The GIV Group (Gruppo Italiano Vini) is the first wine grower-producer in Italy and a Global Top Wine Seller. The group owns lots of historical and established firms in the wine world, exactly 15, among them we can for example mention Cantina Lamberti and Bolla. All these assumptions allowed it to be the one of the principal gamer of the Italian wine production overtaking on the French one.

Their wines are distributed all over the world and their wineries are located in some of the most famous Italian places dedicated to the production of wine. Respecting the tradition of regionality its headquarter is situated in an old manor located in Calmasino, a small town in the province of Verona. The group decided to settle its headquarter there mainly because this region represents, together with Tuscany, its main production center and place of production of the most successful wines. Indeed, even if the best efforts are focused in the international markets these two Italian regions, Tuscany and Veneto, will remain its beating heart.

The territories covered by the GIV’s wineries begin in Piemonte and ends in Puglia. The geographical extension of the group is therefore able to present a various offer of wines, from the Valdobbiadene’s Bolla, produced in Veneto, to the Solinero, from Tenuta Rapitalà in Sicily.

Even if the Italian market remains the most profitable one for the Gruppo Italiano Vini, it is vividly followed by the American, the French and the Canadian ones.

The company operates in fact in more than seventy countries and is focusing its effort in pushing the Prosecco’s sales, in order to exploit the ‘golden period’ of this wine. In addition, a positive trend is expected for the Valpolicella and the South Italian wines. Bolla confirms its position as leader of the group, even if the wines from Sicily and Puglia are gaining more and more space and shares in the International Markets.

Again a particular data come from the expansion and the success of the biological wines, the previsions expect them to improve their sales as much as it happened in the last years, Italy confirms itself the largest exporters of biologic products with a general turnover of 1bn and 300m Euros registered in the first months of 2014, followed by an Internal Market value of 2 billion Euros and an increase of approximately 17.3% in the selling of Biologic aliments.

Coming to the financial statement analysis, in 2015 the group registered an increase in sales going from 348 millions of the 2014 to the 358 millions of the 2015. Always in the same year, EBT (Earning before taxes) almost doubled while EBITDA (Earning before interests, taxes, depreciations and amortizations) raised to more of 9% of sales. But where does this improvement in the performance come from? It derives primarily from the expansion of the export of the group, passing from the 74% of the 2014 to the 77% of sales in the 2015. Again, this data is imputed mainly to the Prosecco’s sales.

Its general director, Roberta Corrà, explains how Gruppo Italiano Vini intends to improve its future performances in the long and medium run perspective.

The company aims to affirms itself in a larger segment of the market, as a matter of fact it recently launched a new program, called “Nobel”. The Nobel program includes 9 of their wines and wants to create a better acknowledgement of their qualities and features in order to be able to improve their quotations. GIV individuated in the E-commerce one of the main method that can be applied in order to achieve this specific goal, trying to reach directly the customer and get rid of the various “middlemen” that are actually present in all the daily buying-selling transactions.

So their motto seems to be:

“sell better at higher prices without unnecessary intermediates”.

The assumptions are clear and precise, we will see.

Tommaso Danieli