Vancouver entrepreneur Paul Clinton has sold his three-location Everything Wine chain and two Libations Liquor stores to the Jim Pattison Group.
“I can confirm that we’ve bought the stores,” Nick Desmarais, who is managing director of legal services at B.C.’s largest private company, told Business in Vancouver August 8.
“We buy businesses all the time, and this is a business that we thought was worth buying.”
The deal was finalized in the past couple weeks.
Desmarais would not say whether Clinton has agreed to stay with the company. Clinton did not return calls from BIV.
Everything wine has been increasing sales through promotions such as a 5% discount on a 12-bottle case that includes any mix of wines.
Clinton launched Everything Wine when he bought three small wine stores – and their rare wine-only licences – from the Mark Anthony Group in April 2007.
The licences are key to Everything Wine’s business strategy, because they give the company deeper wholesale wine discounts than most private liquor stores get from the British Columbia Liquor Distribution Branch (BCLDB), which is the province’s monopoly liquor supplier.
The BCLDB gives private retailers various discounts off its suggested retail price.
Twelve wine-only stores were granted licences in the mid-1980s and their owners get discounts totalling more than 30% off the BCLDB’s suggested retail price.
Most new private liquor stores get only a 16% discount off BCLDB prices, but, unlike the 12 wine-only stores, can sell beer and spirits.
Glen Korstrom
Twitter: GlenKorstrom