How Laithwaites happened - part nineteen

We outgrew Caversham and moved, in 1998, to Theale and a brand new building which we called - once again - New Aquitaine House. This seemed to give a bit of a surge to business. As did, shortly after, our switching from being called Bordeaux Direct to just Laithwaites.

But that old craving to do something new came back and I started thinking about expanding overseas.

We had made a first foray into the US market in 1991 and later, with a venture called Vinisphere, we'd recruited customers quite successfully in France and Germany. It was felt, however, that our booming growth in the UK was quite enough for us to cope with. Especially with us beginning to and learning – the hard way – about, making 'acquisitions' in the UK. So we hadn't continued with those overseas trials.

Once in the new millennium however, I got the urge again and we began talks with our old friend Nick Lucca in Chicago and soon after purchased his Company as the basis of our US operations. We needed Nick; no-one knew the US market better and the US market really does need to be perfectly well understood! It is … complicated!

Going international just appealed to me. I thought it would be fun and keep up our excitement levels. Not everyone saw it quite that way. Some observers saw it as megalomania. Many here saw it as an impossible task.

So it was really only when we recruited our current, super-energetic Global CEO Simon McMurtrie (who had already taken two other Companies around the world) that 'international' got going properly. International is a gamble. We took a successful (after 30 years!) UK business and risked it all again, on going global. And the chips are, so to speak, still on the table.

We could've stayed just in the UK where we pretty much dominated our sector. But that seemed risky too. All our precious eggs in one basket! Also, when they tell you that you sell more wine than everyone except Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda!!!! well, you begin to ask yourself is trying to be bigger than Tesco really what you want to spend the rest of your life doing? You probably couldn't win, and … it would be no fun at all.

When a newspaper then tells you that you are 'the most successful wine-merchant on the planet' that challenges you to try finding out if it’s true … plus 'abroad' is just so exciting! So we hired the Simon machine. First day, he's off to Australia, to open a sales office in Sydney.

Currently we are selling in six countries and 'looking' at many others. The USA is our star market right now but others look very promising.

Meanwhile, back in the UK, Laithwaites Wine has a dynamic new national CEO and the best team it has ever had. They are turning the business inside out, inventing new things and still polishing that old diamond.

The somewhat less dynamic 65-year-old Chairman and his much-younger wife are still managing to keep up. It'd be nice if we could have many more years of this.

Watch, as they say, this space.