, a reserved capital increase of 65 million euros that will give the Benetton company a minority stake, 36%, in the group, whose majority shares will remain to the three brothers Domenico, Francesco and Michele Zonin, at the helm of the company together with CEO Massimo Tuzzi. According to the Italian employers’ federation, Confindustria, newspaper, “liquidity will therefore be used entirely for the development of the group and the Zonin family will not collect anything”. There are two ambitious goals, for a winery that closed 2017 at 201 million euros in turnover: to reach 300 million in 5 years, and then to be listed on the Stock Exchange. In the meantime, according to “Il Sole 24 Ore”, several “legal opinions” (the lawyers of LMS, the advisor of ALANTRA, PWC and KSTUDIO assisted 21 Invest in the operation), would have excluded the possibility of any cases that might involve the winery in the Popolare di Vicenza trial in which Gianni Zonin has been indicted and which is to begin in Vicenza in the next few days.