Murray expands drinks empire to £10m with rescue of TM Robertson

Published on Saturday 16 May 2009 14:21

SIR David Murray, the chairman of Rangers Football Club, has rescued one of Scotland's oldest wine merchants in a move that will expand his drinks business to more than £10m.

The deal, completed for an undisclosed sum, will see the return of TM Robertson wine cellars to the Scottish trade. It came just days after Scotland on Sunday revealed that the wine supplier to a clutch of Scottish institutions such as Muirfield golf club had disappeared amid a restructuring by its parent company Berkmann.

A letter sent out to the trade by Joseph Berkmann, the chairman of Berkmann wine cellars, explained that after listening to the concerns of a number of clients he had decided to "retain and strengthen" TM Robertson under "strong Scottish ownership".

It read: "Having listened to your concerns, I have reexamined our business plan for Scotland. Sir David Murray has agreed to integrate TM Robertson into his highly reputable wine wholesale business."

The move strengthens Murray's already substantial Scottish wine business. In 2006, he paid 3m for Domaine Jessiaume, a vineyard in the village of Santenay at the foot of the prestigious Cte de Beaune wine region in Burgundy just a month after he splashed out 1.1m for one of Scotland's largest independent drinks merchants, Edinburgh Wine Importers. In 2005, he bought Chteau Routas, a 630-acre wine estate and five-acre truffle bed in Coteaux Varois, Provence for 5.5m.

Billy Bell, managing director of Wine Importers, said he and Murray did not want to see the business "gobbled up into a larger organisation." He added: "We want to retain the business in Scotland under Scottish management. The fact that TM Robertson would disappear and the management would move down south was something we didn't want to happen. This will now give us an unrivalled portfolio of major brands."

The news came in the same week that some of the leading names in the UK wine industry described a pessimistic outlook for the future of the trade. A survey, which questioned 50 executives from the UK wine industry at the London Wine Trade Fair, found the industry was facing a barrage of obstacles including the recession, duty increases, the weakness of sterling and supermarket price promotions which hammer down supplier margins.