A new model for wine and mineral water: professionals with diverse expertise work together on the business, before, during, and after a transaction. Even when the owners don’t want to sell.
In the world of wine and mineral water, there are companies with significant assets, quality products, facilities, vineyards, concessions, brands, and a long history behind them, yet they are still unable to fully express their industrial and commercial potential.
Sometimes the problem is financial. Other times it’s commercial, production, organizational, or positioning-related. In other cases, it’s simply a lack of a comprehensive vision capable of bringing all these aspects together.
From this observation was born FORBUS , a service organized by QUIDQUID Srls and specifically dedicated to cellars, wineries, vineyards, mineral water sources, bottling plants and beverage companies .
The underlying idea is simple: a complex business cannot be built by looking at just one problem at a time .
For this reason, FORBUS brings together professionals and experts from different areas around the same table, called upon to work as a single team.
Not a consultant, but a team around the entrepreneur
Depending on the needs of the company and the operation, FORBUS can combine skills in financial management, production, sales on the Italian and foreign markets, wine and grape brokerage, marketing and commercial positioning, oenology and agronomy .
The goal is not to add up separate consultations.
It’s exactly the opposite: making different skills work on a single project and towards shared objectives .
A sales manager must understand the company’s production capabilities. Those in charge of production must know where and at what price the product can be sold. The winemaker must interact with the market. Finance must liaise with production, investments, and sales. Marketing and positioning must begin with what the company can actually produce and sustain financially.
It is this integration that can make the difference.
Before the sale: create value, don’t just set a price
One of the most interesting aspects of the FORBUS model concerns acquisition and disposal operations.
When an entrepreneur decides to sell a winery or a mineral water spring, the question normally is:
“How much is my company worth?”
FORBUS also starts from a second question:
“How much could this company be worth if, before selling it, we addressed its weaknesses and capitalized on what the market doesn’t recognize today?”
It’s a substantial difference.
Immediately selling a business with critical commercial issues, unused production capacity, underdeveloped foreign markets, margins that can be improved, or an inadequate positioning can mean transferring a significant portion of future value to the buyer.
When the conditions and necessary time exist, FORBUS can therefore intervene before the sale , working on the company to make it more solid, understandable and attractive in the eyes of investors, industrial groups, family offices and operators in the sector.
During the operation: industry, finance and market must speak the same language
When buying or selling a winery or a mineral water spring, the value does not depend exclusively on the properties.
For a winery, vineyards, suppliers, winemaking and bottling capabilities, brands, denominations, sales network, markets, customers, warehouse, margins, people, and development potential come into play.
For a mineral water source , the concession, available flow, water characteristics, plants, bottling capacity, formats, logistics, brands, distribution and commercial development possibilities also become crucial.
For this reason, a true industrial operation requires different skills.
FORBUS can assist owners and investors in analyzing the business, evaluating its value, positioning the transaction, finding a suitable partner, negotiating, and completing the closing process, coordinating with the lawyers, accountants, tax advisors, and other technical experts involved in the transaction.
After the Acquisition: Buying is just the beginning
Then there is a problem that is often underestimated.
An investor may have the resources necessary to purchase a winery, vineyards, or a water source, but may not necessarily already have the structure and specific expertise to manage and develop them .
The closing, therefore, does not necessarily represent the conclusion of the work.
It could represent the beginning.
FORBUS can support the new owners in the post-acquisition phase, building an industrial and commercial strategy together: production organization, financial control, sales development, Italian and foreign markets, product, sales network, marketing, vineyard, cellar, and positioning.
The goal is to transform the investment made into a concretely operational business project .
What if the owner doesn’t want to sell?
It is probably one of the most innovative elements of the project.
FORBUS was not created just to sell companies.
A winery or a water source may require development, skills and organization even when the entrepreneur has no intention of selling the property .
In these cases, it’s possible to explore management and support options in which ownership remains with the entrepreneur, while the team intervenes to progressively improve the company’s results, organization, sales, and equity.
It is a particularly interesting possibility in situations of generational transition , in companies with large assets but an insufficient managerial structure, in companies with under-utilized production capacity or in companies facing a relaunch phase.
In other words: you don’t have to sell a business to add value to it .
Four moments, one goal
FORBUS can therefore intervene in four different situations:
before the sale , to prepare and enhance the business;
during the sale or acquisition , to accompany the industrial and commercial operation;
after the acquisition , to help the new owner to concretely develop the project;
without any sale , through management and development formulas while maintaining ownership in the hands of the entrepreneur.
The principle remains the same: start with the real company, understand where the untapped value lies, and build the necessary skills around it.
Cellars and water sources require specific experience
FORBUS focuses its activity mainly on two worlds in which knowledge of the sector is decisive: wine and mineral water .
These are sectors in which knowing the numbers is not enough.
You need to know the product, the facilities, the production, the markets, the distribution, the operators and, in wine, also the vineyards, denominations, grapes, harvests and territorial dynamics.
Similarly, in the mineral water sector, it is necessary to understand the industrial value of the concession, the resource, the facilities, and the distribution capacity.
It is on this specialization that QUIDQUID has built FORBUS.
From Ownership to Market: Creating Value Before Transferring It
The acquisition market is changing.
Increasingly, investors aren’t simply looking for properties, acres, factories, or brands. They’re looking for companies with a credible industrial outlook .
At the same time, many entrepreneurs have significant assets but need the skills, capital, markets, or organization to take them to the next level.
FORBUS wants to place itself exactly in this space: between property, business, market and capital .
With a very concrete principle:
Before wondering how to sell a business, it’s worth understanding how to make it perform better.
And sometimes, after growing it, the owner might even decide that selling it is no longer necessary.
FORBUS – Cellars, wineries and mineral water sources
Services dedicated to owners of wineries, wineries, agricultural companies, wine groups, wine producers, beverage companies, owners of mineral water sources, bottling plants, entrepreneurs, private investors, family offices, funds and Italian and foreign industrial groups .
Development | Management | Enhancement | M&A | Acquisitions | Disposals | Industrial and commercial support
FORBUS – Operations, not announcements.