Our featured entrepreneur this week is James Booth, Founder and CEO of New Generation Wines, a specialist wine importer that serves the on-trade market.
He and David met in 2010 when David launched his wine business. With a degree in French and Business and an earlier career in the City working for several well-established merchant banks, we asked James how he ended up in the wine trade. “Shortly after graduating from university, I did a French exchange in Burgundy. Friends of my family have their own estate in Chablis, and since I have a degree in French it made sense to live and work there. I spent a whole season working in the vineyards and the winery. It was fascinating!”
Returning to the UK, James worked for 8 years in investment banking, but it wasn’t his calling.
“The prospect of flogging derivatives for the rest of my life quickly looked less and less appealing, and eventually the call of the wine trade won. During this time I started a private wine club for some friends in the City. I knew it was what I wanted to do.”
He launched New Generation Wines in 2005, teaming up with a City contact who became one of his financial backers and is still a partner in the business today. They secured their first agency deal, importing wines from Domaine Gayda into the UK. The contacts from Gayda introduced them to the boutique South African producer Boekenhoutskloof, who agreed to a distribution deal and also took an equity stake in New Generation.
Over the next five years, they grew the business organically, taking a small slug of funding in 2008 to support growth.
In 2010 James made his first acquisition, buying Stokes Fine Wines. “We structured the deal with deferred compensation, based on the growth of the combined business and our ability to take on and sell the Stokes stock. It was a success, and with the added scale we started to make a mark. We won Small Agent of the Year at the International Wine Challenge in 2012, which was a key achievement.”
A few years later, James got wind that a well-established wine and spirits business called McKinley Vintners was struggling. “There was a lovely old galleon, a really beautiful boat, but she was leaking badly. We offered to fix her up.” In 2015 they agreed on the deal to merge the two companies, and New Generation McKinley was born. James told us: “We have structured the business as a quality focused, highly relevant wine and spirits agency business, with a strong emphasis on personal relationships.”
Over its 10-year life, James has grown the company’s revenues north of £5 million and he is comfortable that they can scale it to £10 million. Although he didn’t know it at the time, James has already implemented the first three steps in Add then Multiply’s FACE model:
- He has funded the business properly, seeking external investors to support growth
- He has made several acquisitions
- He has consolidated them well. “The vendors have needed a solution. With a friendly team and my experience in corporate finance, we’ve been able to close on deals that have let us keep the key people in the business.”
At present, there are no plans for the final stage of our FACE model: Exit. As James puts it:
“That will come at some stage for sure, but for now I’m having too much fun building a business in an industry that I love!”
Recent Comments